Film Stills Photographer Reveals the Massive Blimp She Used to Muffle Her Camera
Blimps were once a type of inflatable aircraft that used to advertise companies like Goodyear. But as they have become less common, a new type of blimp has emerged: a camera blimp.
This summer, film director Christopher Nolan got people talking about blimp systems after he used one to muffle the loud noise that emanates from IMAX cameras, the device he used to shoot the entirety of The Odyssey on.
The blimp system on an IMAX camera makes the already massive camera even bigger, so big in fact that The Odyssey actors needed a mirror system to see each other around the 70mm behemoth.
But it turns out that sound blimps for cameras are not a new invention; film stills photographer Parisa Taghizadeh recently appeared on Out of Frame, a podcast focusing on members of film crews, and brought along her old SLR blimp system, which she used to keep quiet on set.
“It’s something we no longer use,” Tag, as she likes to be known, says as she holds up the enormous casing for an old DSLR camera. “It used to house our cameras when the cameras used to be either film cameras or DSLRs that would go **imitates shutter noise.** We couldn’t do that on set when they were rolling.”
Tag’s blimp system worked by putting the camera in the housing and then plugging it in. The connection gave Tag two buttons: one to focus and one to release the shutter.
Tag says she began using her blimp system for the TV show Top of the Lake so that the shutter noise didn’t interrupt the production. Nowadays, mirrorless cameras can shoot silently thanks to the electronic shutter.
“Cumbersome” and “heavy” are the words that Tag uses to describe the blimp, but she adds that such a massive camera made her feel important.
Being a film stills photographer is a fascinating job; it’s well worth listening to the whole interview to hear about Tag’s career.
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