Operating
the Wescam
by Stan McClain, SOC
The subject of operating the gyro-stabilized
ball mounts has always been filled with mystique and controversy,
a Catch-22 for most camera operators who have approached
the gyro vendors for the use of their equipment. But don't
despair. You all recall when the remote heads were considered specialty camera
heads, and as they became accepted as daily tools of our trade,
all of you became proficient at using them.
I view the gyro-stabilized heads as nothing
more than a tool of our trade, and with proper training, any
competent camera operator can master it. But be patient: the
few systems that are available work seven days a week, and
several days of hands-on training are necessary to become proficient.
In the early '80s, Ron Goodman brought his X-mount (it
was originally a Wescam) here to L. A. and teamed up with electronics
guru Howard Preston of Preston Cinema Systems. Goodman, armed
with a wish list, worked with Howard to create a new and improved X-mount and
renamed it Gyrosphere.
After completing three seasons of Airwolf,
I received some boards for a commercial and made my first of
several calls to Gyrosphere for the use of their equipment.
As it turns out, I was not alone when it came to being spurned,
as was virtually every aerial cameraman in L. A. With
the exception of David Nowell, SOC and one or two others, everyone
else was turned away.
Fast-forward three years (it was actually
a gruelingly slow pace) to 1986. I had just started up a small
rental company with Dan Wolfe called Pasadena Camera. In a
chance meeting with Knox Leavitt, the founder of ISTEC and
inventor of the Wescam, we laid the ground floor for a meeting
with ISTEC's new owners.
Dan, "The Negotiator," paved the way and
within a few months Pasadena Camera became the first Wescam
agency in America, followed by CRM Group in Florida.
Around the same time, Ron Goodman left Gyrosphere
and created his successful Spacecam company. Flying Pictures
USA and a small group of investors subsequently bought out
Gyrosphere.
Dan and I shared a philosophy that was vastly
different from our competition and we attempted to get as many
aerial operators as possible to use the equipment. David Nowell,
SOC was actually honored with the first job.
Rexford Metz, ASC, David Butler, Frank Holgate
and I were the next Americans to use the equipment. It was
difficult to accommodate everyone, mostly because our one Wescam
was working seven days a week.
Today, Wescam Inc owns and operates all of
their North American 35mm systems and has recently opened an
expansive facility at Van Nuys Airport in California. Currently
there are three 35mm systems in California, one in New York,
and one in London.
THE MYSTERY
All of the existing 35mm gyro-stabilized
ball mounts (Wescam, Gyrosphere and Spacecam) work on the same
basic
principals that involve three gyros which spin at a high speed
that control the roll, pitch and yaw axes.
A fourth gyro relates to the vertical axis
and helps further stabilize the camera platform when acceleration,
deceleration and G forces from banking and turing an aircraft,
boat or high speed insert car are applied to the overall mount.
The camera's pan and tilt controls are controlled
through a Microforce™ style joystick. The big difference
in operating a gyro-stabilized camera and a conventional camera
is that the gyro-stabilized camera remains aimed to a point
in infinity when the camera platform is moved. So, as the camera
platform moves or rotates, the camera remains pointed in the
same direction prior to the move.
With a traditional camera head, if the camera
platform rotates 45 degrees during a shot, so does the camera
and a manual back pan is needed to maintain the original frame.
There is also a slight delay in the gyro steering,
so you have to start your pan or tilt a couple of micro seconds
before you want the camera to pan or tilt, and end your move
a beat before the camera actually stops moving. This is the
hardest aspect to master.
A point worth mentioning right now is that
not one single camera operator has mastered the feel of a gyro-stabilized
camera on their first try. That is the very reason why it is
mandatory that you receive proper training prior to jumping
in. I hope that this article will arm you with enough knowledge
so your training will be more effective.
Wescam Inc is the only one of the three companies
mentioned that welcomes all experienced aerial camera
operators to use their 35mm equipment and who encourages operators
to hone their skills with the Wescam system.
