| GYRON HISTORY |
Gyron Systems International was initially formed with the mission to
design, develop and fabricate "A Better Aerial Gimbal".
In 1984 Dan Wolfe Productions won a contract with a Los Angeles
advertising agency to produce and direct a package of three
commercials promoting the L.A. Herald Examiner newspaper. Dan
was first commissioned to shoot a test commercial with the concept
of finding Herald Examiner readers in a variety of locations and
lifestyles. Because extremely steady images were required, Dan
studied the capabilities of all of the gyrostabilized gimbals available.
He ended up utilizing the Gyrosphere. The test commercial went
well, but Dan could not help but feel that the gimbals stabilization
and creative control could be so much better.
In his continued quest to find the best stabilized gimbal Dan
discovered that the Gyrosphere, the X-Mount and other units were
in reality just spin-offs of a gimbal designed for Westinghouse by a
small Canadian company called Istec. Istec was headed by a very
smart, nice-guy / engineer named Nox Leavitt. The confusion
surrounding the various gimbal names is similar to what occurred
later with the Flir - Gyrocam 360 - Cineflex - Axsys, etc. units that
are all essentially the same "good enough" John Coyle
designed gimbal.
Click here to see a video comparison. (1 Min.)
Watch it now.
After several conversations with Nox, Dan ended up hiring Istec
and their Wescam for the package of Herald Examiner commercials.
Nox sent his chief tech and camera operator Gary Childs to Los
Angeles to join Dan's production team. Gary was awesome, the
Wescam was definitely better than the Gyrosphere and the
commercials Dan created went on to win every possible award.
Dan’s commercial with the Wescam (:30 Sec)
Watch it now
This whole ordeal was an epiphany for Dan. His drive to marry his
two professional passions, image making and aviation, was even
stronger. Shortly after the shoot, Gary let Dan know that Nox had
just sold Istec to a young entrepreneur and the door was open for
a potential joint venture. Dan flew to Canada and met with the new
owner, Mark Chamberlain and a deal was struck. One of Dan's
companies, Pasadena Camera Rental, became a United States
branch of Wescam Systems International.
After being in the trenches by introducing and using the Wescam
in the United States Dan came to realize that the technology
incorporated into all of the various gimbals was actually being
carried over, unimproved from the 1960's. Nothing new had been developed for over 30 years. All of the existing units provided an
acceptable way to produce stabilized aerial images, but they all
lacked the sophistication, modern technology and quality to
provide reliable and consistently smooth, stabilized and
controllable results.
While running the Wescam business here in the U.S. with his
Pasadena Camera partner Stan McClain, they both grew
increasingly frustrated. The units just could not stand up to the
rigorous and punishing demands required of an aerial gimbal.
Several of Dan's friends, such as renowned Directors of
Photography Bill Bennett, Dean Cundey, Tak Fujimoto, etc.
were beginning to look for quality alternatives to Dan's alliance
with Wescam; so was Dan.
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