Only way I can figure it out is by cables…but how do they ensure that the football never hits the cable(s), on a pass, punt, or kick?
anyone know?
I remember seeing a show on Discovery Channel, I think, about the floating cameras. They have crossed cables, with a camera mounted on a car that runs along the two cables. By running the wheels attached to either cable they can move the car to cover the entire stadium. I imaging they are high enough and use a good zoom lens.
Those cameras are hung very high and they move quite rapidly on their cables.
Didn’t they bring this over from the XFL?
The technology has been around for a long time. I believe they’ve been using it for other sports for many years.
I guessed it was cables, and I realize this technology is less sophisticated than the ‘surround-cum-Matrix’ shots they use at the superbowl and NCAA final four…
However…
Some of the shots don’t seem feasible given a ‘out of punt-range height’ (OOPRH), zoom lens, and the angle of view. Meaning, the shots where they swoop in behind the line of scrimmage come from an angle that if you did a trajectory back to the point where it crosses the OOPRH plane it would be out of the stadium. Or so it seems.
Maybe the cables follow some kind of trapezoidal or parabolic line.
Ah. Found the Home Page for the Sky Cam
Yeah, it’s a fairly old technology.
Want a great example of it? Try the opening shot of “The Highlander”. The one in the Garden.
Jonathan and telemark, you are wrong. It is not fairly old technology. The Sky-Cam made its feature debut on the Alan Parker film, “Birdy”. It was not a great first outing. However, some footage did indeed make it into the finished cut, IIRC.
The Sky-Cam ( which is a trademarked name, but I can’t find the darned Symbols sheet for inserting that icon…) was- as the web page above states-invented by Garrett Brown. He is the man who taught me how to use a Steadicam. When I trained in 1987, the Sky-Cam had just been sent off to Japan. At that point, a Japanese company had optioned the rights to it. It has turned back and forth several times. Now it seems that another Philly company has made serious inroads with it. Yay, Philly. 
Here is exactly how it works. I can go into great details without hesitation. I sat with the man who invented this and got a first-hand lesson in it’s design and operation. He’s my mentor, I was a professional Steadicam Operator for 16 years ( and counting… )
The Sky-Cam rides on four wires. ( It has run on two very well, but we’ll get to that in a moment, ok? ). Each wire is attached through a ring at the top of a tall tower OR mounting platform of some kind, high up in the air. Basically, the higher you can mount the four wires and farther from each other you can get them, the larger the three dimensional space of air you have to work in.
Each wire carries fiber-optic signalling from the Camera Operator. The Sky-Cam Pilot operates the spooling out and taking up of each wire. Think about it. You have a weight dangling from four wires. You spool out 100 feet from the upper and lower left, and take up 100 feet from the upper and lower right and the camera moves to the right.
If you wish to move the camera to the right AND descend, then you let out 100 feet from UL and LL and take up only 80 feet from UR and LR. The net effect is that you have let the camera descend in a controlled manner, by paying out slightly more wire than you have taken up on the other side. Since the four wires are each going to separate winches, and each winch motor is slaved to the single control panel that the Sky-Cam Pilot operates, the winches are payed out and taken up in what is theoretically perfect tandem. You want to go from ground level at Lower Right, to high up against the dome at Upper Left? Simply start taking up at a higher rate than you pay out, with the opposing winches. Luckily for the Pilot, the computer calculates the rates of feed and take-up. He or She simply operates the joysticks.
Now you have the idea of how it is MOVED through a three dimensional space. The operating of the camera itself is fairly basic, by todays remote-head technology. You have three axis of camera head control. You have remote focus, iris and zoom where needed. Typically these days, those controls are NOT run by fiber optic, but rather by a very highly controlled RF transmitter with an auto-finding dish. This mounts in the dome above the Sky-Cam camera body, and as the camera turns and moves, the auto-ranging dish turns, always focusing its signal back to the recieving dish that is typically mounted up near the top of an arena.
Early on in the evolution of the first Sky-Cam, the SkyWorks company (headed and owned by Garrett Brown ) was hired to shoot a commercial in some midwestern city whose name escapes me at the moment. The crew took a few days to rig the wires- from the TOPS OF TALL BUILDINGS. Talk about bird’s eye shots. The footage was simply not to be believed, and had never been delivered like that before.