With the Wescam being used on crane arms
more and more, I feel that it is important that all camera
operators add gyro-stabilize to their arsenal of tools. The
Society of CameraOperators applauds Wescam's courage to stand
out from the others.
I feel that it is also important to mention
at this time, that with the invention of the Wescam and the
spin-off companies that have utilized Wescam technology, there
are other companies who have developed additional gyro-stabilized
platforms.
FLIR Systems originally released its forward-looking
infrared (FLIR) system, then later added a traditional video
camera to the package. Police, military and TV ENG equipped
helicopters are their primary customers.
Bob Nettmann's Gyron (video system) is in
use on ENG helicopters and the Goodyear blimps; a 35mm system
will be released soon.
Tyler Camera Systems has yet to release its
long awaited 35mm Sky-Gyro. The SOC looks forward to the introduction
of Tyler's and Nettmann's equipment as they have a great track
record of encouraging SOC members to master their existing
camera systems.
ATTRIBUTES
One of the facets of aerial cinematography
that I enjoy is creating shots that don't call attention to
the fact that you're in a helicopter.
When I got the call to join John Toll (not
ASC at the time) and director Carroll Ballard on Wind,
I knew this would be a show where we could place the camera
quickly to grab much of the action sequences.
Although both John and Carroll knew that
they were going to get breath-taking aerial vistas of the racing
boats, I don't think they realized that the Wescam, in essence,
could be a quick-setup long lens tripod, mounted on a dolly
three feet above the ocean.
John shot from boat to boat with wide and
medium lenses, but the Wescam was able to use the 250mm lens
at sea level, which helped compact the distance between the
sailboats. We could get great close-up inserts of the crew
as they scurried along the decks, climbed sails and worked
the lines.
After the first day's rushes, they doubled
my shot list. When the film was cut, all of the low-angle
helicopter shots blended seamlessly with John's shots. This
application was an excellent example of what can be achieved
by using a helicopter and the Wescam as a mobile B camera.
Combined with good chemistry and clear communication
from the director and DP with the operator and pilot, magic
can happen. This was one of those jobs where all of the pieces
to the puzzle came together.
Much of the magic that entered my lens was
due to the great camaraderie that developed between Australia's
premier motion picture pilot, Terry Lee, and myself. We had
shot some commercials in Australia earlier that year that involved
one take shots, ending up on the face of the talent.. not
an easy task.
With a solid two weeks of working with each
other under our belts, the setups on Wind were second
nature. Incidentally as a side note, some five years later,
after several more challenging projects between us, Terry found
himself here at the SOC Eric Burdon Concert, and got married
at the venue to his companion of ten years.
I've found that we are all blessed by the
friendships we build in our business...that's just one of the
perks that makes our craft fulfilling.
The commercials I spoke about in the previous
paragraph were especially unique, in that no one had achieved
this kind of shot successfully before, primarily due to the
difficulty factor.
How many of you recall the TV series Hawaii
Five-0? Remember in the opening credits where the camera
would scream across Waikiki Bay and end up on Jack Lord standing
on a balcony at the New Otani Hotel? And do you remember
how utterly shaky it was? By today's standards you'd be fired
for turning in work like that, but that was the premise of
the National Mutual Insurance commercials.
Our challenge was to create three 60 second
spots where the camera would be floating over beautiful Australian
landscape and get close enough to identify the talent towards
the end.. but, keep going into a chest high shot, without
rotor wash from the helicopter blowing the talent, and hold
the tight shot for several seconds.
The Wescam has a feature called the Frame
Iris Interlock or FII for short. It's similar to the Preston
Speed-aperture control, aka SAC. On these series of commercials
we flew the courses in real time to get a feel for the time
and distance; this covered about 1.75 miles.
