The Steadicam® Operator's Handbook

Lightweight rigs

Tuesday, September 11, 1973. On that fateful day, Garrett Brown makes the deal with Ed DiGiulio in the offices of Cinema Products, and our industry is born. Just as Garrett was walking out the door, Ed quietly asked him, “Will it work with 35 mm cameras?” Garrett assured Ed that it could. (Why say otherwise, even if…, but that's another story.) The original Steadicams — the CP-35, the Universal Models I, II, and III — were designed around relatively heavy cameras, whether 35 mm, 16mm,or the video cameras of the day.

But by 1986 it was clear — at least in Garrett's mind — that the physical principles that made a big Steadicam work might also fly with the newly available camcorders. The trick, of course, was to create a structure ...