...It is worth mentioning there is something called a "BOARD CAM" where the camera seems to float over objects. It was seen in films like "BLOOD SIMPLE" and "EVIL DEAD". This is done using a 2 x4, or 2 x 6 Piece of Wood about 12 feet long with the camera bolted to the center of it. Two grips carry the camera at either end and this lessens their movement. This is not as effective as a Stedicam, but can provide a similar effect, and in some uses be more appropriate. There are as many methods of mounting a camera as there is imagination, if you have any special methods, please let me know.

Some plans to build an elaborate "chinese lantern" by Charles Odell may be of interest for film lighting. A CHINESE LANTERN is a nice, cheap lighting system where a store-bought Chinese Rice Paper lantern is used to create a soft light usually with a Professional Photoflood lamp. The danger with them is they can get very hot and so must be watched carefully. However, the light from them is quite beautiful.

TRUE STORY: I was working on a Documentary series of interviews with THE ROLLING STONES. The director was Albert Maysles, one of the Maysles brothers who had directed the famous Rolling Stones documentary "Gimme Shelter". Obviously it was quite a high-profile job and there were two lighting guys, two grips, and a 10 ton lighting truck, with generator operator. We ran heavy duty cabling from our generator in preparation for a huge lighting set-up. The D.O.P. (whose name I unfortunately forget) ended up using only ONE CHINESE LANTERN connected to a dimmer. By the end of the day we just plugged that into the wall so we could wrap out our cabling. He also used a 100 watt pepper as a Backlight because there were people filming video as well as the two 16mm cameras.