Since a base speed of 60 mph equals a mile
a minute, our base frame rate would be 12 fps overall. But
we had a little factor George Muskins, our director threw in..
he wanted the last five seconds of screen time at 48 fps! (Yikes,
another stop of focus lost at 250mm with no focus marks!)
The first spot started above some mountains
where a saltwater inlet created a bay called Coolangata. Across
the bay was a boatyard where a man stood upon a boat in dry
dock coiling a rope. All we had to do was fly from the mountain,
over the bay and to the man.
It was on this job that I learned that the
Canadian Wescam technician had no experience as a focus puller.
He could work magic in maintaining the Wescam and fix any glitches,
but his training experience was exclusive to working in the
Wescam factory, and he didn't know the difference between an
Arri 2C and an Arri 2K. Needless to say I had to pull focus,
zoom, pan, tilt and engage the FII with only two hands.
The Wescam's operating console is very user
friendly, and all of the data is displayed on the monitor,
so you don't have to shift your eyes from the screen to the
controls to check the functions.
(There is also an assistant's box with focus
and iris controls.) With the right hand you (the operator)
control pan and tilt, and the left hand controls zoom and focus.
You also use your left hand to turn the camera on and engage
the ramp for the camera speed change.
On this shot I preset the camera speed at
12 fps, then 90 seconds into the shot I began a ten second
ramp to 48 fps, and held 48 fps for the last five seconds.
In order to make shots like this seamless, the helicopter's
speed needs to reduce at the same time as the ramping begins,
and the zoom needs to be initiated at the same time, slowly
at first, then increasing in rate as the camera begins to over
crank. If it all comes together, the final touch is to feather
the zoom to a stop before the last five seconds of screen time.
Terry became my AC by calling out the distances
as we approached the man on the boat and he knew his end mark
to the inch. I might add at this point, that it is necessary
to bury your head in the monitor during a shot like
this, in order to keep track of all the camera functions that
are displayed on the screen. To shift your attention at a crucial
moment can result in a framing error.
Since we were originally shooting at 12 fps,
I needed an 85n6 for the Eastman 5248, and my overall exposure
was T8.5 at 24 fps, T11.5 at 12 fps and T6.3 at 48 fps. The
depth of field (250mm, T6.3 and 50' distance from camera to
subject) at the end shot was a comfortable 4'.
Needless to say with all of the possible
variables we were prepared for several takes and we even shot
some more for insurance. But when we watched the dailies, take
three proved to be the charm. Last year Terry and I shot our
11th spot for them.
The real hero of the day was the Wescam itself,
as without all of its attributes, all we would have gotten
is the Hawaii Five-0 shot. With the Wescam's floating
stability, combined with all of its control attributes, we
were ab le to execute the shot as it was presented to us without
compromise.
While working for Jan DeBont ASC on Flatliners,
pilot Dirk Vahle and I were called upon to create a similar
shot that started out over Chicago's shoreline and picked up
a moving Keifer Sutherland as he hopped over a three foot stone
wall and gazed into the dawn's rising sun.
This was a bit easier because no ramp was
involved, but we still had to bury the zoom (wide open at T3.9)
with the helicopter as it came to a hover. In essence, the
viewer did not feel that the lens was zooming, but
rather continuing in for the close-up.
The Wescam operator's monitor looks like
something out of an F-16's heads up display. In the center
is the ground glass image surrounded by the digital read outs
of the system. Items included are fps, camera mode (crystal,
variable or FII), lens length, shot clock, ramp clock, footage,
iris, focus and indicators that show the camera's angle of
tilt and pan.
This last September, director Zack Snyder
of HSI called upon me to shoot some plates for his Lexus commercial
titled Dirigible. The spot's concept reveals the blimp
flying over vast farmland where its rear cargo door opens,
a magical CGI paved road rolls out to the fields below and
the Lexus drives out of the blimp, down the road that is suspended
in air, to the farm below.
Russell Carpenter ASC was the DP and he needed
plates that would be used to composite the blimp and car against.
