Mark Roberts Motion Control

FOR MOVERS, NOT SHAKERS

Milo shoots "splashing" 3D Stereoscopic Spot for Fuji 

When Fuji wanted a commercial that really communicated the 3D Stereoscopic capabilities of their new camera, they turned to director Tim Stoffel to bring across the message about their Fuji Finepix Real 3dw3. The camera takes pictures in perfect stereo and even shoots 720p HD video in stereoscopic.

With the help of Julian Hermanssen, from Visual Distractions, as the VFX supervisor and Frank Griebe at the helm as DoP (famed for his work on movies such as Run Lola Run, Perfume and The International), the end result as you will see from the “Making of” video is quite spectacular.

Initial pre-production testing with a Swiss-Rig stereo system carrying 2x F23 Sony cameras on a Milo motion control rig takes place in Germany with TKL (a Hamburg based motion control company).

Then for the actual production, although the scene looks like New York, it was actually all filmed in Sofia Bulgaria, at an outside film lot, with another Milo.

The basic premise for the commercial is that a man shows his friends his New York pictures and they walk around in the scene, frozen time. The water in the scene is also standing, frozen, but when one friend asks if the camera can shoot video too, everything starts to move and the water runs and he gets wet.

VFX Supervisor Julian said, “We wanted to shoot most of the effects in camera, so we had the skater rigged on wires and some objects on rigs. To be able to do cleanup work and to allow for combination of takes (since getting the 2 children to stand perfectly still is quite difficult) we decided to use motion control. Using motion control also allowed us to do a separate tracking pass with some light stands right in front of the camera. This tracking pass was very important on this shot because it increases your precision in 3D tracking a lot and we had to integrate CGI water right in front of the camera. With this tracking pass we had a very stable solution and easily calculated both cameras precisely from the footage of the 2 cameras on the stereo rig.”

Julian further explains, “We used clean plates for rig removals, split layers of the actors from different takes and since we had a tree and some wind on the set we were able to shoot an extra pass for the tree when the wind was still. To time all that with actors, kids and the skater and do it in one take when there was no wind, would have taken a while without motion control.”

“We did the CGI water as a fluid simulation in 'realflow' with motion blur along the direction of the fountain (not because that is realistic in this camera move but it is how people are used to seeing this kind of image from real life photos, since we wanted the tip to have very clear drops we had a falloff on the motionblur from start to tip). In the end we did quite a lot of replacements on the set, scaled one actor (the skater) to 75% size in a camera move for a cinemascope version (requested after the shoot) and also added some CGI water on scenes with real moving water.

Without  the extra layers shot by the Milo we couldn’t have done it at all. Everything worked out really well on the spot and everyone was really happy with the result.”

MRMC at Cine Gear Expo, Los Angeles  

		3-4 June 2011, Los Angeles Register today
MRMC will be exhibiting again this year at Cine Gear, Paramount Pictures Studio Lot. On display and available for demo will be some of our smaller rigs, the Ulti-Head and SFH-50. Follow the link above to register for free before the 28th of May. Everyone is welcome to visit. We look forward to seeing you there.   MRMC for the first time at Annecy Film Festival 8-10 June 2011 Annecy, France   Join Mark Roberts Motion Control at the Annecy Film Festival this year in Annecy France.   The Animoko Rig on stop frame feature, "The Sandman and the Lost Sand of Dreams" We will have some of our latest products in stop frame animation on display and available for demonstration including the Animoko Rig (seen here on the left), the S3 Steroscopic 3D stepper and new S4 Steroscopic stepper with convergence. We will also be bringing along the SFH-30 Pan Tilt Head with track system for stop frame animation. We look forward to seeing you at the show. Motion Control Training Course The date has been set for the next Milo Motion Control Training course, with the Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced courses taking place on June 28th, 29th and 30th respectively. Book now to avoid disappointment!

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