DEFINITION February 2019.pdf

FEATURE | WHAT ’ S NEW I N CAMERA MOVEMENT

ARRI

“I believe there’s an expectation from the viewer that the camera will be moving,” says Alan Lennox, whose 30-year background in film and television brought him to work for ARRI as a specialist in camera stabilisation. “There’s the technical aspect of it – the tools that will allow us to move a camera through a 3D space – but I believe this is the way filmmaking and live presentation are going. Now, if you’re watching Stranger Things or the Super Bowl, you expect the camera to be in places that were previously unheard-of.” All of that might have been true for some time, but Lennox feels things have changed even more in the last few years. “The way things have changed is, specifically, our tools. There’s two parts to it. The first part is major manufacturers are developing a suite of tools. Our department is only three years old, but it’s significant because it’s ARRI. It’s a large company with resources and a research and development department. The other factor is that the cost is democratising their use. They’re on the truck as a standard tool.” These tools include ARRI’s existing stabilisation systems: the Steadicam-style stabiliser Artemis, the MAXIMA gimbal, the TRINITY stabilisation system and the company’s latest, the SRH-3 stabilised remote head. “It’s a fully stabilised, three-axis remote head. The technology that’s in those other systems has been improved and adapted,” explains Lennox. At $67,000, the SRH-3 is clearly a serious investment. It’s low enough, though, that Lennox can reasonably suggest that “they’ve brought the price down to the point where it can be owner-operated.”

MOTION IMPOSSIBLE

real world. Drewett calls the solution: “Magtracks”. “It’s a magnetic strip that you lie down instead of track,” he explains. “It’s great for all types of filming where you want encoded positions, so we know where we are. In places where you would ordinarily have track, you can use this instead. It takes a lot less time to set up.” The applications in both narrative and sports broadcasting are clear, with one advantage that isn’t immediately obvious: robot dollies (in the form of small electric vehicles) are unregulated. As Drewett says, “You can just drive down a street with it.” If Motion Impossible’s compact, ground-hugging robot dollies represent one extreme of the camera movement spectrum, helicopter aviation represents the other. As mentioned previously, companies provide aviation services to UK productions, and while many have expanded to include drone options and newer, more flexible equipment, most agree the fundamentals of helicopter camerawork haven’t changed in some time.

Some shots need to move faster than a human can run – a requirement satisfied by Motion Impossible’s remote-controlled vehicles. Founder Rob Drewett is a wildlife cameraman, with experience on BBC productions like Planet Earth II . He explains: “We’re trying to make a robotic dolly system that can repeatably do moves below 2m in height without a person operating it. I was always one for fluid movement and wanted to have other ways of moving the gimbal.” Drewett describes the genesis of the company: “My business partner was the chairman of a local radio control club. He said: ‘you put in the money, I’ll put in the time, we’ll make robotic dolly system’.” This initial attempt was primitive in comparison to the company’s current device, Agito. “Our first was based on a radio-controlled vehicle. The Agito is nothing like that – it’s a complete, bespoke, fully designed robotic dolly.” Flexible though the Agito is, repeatable moves require electronic reference to the

54 DEF I N I T ION | FEBRUARY 20 1 9

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