Garrett Brown

Garrett Brown (born April 6, 1942)^[1] is an American inventor, best known as the creator of the Steadicam. Brown's invention allows camera operators to film while walking without the normal shaking and jostles of a handheld camera. The Steadicam was first used in the Hal Ashby film Bound for Glory (1976), receiving an Academy Award (Best Cinematography), and since used on such films as Rocky, filming Rocky's running and training sequences, and Return of the Jedi, where Brown walked through a Redwood forest with the Steadicam shooting film at 1 frame per second to achieve the illusion of high speed motion during the speeder-bike chase.

The sequence in Rocky that took the audience up what would later be known as the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the triumphant moment at the top was first filmed during tests for the original Steadicam system. The system was used extensively on Stanley Kubrick's 1980 classic horror film The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson. Brown's Steadicam work can be seen in over seventy motion pictures.^[2]

Brown has also invented the DiveCam (following olympic divers), MobyCam (underwater camera following olympic swimmers) and the SkyCam (for football games) with the latter perfected with help from a team including Anastas Michos,^[3] Larry McConkey,^[4] John Jurgens and others.

Garrett Brown is the father of TV Director Jonathan Brown. Both worked together as Steadicam operators on the film Bulworth, directed by and starring Warren Beatty. A member of the American Society of Cinematographers and the Directors Guild of America, Garrett Brown was recipient of an Oscar for Scientific or Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his invention of the Steadicam.