| Charles Papert |
August 13th, 2008 07:33 PM |
Watching the aquatic events this year has brought back quite a few memories of my days on the "Garrettcam" crew at the Atlanta Games in '96. I was operating Skycam (making its comeback after the original 80's version) over the pool, while my compatriots were working the Divecam, Mobycam (underwater moving camera) and vertical GoCam, all Garrett Brown inventions. The Divecam was a fascinating piece of gear, well described in that linked article. Garrett's inventions tend to be based around simple mechanical principles--many people still think that the Steadicam uses gyros or electronics stabilizers--and the Divecam is virtually hilarious to see in action. In the diving replays you can sometimes see the gent with the rubber gloves letting go of the rope as the dive commences (you don't see him hauling the camera back to one however). I have some great behind-the-scenes video I shot of the process in Atlanta. Equally amusing was the Mobycam, which is a fabulously sexy little submarine that looks a bit like the original Batmobile, riding invisibly to the swimmers on the bottom of the pool. I'm not positive if it has been motorized at this point, but in '96 it was driven back and forth by a gent hidden under the stands, madly operating bicycle pedals with his hands which drove a chain that snaked out to the pool.
In comparison the Skycam was much more high-tech, being computer-controlled and stabilized but thus it was prone to electronic glitches and needed constant attention. In the intervening years the technology has been streamlined as Skycams are used for many sporting events and have become quite standardized. I will say that it was an absolute blast to operate (from the comfort of our chairs in the stands, much more genteel than our sweaty pals on Divecam and Mobycam manual detail!)
All of these rigs can be further examined at garrettcam.com, by the way.
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