American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 80

make

a

lot of small, subtle sugges¬

tions. It's

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always interesting to
know who's lining up the shots, the
director or the cinematographer. I
always find that out right away." A
good Steadicam shooter must have
a
comprehensive perspective of the'
entire shoot, which may explain
why Raphael sees more Steadicam
operators moving into directing
instead of cinematography.
Raphael remembers hear¬
ing Vittorio Storaro, ASC talk about
Steadicam: "It was a long, brilliant
monologue about how when you
get on a film, you need to live with
the script and sleep with it under
your pillow. Unfortunately, 90 per¬
cent of the time you can't do that."
Steadicam shooters

come

onto

a

as

the best film of its type
ever made.

project after it's begun, and they
may not see what's already been

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shot. "You're there to solve a spe¬
cific problem with the geography of
the set. The directors and cinema¬

i iEKTNGTfC

tographers are the stars; you're
there to help them. I tend to make
suggestions in ways that make

1405

P. 0. Box

them feel it was their idea."
Steadicam shooting,

he

feels, is "the best job in the indus¬
try. You're always doing some¬

What Do Bad Movies
and

Empty Mailboxes

Have in Common?
The staff at American

Cinematographer hates
to see

either. Here at the

thing interesting, you have people's
attention while you're on the set,
and it's up to them to make the best
possible use of you so you have the
opportunity to do your job well.
That makes it rewarding. It's never
boring, and a lot of conventional
filmmaking is boring."

flew up

planted

wasn't until

stuck in

cinema and

our

subscrib¬

Just call Flo in our
circulation department at

(213) 969-4391
to us at

or

write

P.O. Box 2230,

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We'll correct the situa¬
tion as
and do

possible
everything we
can to prevent future
slip-ups. Bad movies,
unfortunately, are
beyond our control.
78

the Edge, Pet Sematary,

Matlock, China Beach

If you ever

have a
problem with the deliv¬
ery of your monthly
copy, please let us know.
ers.

soon as

was

a

the ball in motion and went to
Brown's workshop.
Brown's workshop got
him his first Steadicam job - on

Murphy's Lazo, a Charles Bronson
potboiler full of guns and violence.
"Chasing him around was interest¬
ing for me," he notes. "When you
start shooting Steadicam, you don't
have the practical experience and
technical training that takes years to
acquire. You sink or swim." Geller
swam
through an intense learning
process that has not stopped so
much as leveled off. "Now I know
what I have to do to get a shot. I

know which choices are available
to advance and perfect the story

properly."
Matlock director of photog¬
raphy Frank Thackery gave Geller
his start in major TV work, which
provided him with a new learning
curve.

"There

were

intricate shots

you wouldn't normally think of as
Steadicam shots," Geller explains.
"You think of Steadicam shots as

running through a battle or the
camera
coming off a crane."
Matlock, a seemingly static show,
had some surprises for him. "Be¬
cause Matlock is a static show,
they
wanted to make the

camera move

though the dialogue was
pository 'who done it' stuff."

Rusty Geller
Postcards from

1984, when he

Disney basement doing
optical effects "for a bad dinosaur
.movie while my friends were out
shooting the Olympics," that he put

even

magazine, we take two
things very seriously:

the steps and into the hall)
a seed in his mind. But it

ex¬

He relates, "In a scene
where two people enter a hotel

they'd block it so while the
talent walked around I hit six or
room,

One of Rusty Geller's earliest
memories is of watching the extras

lining up outside the MGM studios.
The L.A. native "kicked around as
a writer" before entering Co¬
lumbia's film school, and later got
involved with Steadicam as an al¬
ternative to shooting special ef¬
fects for Disney. "There was no way
out of special effects," he recalls,
and Geller wanted out badly. He'd
read about Garrett Brown's 1977
Oscar in American Cinematographer,
and the opening shot of the award
ceremony

July 1992

(in which the

camera

eight precision points - anything
from two-shots to over-the-shoulder shots to someone dressing in
shadow against the door. You
wouldn't think of those kinds of
shots as Steadicam shots. But if you
tried to do them without

Steadicam, coordinating the dolly
grip and the operator to hit each

point would be impossible." Geller
could also make corrections if ac¬
tors didn't hit their marks, or push
the camera two inches over to see
both eyes of the person in an over-
American Cinematographer - July 1992

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 1992
