In the mechanics of an old-fashioned eggbeater Ben Swanson found the bevel he needed to gear his videography. At 23, Swanson, a Rancho Palos Verdes native, is the creator of MicroJib, a portable camera jib for the adventurous everyday cinematographer.
The MicroJib is, as the website touts, a GoPro Pole, reinvented. It can film 360 degree pan and tilt with a single adjustment. A rotating handle at the base of the pole controls the camera’s angle.
“The internal mechanism – what makes the magic work – is a bevel gear. It is not a common gear to come upon. An old fashioned eggbeater was a starting place,” Swanson said in an interview this week.
The initial inspiration for the MicroJib came from the more traditional professional camera jib that can angle down or up at a subject.
“I thought it would be cool to make a smaller, more portable jib and make it available to GoPro users,” Swanson said. “I went to a thrift store, for inspiration, to see what kind of devices are out there. I found an old fashioned eggbeater. I went to Home Depot and combined some stuff with the old egg beater. I kept prototyping at my house for another year. I filed a patent. I contacted China.”
Growing up beneath the cool sweep of the Palos Verdes hills and a steep scramble to the beach, Swanson knew cinematic beauty in his bones. Growing up with news anchor mom Liz Swanson, he knew cinematic practicality and editing as well.
Swanson took four years of video classes at Palos Verdes High School and then continued his videography working for a snowboard magazine out of Denver while studying business management at Colorado University.
“When I was living in Palos Verdes we always made mountain biking videos, boogie boarding videos, we went up to the mountain on the weekends and made snowboarding videos,” Swanson said.
But something was missing in that filming process. The scope, the angle, the human-like eye of the camera. Swanson wanted to change the shape of the gap between an artist and their lens.
In his junior year of college, in the advent of GoPro popularity in the snowboarding and mountain culture of Colorado, Swanson came up with the idea of the MicroJib.
The MicroJib combines a tripod, camera jib, and selfie pole, but it is made for people who want to explore.
“A real camera jib has to have a tripod and a counter weight. I wanted a small convenient package that can deliver big results. [The MicroJib] is a multifunctional tool – all in this really easy to transport package,” Swanson said.
“It is a practical device to have.”
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“There are two types of users: people like me who want to make a more professional video, who want to change the angle of their camera quickly, rather than having it straight mounted on a stick. Then there are people who are traveling or exploring… They can adjust the camera in such a way to capture exactly what they want to see,” Swanson said.
One tutorial opens afoot a skateboard, leaves licking the wheels. Another in a corn maze, the film running along the tall stalks fanned in all directions.
“Our company mission: We sell a tool for filming, our goal as a company is to help people be more creative when filming, to help them get content that they will want to watch again,” Swanson said. “Because you can control what you are filming, [the film] embodies your emotion, what you are feeling. [MicroJib] is helping people be more creative.”
“We don’t like to think of ourselves as a selfie stick at all – this is a filming tool.”
Swanson wrote his own patent and contacted a manufacturer in the Guangdong province in China, where most of the world’s video equipment is made. He does all his own advertising. An old friend from Palos Verdes High, Zane Abraham, does the website.
“It took four years. It was really time consuming,” Swanson said.
The company was officially funded January 2015, backed by a successful kickstarter campaign.
“We are looking forward to the holiday season. We sell worldwide. A third of our business is worldwide.”
The company has a large customer base in California, as well.
Swanson will visit Palos Verdes High School later this month to donate MicroJibs to the video class and speak with students.
“As a business, you want to make sure you are spending your time on what’s going to keep the boat afloat.”
For Swanson, that includes utilizing the MicroJib, carrying it with him wherever he goes, filming the world as he encounters it and brainstorming new angles in videography.
“I always find that the best stuff to film is the stuff you least expect. I ran into break dancers the other day on the street. You never know what you may want to capture.”
For more information, see MicroJib.com.
