“In The Bucket”

On February 10, 2014 - TV History

“In The Bucket”

With the exception of the Chapman Electra in NBC’s 8H, there are virtually no crane cameras left in modern broadcast studios, but back in the day, when they were in wide use, the cameraman on the crane’s position was referred to as “in the bucket”. I suspect, but don’t know, that the term came from the bucket seats and sitting in one of them for several hours sure beats standing behind a pedestal camera. This is a great shot of Studio 50s Houston Fearless 30B crane shooting Ringo at the afternoon taping of the Beatles inserts for the February 23rd show. This may be Pat McBride in the bucket operating one of the six Marconi Mark IVs.

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6 Comments

  1. Bill Jenkin February 11, 2014

    There is a page of stories about these cranes in the uk including one about the Beatles in 1963 on this page: http://tech-ops.co.uk/next/2013/11/a-whole-mole-page-from-alec-bray/

  2. Bill Jenkin February 11, 2014

    Over here in the U.K. at the BBC the cranes were made under license by Mole-Richardson and were called ‘Mole’ cranes. Interestingly the ‘bucket’ here was the weight bucket, if you were on the bucket you were the arm man or ‘swinger’ as we called them. The driver was called the ‘tracker’. I have noticed on some stills that the guy on the arm is doing a lot from the front end, we always swung the arm from the back standing on the platform. We had a monitor rigged on a cradle behind the cameraman and fed with the camera output.
    On early models the motor was operated from the side of the dolly but by the time I was using them they had all been modified so that the motor and driving were both operated by one person from the back end, standing on a second platform with a back rail you could sit on.

  3. Howie Zeidman February 10, 2014

    I was lucky enough to be in the bucket of the chapman Electra. What a great feeling, the real deal. I worked my way from driver to arm man and finally to the bucket. probably never get a chance to operate it, but my friend Phil at SNL gave me a chance to sit in the bucket one more time when I visited 8H. bobby I wil post that picture when I find it…

  4. David Voros February 10, 2014

    I noticed several behind camera photos shown on the show last night as well as in the control room. Are those pictures available anywhere on the web?

  5. Gary Walters February 10, 2014

    I always liked crane shots, especially on Hullabaloo. Noticed a couple of times when something small would stick to a wheel and the image would vibrate very slightly.

  6. Robert Franklin February 10, 2014

    Better than standing? Your knees are near your chest…and if it was an electric drive crane there was a greater chance of getting smashed into a low hanging light or getting backed into a balcony…