(bright upbeat music)
- Welcome welcome episode
nine of In the Garage.
I'm Dom, this is my garage welcome back.
196 subscribers as it sits today.
Thank you and thank you
and thank you very much.
I was invited to partake
in another podcast,
my second podcast ever in my life.
This one I was invited by a
gentleman named Max Miller
out of the San Diego area.
The podcast is called Shooting the Score
and it's all about sports creative.
Max is involved in kind
of sports marketing
and started this podcast not too long ago
and invited me to be a guest.
So I'll put a link up
here to that podcast.
It's just me and Max
chatting about all things,
sports and sports cinematography.
Thanks Max for that opportunity
and check it out when you can.(grunts)
This is 32 pounds of camera.
This is of course an Arri Amira with 400 millimeter,
2.8 prime lens.
So this setup is primarily
used in conjunction
with a tripod.
I've also mentioned in the
past that I've used this setup
on a hi-hat, very low to
the ground on the sidelines.
If you go handheld with
something like this,
it's not going to be for a very long time.
You think about a
football game that's three
or four hours long and
that's not going to happen.
You essentially just crush your
back and crush your shoulder
trying to go that long.
This is not a handheld setup,
but it could be.
So this was the package I envisioned
when I first heard of Ergorig.
I've been wanting to try an
Ergorig for two years now
and now I finally had
the opportunity to do it.
So lemme show you what an Ergorig is.
Very simple but yet very effective.
It was designed by a guy named
Jesse in Southern California
who is a professional camera operator.
He did two seasons of Sons of Anarchy
which has all handheld heavy cameras
and it really did a number on his back.
He had to stop taking handheld
jobs until he developed
the Ergorig and I'll link
to one of Jesse's videos
so you can hear it from him.
That's just a cool story, right?
So someone who developed
a solution for a problem
that all of us have, even
though I don't work on TV sets
or movie sets, sports,
those could be long days
and it's a lot of running around
and these cameras aren't light.
Essentially what I did because
there was no loaner available
when I wanted it, Jesse just said,
"hey, if you purchase a kit you
have 14 days to try it out."
If I don't want to keep the Ergorig
and this Undersling attachment,
which I'll get into in a second,
I can just ship it back to him in 14 days
and get my money back,
as long as I haven't trashed the Ergorig.
So that's a really cool feature to,
just to be able to try it out.
I'm not gonna go deep
dive into how this works
but it's pretty simple.
You just loosen these four knobs,
two on the front two on the back.
So not only does the shoulder
plate go up and down,
but this midriff plate
can move independently
of this top plate.
So you can really dial it in.
The shoulder plate is what
the camera just rests on.
The camera does not click in,
the camera does not stick to this,
it is just a pad with a metal
arch that saves your shoulder
from the weight of that camera.
I took my 32 pound
handheld camera setup out
to a local middle school
yesterday with my friend Cary.
And so I just texted him, I was like,
"hey, can I come out there
and get a little b-roll?
"Because I want to try this out."
The one thing that I
loved about this is that
I was out there for an hour easy,
just shooting, constantly
shooting Cary shooting hoops.
If I didn't have this, I would
be putting the camera down
at least every five minutes
if not every three minutes
or two minutes.
Taking the weight off of
my back and my shoulders
essentially keeps you
shooting for a very long time.
This thing is cool, this
thing is really cool
especially when you're
trying to shoot handheld
with a 32 pound camera or more,
it just takes a toll on your body,
the more and more you do it,
and I'm not getting any younger.
So it's saving your body and
essentially stretching out
your career if you are into
handheld cinematography
or handheld camera operating.
I'm able to just float and
move and get different angles
and perspectives of
Cary playing basketball
or anybody that's in front of my lens.
(bright upbeat music)
When you're shooting with an Ergorig,
you really want two hands on a
32 pound camera at all times.
So I went with this new top plate
so I can have the 15
millimeter rods come out of it
'cause I knew I wanted
the follow focus motor
to be attached to the top
because I don't have much
real estate down below
with this particular lens.
So what I was able to do is
hold the camera on my shoulder
and then use my left
index finger to roll focus
when I was shooting Cary
shooting the basketball.
So you can buy an Ergorig
and not get the Undersling
attachment, of course,
and you can buy the
Undersling attachment later.
So when you use it, it's
got to stopper in there.
That's not gonna go anywhere
and then this goes through the camera
and then it just goes at your hip.
This protective Velcro piece
just protects the camera
from bumping in to these
metal plates over here.
So this attachment on
the top of the camera
is part of the Undersling attachment
that Ergorig sent me.
It feels like a wet suit material.
I don't even know what it
is but it's very stretchy.
You have this thumb release,
you insert the cord
and this connects to the Ergorig
and it holds the whole way to
the camera, which is awesome.
One thing I noticed though,
when I did switch to the Undersling,
it slightly pulls up on the top handle
it misaligned my focus motor.
Just ever so slightly pulling
up on that focus motor
so the gear was slipping and
I didn't want to sit there
and fiddle with it too much
when I was out on the basketball court.
So I just went back to
handheld shoulder work
without the Undersling. So
if I had to do this again
and I knew I wanted to
undersling this particular setup,
I would move this focus
motor down here to these rods
and then I would not have
an issue with adding tension
to this top handle.
That's why you test out equipment
because now I know that
if I wanna go under slung,
I don't want to use the focus motor
in the top down position.
My initial thoughts on the
Ergorig are a huge thumbs up.
This setup allows me to do something
that I've always wanted to do.
Long lens handheld, can it
be done for multiple hours?
And the answer today is
yes because of the Ergorig.
You don't need to sacrifice your body
to shoot handheld anymore
and it's because of
inventions like the Ergorig
that are really saving our
bodies, which is awesome.
So thank you, Jesse.
It was fun to get out and
actually shoot basketball
during sunrise, it was really cool.
If you have any questions or
comments, drop them down below,
I read them all I answered them all.
I'll see you next time in
episode 10 on In the Garage.
Thank you for tuning in. See you.
(bright music)
