During the classes this week Robin talked with me about my research project base on the presentation in week9. My research is about Steadicam. I mainly focus on the operating requirement of the Steadicam, time-saving, and the cost of using Steadicam. Base on it I have the chance to visit a Steadicam operator and get lots of information about the operating.

Robin has talked to me about the interest in getting to know labor costs in China affect production. We talked about this part in the class. I went to 5 different rental company ask for the price of renting Steadicam. Base on the low labor in China, using a dolly track is cheaper than a Steadicam. A Steadicam needs a least 5500 RMB for a day shot. But the dolly with 4 assistants and a cinemaphotographer cost about 3000-3700 RMB. This opinion has included a dolly track, Russian arm. Both plans haven’t involved camera hire. In my opinion what costs this is that the assistants in china can only get about 400 RMB a day for work in the production crew. This type of work is most grip work rather than creative work. So that base on a high population the price of labor has decreased to a level around 400-600 a day. But most of the main creation crew are able to get more than this price.

I went back to China in March 2020. From that on I have been work in a few different film crew. I also have experience work in the Australian production crew. It is different to work in a different place around the world. The way people do things is different, for example, the best boy in China will climb up the stand by hand to adjust the angle of the par lights rather than climb with a ladder. At the very start, it was hard to get used to how things are done in the crew. But after few times of experience, I am getting well on it