I’m a steadicam operator. I love what I do. When people learn about it, I often get questions about working with such and such actor, what was it like? Did you get star struck and so on... I honestly couldn’t care less about stardom and all that gossip. I want to talk about how I got to fly an Alexa35 with a Probe lens, or how I love filming dancers because I get to transfer emotions through the movement of the camera, turning the audience into an extra dancer.
I also do some engineering on the side to create camera accessories with 3D printing, electronics, soldering and MCU programming. Conversations about those subject are completely inexistant outside of the internet for me and maybe 3 or 4 colleagues.
Turning the audience into an extra dancer, damn that so cool, I understand why you love that part. It really makes you think about all the creativity it takes and how artistic it really is! And it often gets over looked..
I do a lot of directing for live broadcast. Not many projects have a budget for steadicam ops but I love when they do. It’s a constant battle for movement and smoothness, and steadicam is at the pinnacle.
I actually also do live broadcast. I’ve been working on a morning shot for a major network and they have two steadicams on set at the same time!! Live steadicam is a very different beast that teaches you a complete different approach of operating compared to scripted shows. You only have one take with a couple of rehearsals if you’re lucky then when you’re called to “make your nove” there’s no going back. No second take, then when it over, it’s too late, you’re done. At first I was so scared to even do the show I was almost paralyzed and failed my first rakes. I hop on the coma and apologized. That’s when the director went on the headset and said. It’s okay, you blew it, thousands of people saw it, you can’t take it back, now do r fuck up the next one, focus on the next shot. I had a lightbulb moment and now I just “here goes nothing” before every take. If you don’t care about failing, you won’t fail as much. And if you do, you can keep your head on the next shot.
I'm a sysadmin. No one really knows what people in my profession do, so they just assume it's all servers and computers. I'm all about the automation tools, though. With the right tools and credentials, you can install apps, create accounts, provision a new VM, parse through your emails, brew a cup of coffee, and let your wife know you'll be home early so she can get rid of her boy toy before you get home...all with a single click.
I feel you. Programming and other computer science is really hard to explain to a mogul. Most concepts rely on the interlocuteur’s understanding and acknowledgment that sending an email isn’t just magic, or just works. That it takes. Lot of smart people actively making sure those machines are working and talking together at all time. And when you try to explain, I bet they start looking at you with the feeling that they just developed instant ADHD.