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Assaff Rawner, managing director of Sussex, U.K.-based Marc Roberts Motion Control (MRMC), one of the leading motion control systems manufacturers, admitted that "because motion tracking has gotten better and better, to a certain extent, it’s become competitive. A lot of shots that before required motion control, now can be done with motion tracking because they only require a single pass.
"But he added that the combination of motion tracking software and motion control has opened up some interesting new possibilities. [an error occurred while processing this directive] "You can do motion tracking [on old footage] and then you feed that data to the motion control rig to shoot your additional pass. You could, for instance take footage from the 1950s, track it, and then go to bluescreen with motion control and add an additional actor into the scene. In the past, you could do that by hand, but it would be really hard.
"Rawner explained that, "Our expertise is in making mechanics which are extremely rigid, because you don’t want the camera shaking. And that can be quite hard to do when you have a long arm and a heavy camera at the other end."
The company recently released IKTRIX, a software package developed in conjunction with Softimage, Aardman Animations, and Bristol University, which analyzes previsualization data to make sure that the camera moves will be possible in the real world, (based on the specs of MRMC rigs) and then feeds that previs data to the motion control rig.
"The clever thing about the software is that it can check to make sure it can run the move — that the move doesn’t exceed the limits, doesn’t go too fast or accelerate to hard," explained Rawner.
The software was recently used on a Peugeot spot done by France-based effects house, Mikros Image, which features a single camera move sweeping through and around a new Peugeot 307. Using IKTRIX the company was able to plan the shot in advance, and see where the camera or the rig might collide with the car as it swept into the sunroof, or through an open door.
Mike Connor, of Motion Control Cameras, a U.K.-based motion control special effects house that has handled motion control for numerous feature films including Die Another Die, the Harry Potter films and Lost in Space, was one of the first to test the software.
Connor recently ordered a Thomson Viper camera along with 5D’s new Commander On-set for motion control work. Introduced at IBC, Commander On-set comes with five hours of uncompressed storage and can record the uncompressed, 10-bit log, RGB footage from the Viper, providing filmmakers with an instant playback facility and the ability to edit takes together immediately.
"This is big news for movie makers and anyone considering shooting special effects with HD. The Thomson Viper is a very impressive camera in its own right. We have one on order and will be taking footage directly into 5D Commander and 5D Cyborg for on-set visualizing and effects compositing. The beauty is that you can view footage instantly, and composite multiple camera passes within minutes."Connor added that, "We can see that there is going to be enormous interest in this, especially in TV sector."
Stitch Opens Insert Stage
Meanwhile, in New York earlier this year Stitch opened an insert stage and hired 29-year industry veteran Nick Mavroson to handle the motion control work.
Mavroson reported that it is now probably the busiest motion control stage in the city. Used mainly for spot work as well as documentaries and indie films, the stage is big enough for stand up, greenscreen shoots, but Mavroson reported that most of the work is table-top product shots for commercials.
The stage is 10 ft by 16 ft, and features an Interactive Motion Control (IMC) system. "We changed the computers to a Kuper system and that runs the computer that moves the machinery," he explained. "We have a full boom arm motion control, and the unit has nine axis of movement, programmable on both the camera and the table so you can do moves and repeat the moves."
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| Toronto-based Command Post Toybox uses its Milo (from Marc Roberts Motion Control) for a shoot. |
In addition to spot work, Mavroson does a lot of work for documentary clients and cable networks including, MTV, VH1, A&E, American Movie Classics, Sundance, the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. For documentaries, much of the work involves shooting slides.
This is another area where software is starting to creep in. Mavroson reported that he has experimented with After Effects for pans and zooms on slides. "That did interest me until I started doing a lot of testing on it. I found that it doesn’t have the same move or quality of a motion control unit," he explained. "They are still about four years away from getting it right, because basically what you are doing is taking the pixels and just stretching it. And a lot of the clients that started going that way — by scanning it in, putting it in After Effects and then doing the zooms and pans — went back to the old conventional way of shooting it on the animation stand."
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