Steadicam Workshop with Charles Papert in Sonoma, CA. - December 11th & 12th, 2009
 

Hey everyone! You asked and I'm working hard to deliver. Join us in the beautiful wine country of Northern California for a two-day workshop with — yep, you read that right — Charles Papert!

Spots are limited, so please read the details below and E-mail me ASAP if you are serious about participating.

Dates/Location:
The steadicam workshop will be held on December 11th and 12th, 2009 (Friday/Saturday) in Sonoma, California. Sonoma is located about an hour North of San Francisco, in the heart of the Northern California Wine Country. The venue location will be disclosed once you sign up, but what I can tell you is that it will be great for steadicam training.

# of Participants:
We're capping that maximum amount of participants in this workshop to 10, and if we have an incredible amount of interest, I'll certainly plan on holding another workshop in the bay area at some point in the near future.

Cost:
The cost of the workshop will be $620 per person. This will cover Charles' fee, the venue, and food/snacks during the workshop. Full payment is required to reserve your spot.

Equipment Required:
Steadicams and Cameras are not supplied, so I HIGHLY encourage participants to rent or bring their own rig for use during the workshop, as I cannot guarantee the availability of any personal equipment being available for use. Steadicam Pilot/Flyer rentals are reasonably priced, and will be totally worth it for the education you'll be receiving in this workshop. Steadicam-branded stabilizers are not required - Glidecam rigs are a perfectly acceptable alternative. Make sure your camera is within the weight range of the stabilizer's capacity!

Lodging and Transportation:
There are three or four hotels and lodges located in Sonoma Valley, and numerous other options in Napa and Petaluma, which are 20 and 30 minutes away, respectively. I'll be happy to provide you with recommendations if you can't decide where to stay.

San Francisco (SFO) and Oakland (OAK) airports are located about an hour South of Sonoma, and are served by most major airlines, a few of which include Southwest, United, and Jet Blue. However, if you'd like to fly in a bit closer to Sonoma, consider Sonoma County Airport (STS) as a very convenient alternative. Situated about 35 minutes north of Sonoma in the town of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County Airport is served exclusively by Horizon Airlines (a division of Alaska Airlines.) Rental cars are available at all of the above airports, and Airporter service is also an option.


If you have any questions whatsoever, please contact me ASAP! If you'd like to book a spot in the workshop, please e-mail info@meeksdigitalstudios.com or call 707.328.8881. If you leave a message, PLEASE make sure to leave your first and last name, as well as a call back number.

I look forward to seeing you in the wine country!

Trevor Meeks
Meeks Digital Studios
Sonoma, CA

Thanks to those who have signed up! For everyone else - there are still a few spots left, don't miss out on this great opportunity!

It is a pity I cannot be there. You guys have fun with the master.

Argh.... its the hottest wedding season in Singapore. Would love to meet a guru.

A bump for the sunday crowd. We still have slots open, join up ASAP for this awesome opportunity!

We have a few more signups in the bag, and we have a few more spots available. E-mail me ASAP if you are interested!

Only 4 spots left! Thanks to all who have signed up, we're really looking forward to having you all out to Sonoma for a great workshop.

Spots are still open for the class - it's going to be a fun weekend - sign up ASAP!

I can't believe you still have spots. If I were anywhere near you, I would jump all over this opportunity!

The saddest thing for me is that I am actually coming to the bay area that weekend, but for a different function! It's all-but killing me that I can't attend!

Dang! Well, maybe we'll just have to host another one!

Hi Trevor,

I'll be interested in attending one of these if its offered early next year. I need a bit more notice to get my schedule lined up.

I'll keep an eye here for future events. Feel free to PM me if you like and I'll get you my email address for updates.

Hey Chris,

Shoot me an e-mail to the address listed in the first post of this thread, with the subject line "interested in future steadicam workshop" and i'll definitely put you on a future notification list if we decide to host another one.

In the mean time folks, we do still have spots available - looking for two more participants! Please e-mail me ASAP if you are interested!

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving :-)

We have only a couple of spots left, and we're gearing up for a fantastic weekend of training with Charles Papert - if anyone else is interested please contact me ASAP!

Wow, that was great!
 

The workshop was an incredible experience. The venue was perfect (hallways and stairs made for some challenging shots), great bunch of guys, and best of all Charles Papert for instructor. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

Now I just need a few days for my body to recover from two days of pretty intensive flying, and for my ego to recover from the mortifying experience of playing back my shots from the exercises.

Thank you Trevor for all the work you did making the workshop happen, and thank you Charles for sharing your knowledge and for your patience with operators like myself who need to be shown something 3 or more times before it is learned. You gave us the tools for a proper start.

Rich

I'm completely green with envy...

a few images from the workshop this weekend: MobileMe Gallery

thank you all for joining us this weekend! Charles and i are highly considering hosting an intermediate workshop next fall in Sonoma - more details should become available within the next 6 months or so as we get closer to putting something together.

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and it was great hanging out with Charles. It seems that a good time was had by all, and I'm glad I could help make that happen!

Practice up! Stay current, and keep learning. Perhaps we'll see you at next year's intermediate workshop for some new and exciting learning opportunities (and better weather!)

Great size workshop. Well done guys. Love the pics. Oh yeah, who was it that were making notes? Very serious stuff. ;)

The guy taking notes is William Santana from Miami, FL. Great dude, and a better student than most of us in my opinion - he picked up on flying his Pilot/EX1 rig extremely quickly, not to mention those awesome drawings and notes! Impressive to say the least.

7 people was a nice size (we had 8 but one guy dropped out at the last minute) - I think it was certainly better than having 10, and yet there were enough of us to keep things interesting and switch out rolls in different exercises that Charles set up!

