HELCAM

[Martin Hash]

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Back before I didn’t know things were simply impossible, I tried to do impossible things. Obviously, most of those things failed, but some got far enough along to hint that perhaps they were possible? One such was the “HELCAM,” admittedly an unflattering acronym cobbled together from the initials of the last names of the original partners, Hash, Ellis, and the short-termed Lindsey, concatenated with the word “camera.” It was a 40-foot computer-controlled motion picture camera crane that I designed from scratch, including mechanics, electronics & software; anyone of those three things were near impossible, especially for a 25-year-old. At the time, I was an electronic engineer at Hewlett Packard writing firmware that controlled motors and an enthusiastic draftsman, single-handedly taking on a task that an entire engineering division would find challenging, but like I said, I couldn’t tell back in those days.

My primary partner in this impossible endeavor was Arthur “Gene” Ellis, a cameraman in his early 40s who was as naive as I was and, frankly, should have known better. I think maybe he did but I was so gushingly optimistic & seemingly competent that it clouded his judgment. We built the camera crane over a 3 year period, 1983-1985, in the warehouse district of Portland, Oregon. Though I was working full time and going to graduate school in engineering, any leftover time I was either at our building working physically on the contraption, or at home working on it intellectually. What makes it even more crazy was that my wife, Gwynne, and I had our second & third children during that same time period. I look back on it now and am embarrassed for not spending more time with my family, but Gwynne didn’t complain, and never brings it up to this day.

Unbelievably, Gene & I actually got the HELCAM to work! We even created promo spots for small television stations, getting paid only a pittance or doing it for free, but it still counts as a success. I ran the business and did the marketing too, which was the big take away for me because it led to my next software-only business that was a market success, back when there were such a thing as stores that sold computers. It was a long time ago but, luckily, I kept my drawings, and there are a couple photos of the crane, and an archival video of the promos we created. If I was to give any advice about my experience, it would be to do impossible things before you know that they are, because trying to do the impossible is hell(cam).

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