John grew up around film and video and had always taken an interest in it. His grandfather, an avid enthusiast, had all the latest procumer gear from 8mm through to the release of video and all its changing formats. John always had access to his grandfather’s gadgetry and throughout his high school years, he shot video projects whenever he could.

John’s interest in camera cranes didn’t develop until his brother-in-law Jeff, who was enrolled in film school, asked for help in shooting his independent year-end projects.

Due to the fierce competition, Jeff’s projects had to be the best. John, with his background in mechanical engineering and fabrication, began to design and build everything from motorbike spinning rigs to unusual camera mounts. However, he realized nothing said “big budget” like a flying camera, so a hunt for a commercial camera jib began. The idea was to find an inexpensive jib that you could mount your camera on and operate it from the back with some simple mechanical controls. How hard could that be?

After doing some research on the Internet, it wasn’t long before he found out that such a beast did not exist. You could get a $500 crane that lifted the camera up and down and swung it around, but $40 and a quick trip to Home Depot did the same thing. The minute you wanted to have control over the camera up in the air, the cost shot up ten-fold.

Something better was needed.

So John went to the drawing board and his workshop.  Over the next 3 years his spare time was spent designing, building and redesigning camera jibs. He constructed 4 different rigs using different new control methods, but they were either not smooth enough, too difficult too operate, too cumbersome, required a lot of time for set up, or were simply not suitable for independent filmmaking with a tight budget. Finally—Eureka! His efforts met with success and the Advanta-Jib was launched.