Great to see you had other systems, like the GC. Glad to see you all had fun.

On one of the shots, one of the monitors has a green dot in the middle, what is that for ?

Paul.

There was an exercise where you walk/run and try to your camera centered on a X on the wall. So those that couldn't change their cameras display to a X put a small tape dot to use for keeping on the X.

I do not see any green dot on any of the monitors in the pics. Maybe a reflection...

Charles, as Scott pointed out in his post above yours, we had an exercise that involved keeping an "x" on the wall centered while moving forward and backward.

You can see a green tape mark on my SmallHD monitor in this image: http://gallery.me.com/meeksdigital/1...12607619790001

Oopppss! Just took a second look and noticed it. Sorry. Missed it.

Thanks for the explanation, i'll be doing those excercises myself soon.

Cheers, Paul.

Haha no worries man!

It's way more challenging than you might think! Learning the proper footwork is just part of the process, then aiming the camera, while keeping the horizon level etc. etc. and doing the exercise at different speeds, as well as from a stationary position.

Yeah i bet, i've just got myself a Pilot, i'll be doing a Tiffen workshop in March but until then i'll be left to my own devices.
I've just finished reading the steadicam operators handbook, wow what a book, so that's what i'll probably learn from for the next few months. Unless there's a knowledgable practice partner within traveling distance of Bristol,UK would be willing to give me some guidance.

Paul.

Woah! Looks like a really awesome course. I noticed the Blackbird on a Pilot Arm by Rich! Looks pretty cool.

Hi Trevor, the Small HD interface to the FLyer LE looks very sexy. Did you have to get extra parts for the mounting? My Pilot monitor is not in the best state so I'm looking at an upgrade. If you have close up photos of the monitor I'll would be grateful. Thanks!

Hi Sean,

My rig is actually a Glidecam X-22, not a Flyer. It was a pain in the @ss to run the component cable down through the center post, but I got that and power which feed nicely to my EX1 now. I'm working on a custom D-Tap breakout box right now which I hope to mount between the docking collar and the stage - if everything goes as planned it will house a 4-jack d-tap connector so I can add other components (wireless FF, etc.) in the future.

Mounting the DP1 to the X22 uses a simple U-Bracket, which you can make out of aluminum pretty easily. It holds the monitor by its center of gravity, so tilting the monitor up and down does not affect balance drastically, if at all. Charles did comment on the DP1 and he noted that it's the biggest, perhaps most ridiculously sized monitor that he's ever seen on a stabilizer (not in a bad way, just amused!) but I gotta say - I personally think it's sized quite appropriately for this medium-sized rig, plus it never hurts to have a nice clear HD picture!! I'll try and post some photos soonish.

Any other questions, feel free to let me know. I'm no pro by any means, but Charles really inspired me to drop the fear of customization when it comes to this stuff and actually start working on components to make my rig work better for me :)

ACk! I can't believe I missed this!! How do I get on a bulletin list or something for when someone does one again in the SF bay area? I just haven't frequented this part of the board much the past few months but I could have flown down and stayed with friends to attend this one...

Scott, not to worry - e-mail me at the address provided in the first post, with the subject line "future steadicam workshops" and i will be happy to keep you informed.

if you are at an intermediate level (have already taken a workshop or have had another form of training) the next one we're putting together may be of interest to you. If there's enough interest in a beginners' workshop again, we may look into hosting another one of those as well.

Hey Sean,

I posted some photos on flickr. You can see 'em here:

1. Flickr Photo Download: Glidecam X-22 and SmallHD DP1

2. Flickr Photo Download: Glidecam X-22 and SmallHD DP1

3. Flickr Photo Download: Glidecam X-22 and SmallHD DP1

4. Flickr Photo Download: Glidecam X-22 and SmallHD DP1

As I said, I used a U-Bracket (which I actually bought from SmallHD but has since been discontinued, at least for now.) You can make your own U-Bracket rather easily out of aluminum for any monitor. The DP1 is super easy to mount via U-Bracket being as it has a threaded hole on either side at the center of gravity!

Now, the DP1 WILL be ridiculously large on the Pilot. That being said, hang tight if you can... SmallHD is working on some sweet stuff... no info on release but the info is floating around out there that their next monitor will be 5.6" and of course HD, so that's going to be SUPER cool... just be patient :)

Enjoy!

Woah thanks for the great photos. The Pilot monitor has a poor connector that causes problems sometimes. Since the DSLRs can be off focus easily the SmallHD may be a great choice.

=) Thanks for the compliment Trevor, but if anyone here deserves any type of recognition it's you! Compared to my light-as-a-feather rig you were flying some pretty heavy stuff (X-22 mounting a EX-1, M2e, microX, rods, Anton Bauers, SmallHD, the list goes on people). All that weight made for a super smooth rig but I don't know hoooow you survived those two days!

I think we all did amazingly well. I remember when we first got there no one had any idea of what they were doing (expect for Hunter). But man! Charles is a excellent teacher! A real hands-on type of guy. There was definitely a drastic improvement in everyone by the time we wrapped up on Saturday. I'm already saving up for next year's workshop. It'll be interesting to see how many people from the original class will be making a second appearance and how much they've improved.

Take note of the last three shots on Trevor's MobileMe gallery--they were from the day after the workshop where Trevor, Scott and I hit the Sonoma wineries. After a full two days of intensive Steadicam, the wine tasting was just what the doctor ordered and we hope to integrate this into the next workshop on a more formal basis!

Heck yes we do!! It's gonna be great guys... anyone who isn't already on the list, please e-mail me if you're interested and we'll keep you informed :)

I third that motion.

You're tempting me...

Come out and join us man!