David Black interviews Antony Zhao for The Australian Short Film Network Journal
The crew on films are often overlooked when it comes to blog interviews and other publicity. Just over 5 years ago, I met Antony Zhao when he was helping out on a music video I was making for my band “Darkness Visible”. I was impressed with his professionalism on set and am glad that he agreed to do this interview with me.
DB – Hi Antony, thanks for making the time to chat to me today. Can you tell us what you do, in layman’s terms? I’ve seen you on set with all sorts of amazing equipment but am not going to even try to be the expert on this.
AZ – Hi David, thanks so much for having me! I am what they call a Steadicam operator. Basically, I am trained to carry a camera stabiliser that Mr. Garratt Brown invented around 1975. The Steadicam isolates the camera from its operator’s body movements and rids of the shakiness from the traditional hand-held operating style. It really opens up a lot for creativity and has been used very frequently in the films we watch, like “The Shining”, “Return of the Jedi” and even most of MCU films we see today.
DB – So Antony, what got you into filmmaking in the first place? You’ve chosen a fairly important, yet specialist field. What was it about Steadicams that grabbed your interest?
AZ – I was searching and trying a lot of different things at once after I graduated from a digital media degree, until one day I saw a Steadicam operator hired for the project I was 1st AD-ing. I was fascinated by the operator and his dope moves. I knew my search is over. This is who I want to become. Then I was very lucky that I got myself into one of the SOA Steadicam workshops held in Pennsylvania. Over there, I met Garett and all the other Steadicam legends. I was once again fascinated by what the Steadicam can do, and then I was off on my way to start my Steadicam career as soon as I got back to Australia.
DB – The first film on your IMDB is “Brakes”. I know that IMDB is not always complete, but tell us about what you did on that, and what makes it unique?
AZ – “Brakes” was actually among the first films I worked on as a Steadicam operator. It has a very cool sci-fi story of a protagonist finding out the mystery behind her mother’s murder by using the mysterious power of a substance. It’s because this was one of my first Steadicam positions, I had equally amount of excitement and inexperience. The director and I was aiming to film this project with Bird Man style, a seemingly “one shot”. Of course we failed due to my lack of experience, but we did have a lot of fun trying and I learnt a great deal from being involved.
DB – You recently completed a music video called “Make a Baby”. Between this one, and Brakes, how do you feel that you have progressed?
AZ – It was quite a journey, a lot of difficulties to face, hard lessons to be told and challenges to overcome during the years. By the time I did this music video, I finally am able to realise where I did wrong before. I am able to control my body balance with floating my Steadicam much better. I am able to change the pace of stepping with my feet more confidently. We were shooting analogue with Arri Flex 16SR3, so the camera set up is much heavier in comparison with what was used on “Brakes”. With the help of every talented crew on set, all the focus pulling, blocking and every bits of choreography, we were able to catch the amazing performance of the artist The Maes on films. This is such a blast and I am very grateful that I was taken such a good care by everyone over there.
DB – I’m impressed with everything you have told us tonight Antony. Can I ask what your future plans are?
AZ – I know deeply in my heart that my skills are far from perfect. I still have a lot of bad operating habits I need to get rid of. There are things like endurance, postural strength and lots of other things I need practice to improve. In a way, with all these lockdowns we are going through right now, I do have a lot of time on my hand I can utilise. I hope that when we are finally free from this horrible pandemic, I would be able to get out there more, doing Steadicam, proving my worth and eventually making contributions to this beautiful film and TV industry we have.
DB – Thanks for taking the time to chat to me tonight. Where can our readers follow your work?
AZ – This is my website - www.antonyzhao.com