There has been a very successful version of the Sky-Cam that runs on two wires, or in some cases a single wire with the camera on a remote head below a long U shaped bracket. There was talk that it would be used for security work, especially in prison yards and the like.
The crew is a Sky-Cam Pilot, and a Camera Operator and assistants. The Pilot moves the rig through airspace, as the Operator moves the camera on its remote head. They sit side by side and obviously work closely in tandem.
When I shot the Opening Ceremonies of the Atlanta Olympic Games, I watched the set-up and calibrations for the Sky-Cam that Garrett & Company used. Wonderful fun, to see this ball drop out of the sky, right down to my level and ‘nod it’s head’ at me slowly.
Garrett, Anastas Michos and Larry McConkey formed the heart of the first Sky-Crew.
Mr. Brown’s entire focus has always been moving a camera in ways it has never been moved before. He invented the Steadicam ™, Sky-Cam ™, MobyCam ™, DiveCam ™ and other camera support and motion systems. His Academy Award ™Statuette for the invention of the Steadicam ™spoke volumes about the impact of his inventions on the moving camera industry. To learn more about him, try Garrettcam
He’s also a helluva nice man.
Jonathan, if you consider the mid 1980’s to be old technology, then so be it. The Sky-Cam currently being used by this new company is using state of the art bidirectional data streams. Show me someone ( besides the United States DOD ) who even HAD reliable 360 degree RF two way streaming ten years ago, no less 17.
A small correction on that last paragraph. EVERYONE had two-way RF, and has for decades. News Mini-Vans use that technology. I should have said, ’ Show me someone besides the US D.O.D. who had that reliable technology that weighs less than 3 pounds, ten years ago… ’
I stand self-corrected.
Cartooniverse
Well, I was considering mid-80s to be an ‘old’ technology. But I won’t if you don’t like.
But remember how fast things move these days.
Not here to add to anything that already has been posted but I can add that I was at the Jets (J-E-T-S!!) game on Sunday and I was able to watch this in action. Pretty cool to see it close up and in action. During the first half we were up in our nose bleed seats and could not see all the calbes so it looked like there were only two. Our friends left their 15 yrd line, 4 rows from the field, seats at half time (suckers) so we jumped in them for the second half. We did see all four cables at that point.
The camera is never in danger of getting in the way of the ball although me and my bud were wondering about that too. It hangs around in close range during the huddles and non play shots but was always high and far enough out of range when play started.
It could have been an off game for the kickers but the ball is not kicked as high as it looks on camera when you are down on field level. The camera was always well out of range.
I’m with Jonathan, I consider the 80’s to be a long time ago in terms of this discussion.
Cartooniverse - simply because no one else has said it, thank you for taking the time to provide an insider’s take on how the SkyCam works. Access to folks like you is what I really love about the SDMB.
I also briefly checked out the SkyCam site - it looks cool. I didn’t realize it could also travel up and down. I guess I assumed it was on a two-dimensional pulley system - it can go to any designated point on a grid - and then the zooming in or out of the camera lens is what would enable the seeming change in altitude. But I guess it can move up and down, too.
Thanks for the info.
[NITPICK]
It’s just “Highlander”, there’s no “the”.
[/NITPICK]
We can politely agree to disagree, and that’s okay. Movie cameras made of oak? THAT’S old technology. 
While you might argue that the original technology was 1980’s ( and therefore you might try to say it’s old ), you cannot debate the fact that it’s been upgraded and improved as recently as this year, to the point where it is using the fastest processing and relay hardware on the market. So, we can nitpick at it… and as I said, I respect your time frame, and we agree to disagree.
Wordman, the combination of zoom elements in a lens and the ability to move the lens on any straight line ( not just up and down or front and back or side to side, but a straight diagonal ) means you could achieve the mother of all " Hitchcockian " perspective shift shots, a la “Vertigo”. When you dolly out and zoom in, the image size remains the same if you’re crafty about it, but the background shifts. You could really get wicked by using a Sky-Cam with that.
I used to do it a lot with music videos when I was operating Steadicam. One never tires of pulling that trick out, when every other trick for music videos has become even more tiresome. I tried to sell it once on a remote with Dan Rather for " 48 Hours ", but they weren’t having any of it. Very creative team that does those remotes, but it was a bit much for the look of the show. Oh well.