This is where the Wescam's digital display came in handy. First
we needed clean background plates for the model dirigible to
be placed against. With the 8mm-video deck rolling and capturing
all the data, the 15 degrees of tilt down was recorded along
with the actual image on 35mm negative.
Next up was the car's POV as it exited the
rear of the airship and screamed down the CGI road to the field
below. This time the 50 degree angle of tilt was recorded,
along with the various camera speeds and ramp; speeds we used.
This data helped both Russell and the boys at Digital Domain
considerably by eliminating the guesswork that can be involved
in matching the combined live action with models and CGI.
Another attribute of the Wescam is its ability
to create and capture great aerial chase sequences. I was hired
as the 2nd unit DP on a picture title Firebirds, which
involved several aerial battle scenes with the Army Apache,
Cobra and Blackhawk helicopters and assorted bad guy copters.
Prior to the invention of the Wescam, aerial
battle scenes rarely included sustained long lens air to air
shots. This was due primarily to the inability to hold a 250mm
lens steady for extended periods of time. You'll note that
in car chase sequences, the use of long lenses will compact
the distance between the vehicles making them look a lot closer
to each other than they really are. On Firebirds,
we utilized several long-lens air-to-air shots that dramatically
increased the suspense. We were also able to use the long lenses
to clearly establish both Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones
as the real pilots of the aircraft.
The most noted attribute of the Wescam is
its steadiness, which is very apparent in wide-angle scenic
shots. For years, films have used wide aerial shots for opening
and closing credit sequences, but since the introduction of
the Wescam, virtually all scenes like these are now shot with
gyro-stabilized cameras. The actual credits themselves act
as registration points, and when imposed over non-stabilized
images, the unwanted motion in the background becomes very
apparent and distracts from the credits themselves. By today's
standards, perfectly stabilized backgrounds are the norm in
credit sequences.
Don't forget that the Wescam is used considerably
in conjunction with virtually every crane manufacturer now,
and is commonly used on the Shotmaker and Titan camera cars.
It's also a great tool to be used on water when mounted on
a camera boat, thus eliminating virtually the entire roll,
pitch and yaw motions associated with shooting on water.
LIMITATIONS
On one of my very first Wescam jobs, the
production company called and gave me a time and place to report
to. I had asked for boards and requested a phone call with
the director, but was assured by the young production coordinator
that all I had to do was show up with the helicopter at a point
along the California coast. Once there, the first thing the
director wanted was a seagull's POV as it flew along the coast.
The only problem is that that the Wescam and its spin-offs
are designed to keep the horizon level, thus when the camera
is looking forward and the helicopter banks around an obstacle,
the operator has to manually pan the camera in the direction
of the turn, but the horizon stays level.
For this particular shot, a nose-mounted
camera would have been the correct tool. Now that the Dutch
head is common, especially in commercials, you'll get requests
for Dutch angles, and again, the equipment is not designed
to alter the horizontal axis. Although I discourage the practice,
you can purposely dislodge the vertical reference and create
a horizon at an angle, but the input to the panning and tilting
are affected with undesirable results. Rule of thumb: Know
the shot's requirements before you report to work, know the
equipment and use all equipment for what it was designed for.
CLOSING
Over the years a few of the SOC operators
and DPs have come to rely on the Wescam as a tool of their
trade. They include Aaron Fitzgerald, David Nowell, Phil Pastuhov
and a new member John Trapman. Now granted, this is not a huge
list, but it's a start in the right direction.
Adding together these plus veterans like
David Butler, Frank Holgate and Rexford Metz ASC, several newcomers in
film, and those who operate all of the hundred video Wescams
worldwide, it's easy to see that the Wescam is used by more
operators than all other gyro-stabilized units combined.
Wescam does face a challenge however: in
the near future there will be more equipment vendors to choose
from and the company that embraces the existing seasoned work
force and has sound and reliable equipment will ultimately
become the most popular and successful. I feel that Wescam
will continue to meet that challenge.
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