Steadicam is a counterbalanced device that works by shifting the center of gravity outside the camera body and onto the operator's body via a movable arm and a patented three-axis gimbal. The operator's vertical and horizontal movements are isolated from the camera by a spring and hinged arm attached to a special vest. As cinematographer Eric Fletcher notes, "This arrangement of springs is much like a drafting table lamp designed to provide a calibrated amount of lift to make the camera and sled float in space." Most striking is the nearly unrestricted mobility and movement of the camera, which allows for 360 degrees of tilt and 270 degrees of pan, at heights from 4 inches to 6 feet above the ground. The ability to operate the camera without pressing one's eyes to the camera's viewfinder makes this possible. The operator can instead move and orient the camera's image away from his or her eyes by monitoring a DC-powered, onboard "video assist" screen. With fingertip control of the camera's tilts and pans, Steadicam relies on the operator tor's physical skills to move nimbly through sets. Operators liken the task to the demands of ballet or long-distance running.

     Steadicam has offered television directors and cinematographers benefits that are both logistical (speed of use and streamlined labor) and aesthetic (a film look that has been deemed dynamic and high tech). The cinematic fluidity that has become Steadicam's trademark is not limited to feature films. The device helped make exhibitionist cinematography a defining property of music videos after Music Television (MTV) emerged in 1981. Indeed, it became an almost obligatory piece of rental equipment for shoots in this genre. Most music videos, like prime-time television, were shot on film, and the Steadicam became a regular production component in both arenas. Miami Vice's much­ celebrated hybridization of music video and the cop genre (1984-89) made use of Steadicam flourishes even as the series inserted music-video-like segments within individual episodes. Elements that critics of the show termed "overproduction" (stylized design, "excessively lense" photography, and overmixed soundtracks) were well suited for CP's pitch that Steadicam was "the best way to put production value on the screen." Postmodern stylization such as that of Miami Vice defined American television in the 1980s. and Steadicam became a recognizable tool in prime time's menu of embellishment and "house looks," the signature visual qualities of individual production companies. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS). following AMPAS's lead. acknowledged Steadicam's impact on television with an Emmy.

     Although Steadicam has a distinct stylistic function. Many practitioners in the early 1980s embraced the technology for more pragmatic reasons: Steadicam is a cost-effective substitute for dolly or crane shots. Not only can the device preempt costly crane and dolly rentals and the time needed to lay track across a set or location. but it also cut to the heart of the stratified labor equation that producers imported to prime time from Hollywood. On scenes employing Steadicam, the director of photography, the "A" camera operator, the focus puller, and one or more assistants can merely stand aside as a single Steadicam operator executes lengthy moves that previously could consume inordinate amounts of program time. Thus, Steadicam provided not just a stylistic edge; it also offered concrete production economies.

     The popularity of Steadicam was also affected by the growth of electronic field production. By the late 1980s, CP had begun marketing its "EFP" version, a smaller variant better suited for 20- to 25-pound camcorder packages such as the Betacam and for the syndicated, industrial, and off-prime programming that embraced camcorders. At nearly 90 pounds loaded and at a cost of $40,000, the original Steadicam still represented a major investment. Steadicam EFP, by contrast, allowed tabloid and reality shows to move "show-time glitz" quickly into and out of their fragmentary exposes and "re-creations." As channel competition heated up and production of syndicated programming increased, Steadicam was but one stylistic tactic used to push a show above the "clutter" of look-alike programming. By the early 1990s, CP also marketed a "JR" version intended for the home market and "event videographers." It weighed just 2 pounds and cost $600. and with it CP hoped to tap into the discriminating "prosumer" market. a niche that used 8- millimeter video and 3-pound cameras. However, video equipment makers were now building digital motion-reduction systems directly into camcorders, and JR remained a special-interest resource.

     While the miniaturization of cameras might imply a limited future for Steadicam, several trends suggest otherwise. High-definition television (HDTV) cameras remain heavy armfuls, and Steadicam frequently becomes merely a component in more complicated camera-control configurations. As a fluid but secure way of mounting a camera, Steadicam is now commonly used at the end of cranes, cars, trucks, and helicopters-in extensions that synthesize its patented flourish into hybrid forms of presentational power.

     While CP argued that the device made viewers "active participants" in a scene rather than "passive observers," it would be wrong to anthropomorphize the effect only in terms of human subjectivity. The Steadicam flourish is more like an out-of-body experience. A shot that races 6 inches above the ground over vast distances is less a personal point of view than it  is quadrupedal or cybernetic sensation, more like a "smart bomb" than an ontological form of realism. A stylistic aggression over space results, in part, because Steadicam works to disengage the film/video camera from the operator's eyes, dissociating the camera from the controlling distance of classic eye-level perspective. In the 1970s and 1980s, video-assist monitors, linked to the camera's viewfinder by fiber-optic connections. made this optical "disembodiment" technically possible on the Steadicam and other motion­ control devices, liberating cameras to sweep and trap verse diegetic worlds. Because running through obstruction-filled sets with a 90-pound apparatus myopically pressed to one's cornea can only spell disaster, operators quickly grasped the physical wisdom of using a flat LCD (liquid crystal display) video-assist monitor to frame shots. Yet the true impact of Steadicam, video assist, and motion control has less to do with how operators frame images than with how film and television after 1980 turned the autonomous vision of the technologically disengaged eye into a stylistic index of cinematic and televisual authority.

     In the 1994-95 season, 75 percent of the scenes in ER, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC's) influential and top-rated series, were shot using the Steadicam, a previously unheard-of level of Steadicam usage. Many of these scenes were included in the spectacular and complicated "one-E.R." sequences that defined the show: complicated flowing actions shot in one take with multiple moves and no cutaways. Citing these astonishing visual moments, trade-magazine recognition confirmed that Steadicam's autonomous techno-eye now also provided an acknowledged programming edge.

     Several recent trends outside feature film and prime­ time television have begun to challenge Steadicam's dominant place in the production repertoire. The widespread use of extremely lightweight DVCAM and mini-DY cameras have stimulated the development of a range of smaller and alternative "counterbalanced" vest- and handheld cameras supported by competitors. The ratings successes of "reality television" (Survivor, Temptation Island, and so on) in the early 21st century led to widespread acceptance of the handheld "shaky cam" in prime-time U.S. programming. The box office success of The Blair Witch Project and the third "law" of "Dogme" filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg ("The camera must be handheld") further legitimized the jerky (Steadicam-less) handheld camera in big-screen filmmaking. Directors who still need to put high-production value on the screen (with heavy cameras), however, will continue to rely on Steadicam and its permutations.