Morgan Always Chooses Vinten First for Pilot Season

“Pilots are a lot of pressure,” admits Morgan who, last season, did a number of pilots while shooting Rita Rocks, including Alligator Point directed by actor Kelsey Grammer and 2 Dollar Bear for Mike Binder. “You have to establish a look, a style, catch the eye of the powers-that-be at the network and cable executive level – and sometimes work with less than optimal sets or locations. There are times when you don’t know where you are going, until you sort of get there. It’s important to have a support system that you know can go with the flow.”

As usual, Morgan’s first choice of support is Vinten, usually pedestals with Vector heads.

“My relationship with Vinten goes way back – before I was Director of Photography on Home Improvement,” he explains. “The Vinten equipment has always been reliable, precise, and excellent. They are really top of the line when you come to pedestals and heads. So far this year I’m doing two pilots for TV Land – a George Segal driven project and Hot in Cleveland. And, I’m about to start my third, The Pink House for NBC/Universal. All of them are supported by Vinten.

“Hot in Cleveland was a traditional three ped and a dolly shoot,” he explains. “It was much like last year’s series Rita Rocks. I’ve always found that my operators prefer Vinten because of the precise tracking of the pedestal in the four-camera environment. It’s more than the durability and lack of down time. Often, the outside guys have to turn, pull, lift, pan and tilt in moments because they have to get back to position quickly. The fluidness and ease to reset is very important and that’s one of the things that Vinten has always excelled in over the years.

“When we have inside cameras on peds, (master cameras), they are also active but with different types of needs,” he adds. “They move, push left or right, raise up and push in. Normally, when you use a traditional dolly, it takes three people to execute such a shot. When you use a ped, there’s only one operator. Vinten’s reliability allows a good operator to execute this difficult one-person move precisely and smoothly.”

Morgan is just gearing up for NBC’s The Pink House pilot and Vinten camera support will be there once again to help Morgan and crew execute the challenging moves planned by director Michael Lembeck.

About Vinten

Vinten® is a global market leader in camera support technology for broadcast professionals, as well as corporate, education and government applications. The range covers manual heads, tripods and pedestals suitable for studio, outside broadcast, ENG and EFP. Central to the Vinten look and feel is Perfect Balance: whatever the position, angle or elevation the camera stays where it is set – always.

Founded in 1910, Vinten has 100 years’ experience to bring to its program of continuous innovation and improvement, developing the most intuitive supports available by working closely with today's camera professionals to understand their real needs.Vinten® is a registered trademark of The Vitec Group plc

A Snapshot of The Vitec Group

Vitec is an international Group principally serving customers in the broadcast, photographic and military, aerospace and government (MAG) markets. Listed on the London Stock Exchange with 2009 revenue of £315 million, Vitec is based on strong, well known, premium brands on which its customers worldwide rely. Vitec is organised in three divisions: Imaging & Staging, Videocom and Services.

Imaging & Staging designs, manufactures and distributes equipment and accessories for photography, video and events.

Videocom designs and distributes systems and products used in broadcasting and live entertainment, film and video production and MAG.

Services provides equipment rental, workflow design and technical support for camera, video, audio, fibre optic and wireless technology used by TV production teams and film crews.