TOHO Studios, the Tokyo production house responsible for the original Godzilla and its current remake, as well as Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa, has purchased the new Tiffen Steadicam M-1 camera stabiliser for its current and future feature projects.
Senior cameraman Kosuke Yamada had been looking at the M-1 since its launch, and brought a rig to Japan after he completed the six-day SOA (Steadicam Operators Association) Classic workshop in the US with Jerry Holway and Steadicam’s inventor Garrett Brown. Yamada’s experience as a cinematographer includes a 13-year stint as camera assistant at TOHO Studios, leading to four years in the top job as lead cinematographer.
“When I used the M-1 for the first time, I felt a firm sense of stability that I had never felt before. No matter how much lighter cameras become, the quality of the image largely depends on their stability in use,” said Yamada. “The M-1 can accommodate various shooting styles and equipment, and I think this is perhaps the biggest strength of it. But also very important is the ease with which you can achieve dynamic balance and smoothness of the gimbal.”
All Tiffen M-1 systems work with the Fawcett Exovest. The supportive exoskeleton design of Exovest frees the chest from constraint by providing support on the hip and shoulder. The industry’s benchmark ISO-Elastic G70X arm completes the package, making M-1 the most advanced stabiliser in feature production.
