iDC Salutes Danfung Dennis on his Academy Award Nomination!

Our friend Danfung Dennis is an incredible HDSLR photojournalist/filmmaker and now an Academy Award Nominee in the Best Documentary Feature category! Danfung knocked ‘em out at Sundance with the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize and the World Cinema Cinematography Award for his documentary "Hell and Back Again" and should do great at the Academy Awards as well. And all with nothing more than a Canon 5D Mark II, a few well-chosen lenses, a Glidecam HD2000, and some custom-built accessories from iDC. We were there to help Danfung in the early days and are very proud of our association with this brilliant young filmmaker...

Back in 2009, Danfung was an embedded journalist with the 8th Marines' Echo Company when President Obama ordered a 21,000 troupe surge in Afghanistan. During a brief return to the States, Danfung contacted iDC to get some help with his cobbled-together Canon 5D shooting rig. At that time we were already offering our original iDC Run & Gun rig but Danfung had some special needs and was simply inquiring if we could make a couple of mods to his home-brewed support system. I took one quick look at his fragile DIY rig - and a long look at his amazing film trailer - and immediately decided to make a special effort to him help out with a complete rethink of what "Run & Gun" truly means.

While the rig I built for Danfung was certainly "one of a kind" - well, one of two, actually, as I made second prototype for myself ;) - the time I spent on the project was very easy to rationalize. Given that Danfung's work would put both him and his camera kit in harm's way every time he headed into the fray, I'll never regret deciding to drop everything to design and build him a follow focus rig that would be "battlefield ready" before he returned to Afghanistan in a few short weeks. I think he liked it:

Hi Bruce - I received the piece and I'm incredibly impressed with the build quality and the functionality... I've been using your custom follow focus and find it so essential that I don't know how I did without one before."
- Danfung Dennis, 11/04/2009

My small personal investment in Danfung's project proved to be a worthwhile investment for iDC as well. As I hustled to complete Danfung's highly-specialized rig before his final deployment with the Marines, the pressure of the highly compressed design process led me to create a number of key camera support features that would quickly evolve into our amazingly compact and affordable iDC SYSTEM ZERO. 

iDC SYSTEM ZERO has since won the Black Diamond Award for Design Excellence and continues to help budget-challenged filmmakers bring their own unique vision to life - all over the globe. That's what we call great a great "return on investment" and we couldn’t be more pleased.

Think about it. Danfung did his project on a shoestring and is now reaping the rewards of a job very well done. Get out there and give it all you've got too and maybe we'll see you at the Academy Awards. We'd love to share your story as well...

- Bruce