<Sokurov's solution was to store his "single breath" neither on film nor tape but on an uncompressed hard disk, which could hold up to 100 minutes. He wanted one choreographed movement to take us through 1,300 metres of the Hermitage's rooms>

seems like it was uncompressed

Margus

Margus:

Cables off a Steadicam are a drag, literally and figuratively. That's why we spend the equivalent of a garage-ful of cars on high end wireless equipment to transmit our framing, control focus/iris/zoom, perform speed ramps etc. Shooting on tape has always been a problem because since the advent of Betacam the sound is recorded on the camera, and usually the sound guys want to be hard-cabled, and/or the DP wants to see a reliable image rather than the sketchy transmitted one. And HD is even worse. There are new fiber cables that are slender and pass all kinds of information back and forth, although I haven't seen them yet I hear they are the answer to bulky snakes.

Keeping the cable out of view of the camera is, fortunately, a cable wrangler's job--I'm sure the operator had plenty of other things to deal with...!

In a perfect world, you do not have to deal with the additional forces that cabling introduces. It happens sometimes. In HD, working uncompressed (which is clearly the future), it's going to be a necessary evil. Myself, I hope to hang up my Steadicam vest before all this takes hold!

I can imagine fibre cable to be a pretty good solution. That stuff
can be very very very light! No worries there. If you do hang
up your steadicam Charles, can I convince you to do some steadi-
cam work with my light cable-less XL1-S??? :) ...

Rob, that wouldn't really be hanging up the Steadicam, now would it...?! Then again, maybe if you sent me a plane ticket to the Netherlands...hmmm...I'm thinking about it...

The lighter the camera, the more of a nuisance the cables become--cable-less on an XL1 is key! I actually add up to 10 lbs of weight when flying the camera to make it behave like what I am used to, I prefer having that inertia for more subtle work. If I was being asked to chase someone up stairs ad nauseum, I'm sure I would go with the stock setup.

Rob,
here's some information about 'Russian Arc'
http://www.russianark.spb.ru/eng

and, that nasty speech about cameraman
http://sokurov.spb.ru/island_en/feat...g/mnp_ark.html

Margus

Charles,
i've tried to clear up to myself why Sokurov used such hard words on Tillman Buttner, think i can understand (but no way to agree with) him.
In soviet times filmmakers in USSR did have no restrictions for money used for making movies. You can see it if you watch Voina i Mir (War and Peace) from Bondarchuk or Stalker from Tarkovsky (the last one is partially shot in my home town, wheee). The only restrictions were good talking skills and staying (at least pretending to stay)near to communist party view. So in these times film directors learned to be perfectsionists, but never learned to count money. I think Sokurov thought 'if i can walk through these scenes with my looking glass, why cannot op with 35kg camera'. He just did'nt understand, that cameraman is'nt $$$ costing dolly, but a man with camera.
i've visited Hermitage two times, looking forward to see a movie, can i recognize places or not.

Margus

Margus:

I found the original quote from another forum, the article itself is not online.

From "Sight & Sound" magazine, August, by Geoffrey Macnab:


"Tilman Buttner, cameraman on Tom Twyker's <Run Lola Run<,was
chosen to operate the steadicam. Meurer [the producer] had worked with
him before but Sokurov [the director] hadn't. "The paradox of the
situation was that no one except an experienced steadicam operator
could make this film, but no steadicam operator had the artistic
experience necessary," says Sokurov. "No single steadicam operator has
ever been confronted with such difficulties." Buttner worked with a
small army of operators from Russia and Germany, but he was the one
carrying the camera - and shooting the longest single steadicam shot
in cinema history. "Tilman Buttner made a huge effort," Sokurov
concedes. "The rest was beyond his capacity. He is a tenacious man,
able to sacrifice himself for the film, and he did everything he
could."

I can see how that could be taken negatively but I don't see that as an entirely bad comment. One could take that comment and make a career from that endorsement.

Seen at the Vancouver International Film Festival
 

My review babble follows:

THE RUSSIAN ARK: One of the most mind boggling films I've ever seen. Okay, everyone knows about the 82 minute steadicam feat, but it's what goes in front of the camera that is the major task. This was a massive undertaking to plan and carry out. Think about it. What looks like thousands of extras, a dozen major settings with constant dialogue, lighting all the way through this huge set, troopers marching through their paces, a court reception, and a twenty minute ball and grand procession filled with five hundred extras in meticulous costumes, recognizable characters zipping in and out of each setting and it is not boring. I'm still collecting my thoughts about this film. It was a dream, a metaphysical documentary. Some will see this mostly as a technical feat and immediately this is what is notable but I believe that the technical feat was necessary thematically to the film which is an ode to the grand setting it paces through: the Hermitage. Why one shot, though? If the message is to convey that the Hermitage has been necessary to preserve the cultural treasures of Russia throughout the ages then having the single continuous shot to shot the continuity is necessary. Other continuous shots such as those employed by Hitchcock and Brian de Palma had their isolated benefits. Hitchcock wanted to show a progression of an engagement from meeting to murder. De Palma wanted to show a journey through a complicated world, opening it up spatially for the outsider, the audience. In the same way the Hermitage shows is a spy's journey through time as expressed by the different rooms in the museum. The fluid motion of the camera is necessary when the audience's device, the European spy who acts as a questioner, is taken away, wanders away. But the camera, eddies along, drawn like boat in a current. One audience member whispered that this was like the Pirates of the Carribean, a ridefilm. When the camera remains still it is quite a shock. When the final shot of the film settles on the mist of the river (the film is not without its digital effects) it's like the signal for the audience to get out of the carousel and stare back at where they've come from, shaking their heads.

http://sokurov.spb.ru/island_en/feat...g/mnp_ark.html

Sweet! A fully loaded DVD set with making of stuff would be
double sweet. Damn. Lots of questions no answers eh. Hope
to see it one day...

This DVD will be released in September:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t.../-/B00009NHAT/