ADVERT I SEMENT FE ATURE . MOTION IMPOSSIBLE
GET TO GRIPS WITH AGITO ROBUST The Agito is hardy but modular, and works both on-track or free-roaming
Motion Impossible’s Agito is a powerful machine, but could Marcus Domleo push beyond its limits on a challenging sports shoot?
Agito. That’s not to say it didn’t make an impression on Domleo, though. “There was a decent budget, but not huge,” he says. “Plus, we had to wrap everything in one day. We needed a simple dolly on a track for the living room, something akin to a crane for the long jump, but an entirely unique set-up for the football. Only one tool could do all that.” Beyond its impressively high speeds, finely controlled motion, rugged build and controllability, it was the Agito’s modularity that impressed Domleo most. “Based on the fact you can make it do so many different jobs that usually require other, more expensive kit and people, I could see it replacing conventional tools at some point. “In the meantime, if you have a number of difficult shots and need something to do it all, nothing else comes close to the Agito.”
“WE HAD THREE scenes,” DOP Marcus Domleo explains, about a shoot that posed some logistical problems for his crew. “And needed to capture two sporting moments, then have the action pull back through a TV screen into a living room setting. “We needed a straight, backwards tracking motion – and discussed various options – but couldn’t find one that fulfilled all requirements. Then we discovered the Agito. “Our first challenge was speed. We filmed an athlete performing a long jump, and while she could take the edge off slightly, it still had to look real. She was sprinting fast – a normal dolly could never have kept up. The Agito was the only thing that could get to around 15mph from a standstill, then decelerate before it went through the back wall of the studio,” Domleo laughs. The pit offered yet another obstacle. The team had to show the jumper’s powerful landing on-set, so a shower of “You can make it do so many different jobs that usually require other, more expensive kit”
sand could cascade through the television in the final edit. “We had to arm the camera out over the sand to avoid tracks,” says Domleo. “It was rigged outwards about eight feet from the Agito, with some twin-tube scaffold, gliding over the top of the pit while the dolly drove next to it.” In the second scene, we see a footballer kick a ball straight into the camera, before it rebounds off ready for another shot. “We used the Agito in its smallest form, right on ground level. Naturally, we had to protect the camera, but because the dolly is so modular, our grip built a Perspex shield and rigged it on easily. Our footballer could kick the ball at it relatively hard and it withstood it comfortably.” The third and final scene – the pull back through the television – was fairly simple, requiring only a slower reverse from the
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