The Steadicam® Operator's Handbook

Capturing reality

by Fawcett Chris

I adored handheld camerawork but urn unsatisfied with the final product — which always had a touch of “weeding photography” to it, Handheld camera never replicates the smoothness of the eye, and if that is relevant to storytelling in drama, it can only be more relevant to documentary. I wanted a medium that would match movement with movement without introducing extraneous movement of its own. The jittery cinema vèriè look has power, but it is a style, and in approaching a subject, interposing any device is asking the viewer to peerthrougha stylislistic window.

Children of Stalin was conceived as feature length documentary about the daily life of agroup of inmates and staff in a residential mental institution ...