The extremely versatile SFH-30 

From basketball and football broadcast events, stop frame animation, remote head camera work for commercials to crowd timelapse photography, the SFH-30 seems to be everywhere making that perfect shot attainable. Due to its small light-weight build, low cost, high precision and its ability to handle the RED and other small HD cameras, the SFH-30 is rapidly becoming the remote and motion control head of choice for DSLR and small HD cameras. 

For more information on the SFH-30 click here or if you are looking to pencil in a rental of the SFH-30 email info@mrmoco.com or call +44 (0) 1342 334 700.  

This past month the SFH-30 was used with a RED camera in Japan.  The head was being used as a remote head to get in and film in detail the inside of a car.  Below are some pictures from the shoot.
 

Milo on the set of Max Payne

 In our May 2008 newsletter we mentioned Operator Jerry Andrews and Technician Craig Perrin from Kinetic Camera in Toronto had been working with a Milo on the feature film Max Payne. At the time we couldn't say or show a whole lot. With the film now released here are some photos and details of how the shots were done using the Milo.

The bedroom scene was shot with our Milo crane, which produced almost a 360 degree wrap-around on Mark Wahlberg, making full use of Milo’s ability to rotate the 3-axis slimline head, while keeping the roll level. No other motion control crane can do this, and it allowed us to put a relatively small crane into a small set, and still produce a large radius move. The track was laid across the back of the room, behind Mark, so there was no rig removal to do in post production, as there would have been with circular track. The move was programmed and shot in one day, including the dramatic set change.

Images courtesy of 20^th Century Fox
Time slice of the bedroom shots (included in the trailer)

The gun shot was achieved on a Phantom camera at 1000 frames per second at HD resolution. The shot is actually rotating around the gun at a real-time speed of 2 revs per second. (Two full revolutions of the camera around the hand at a distance of 3 feet). This was achieved using an adapted MRMC 2-axis model mover, driven by a 220v AC servo motor under the control of MRMC FLAIR software. The use of motion control allowed the rig to be stopped and started with minimum overshoot (important to protect the hard-wired camera system) and also to provide a timing cue for the gun fire at ‘top dead centre’ of the camera cycle.

Images courtesy of 20^th Century Fox
Time slice of the gun shot (included in the trailer)

Motion Control Tutorial on You Tube

One of the most popular items on our showreel DVD has always been the Motion Control Tutorial. Click on the below links to watch our four part Tutorial on youtube. This tutorial is ideal for anyone wanting to learn more about motion control techniques.