Hauppauge, NY—The Tiffen Company announced that Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown will be honored by the Society of Camera Operators. Mike Moad, Bobby Mancuso and Phil Caruso will also be recognized by the SOC.
Brown, who has operated Steadicam on films that include The Shining, Philadelphia and Bulworth, will receive the Society of Camera Operators’ Lifetime Achievement Award during the SOC Awards on February 11, 2017 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel.
In addition to Brown, Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to Mike Moad, for a mobile camera platform operator (Flags of Our Fathers, Super 8); Bobby Mancuso, for a camera technician (Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street); and Phil Caruso, for a still photographer (Forrest Gump, Twelve Monkeys).
Steadicam
In the early 1970s, American cinematographer Garrett Brown had a simple but revolutionary idea: to make a device that could smooth out handheld action shots. The result is the Academy Award-winning Steadicam.
The device made its feature film debut on the movie Bound for Glory.
Subsequently, it rose to prominence in the films Rocky and The Shining.
Steadicam mechanically isolates the operator’s movement, allowing for a smooth shot, even when the camera moves over an irregular surface. Steadicam consists of three major pieces: A vest, an arm and the actual device body. It essentially combines the stabilized steady footage of a conventional tripod mount with the fluid motion of a dolly shot and the flexibility of handheld camera work. While smoothly following the operator’s broad movements, the Steadicam’s armature absorbs jerks, bumps and shakes.
Over the past three decades, Steadicam has been a dynamic production tool in the film and imaging industries. New generations of Steadicam camera stabilizing systems have been redesigned to enhance creative possibilities.
Tiffen now offers a complete line of models to meet film and video production needs. tiffen.com
