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MRMC Newsletter
26th April 2006
| This Month: •TALOS - THE NEW RIG FROM MRMC •MARK ROBERTS MOTION CONTROL 40TH ANNIVERSARY •BSC SHOW SUCCESS •MRMC MAQUETTE SYSTEM •NEW DEVLOPMENTS IN FLAIR |
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| Announcing 'Talos' the latest motion
control rig from Mark Roberts Motion Control The Talos, to be released later this year, will be our latest compact, lightweight, portable, live-action rig designed for Motion Control. This latest design incorporates all the unique concepts, knowledge and skills from the same Academy Award winning design team giving you the best performance possible in a compact motion control rig. Every aspect of the Talos rig has been driven by a combination of market and customer requirements and expertise in the industry. Following this extensive research and investigation, Talos's design is one we feel excited and proud to announce. The Talos's ability to access a standard doorway (without the need for dismantling) which other rigs might find an obstacle has been carefully considered. Exceptionally fast to set up and a wide range of planned characteristics, the Talos will have a spectacular and diverse range of movements for its compact size. Controlled by Flair motion control
software and with all the award winning features that facilitate
ease of use and flexibility, Talos outsmarts all
other moco rigs of it's size. It utilizes the popular
Ulti-head with its Pan/Tilt (and optional Roll) which has the
additional benefit to be removed for use as a stand alone MOCO or
Remote head. |
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| MRMC's 40th Birthday Celebrations This year sees the celebration of forty years of innovation from Mark Roberts Motion Control. The history of our company started with Mark Roberts, our founder and chairman, who was born in Western Australia in the early 30’s. After his education in civil engineering he moved to the UK where upon he had several careers including a stint as an engineer for an American based company Oxberry who produced animation stands and optical printers and a storeman at Lotus, during their pioneering days, where as you can see here he even took the wheel himself on several occasions. In May 1966 Mark set up Mark Roberts Film Services.
Mark in his racing days. The company ‘Mark Roberts Film Services’ had several contracts with companies in London to service their special effects equipment at night and weekends. Mark spent the rest of his time working on designing and manufacture. In 1972 he produced one of the first Rostrum cameras controlled by an analogue computer and 1975 saw the first digital computer version. Cameramen, including the great Ken Morse, found these systems enabled accurate work to be completed quickly. Ken still works continuously in his Soho studio, still with the Mark Roberts MRC animation stand, nearly thirty years on!
A couple of the early popular motion control computers With the release of the film ‘Star Wars’ in 1977 there was a demand for motion control in the industry. The company therefore embarked upon the design and manufacture of innovative 3D machines. Having been asked to build a full motion control system to bring freedom of camera movement to the cameraman, to replace the simple up and down and table movement that was only available with the current systems. Mark Roberts Film Services floor mounted, overhead rigs and customised Panther dollies were to set new standards in performance especially in regard to smoothness of motion.
Mark
inspecting gears and components. In the early 1990’s the company was renamed ‘Mark Roberts Motion Control’ to reflect its current products. Special ‘one-offs’ led to a demand for a standard ‘off the shelf’ system so in 1993 Cyclops our studio based Motion control rig was born and before long customers were requesting a portable system of the same caliber. Enter the Milo in 1994. Not surprisingly Cyclops and Milo have sold extensively in London (the capital of outstanding special effects) and as far afield as Russia, Korea, Australia and Tokyo. There are now over 40 Milos worldwide - the best-selling motion control system.
One of the many 'custom built' overghead rigs and Cyclops the ultimate in motion control.
The 'Milo design team' receiving their Academy Awards
Following the release of Juno in 2000, a smaller motion
control system and the Ulti-head, our modular pan/tilt
remote head in 2004 and numerous other smaller products
and software during this time. We are now looking forward to continuing
to develop and manufacture innovative and market leading ideas in the
motion control market and we have no doubt that the future will be
equally as exciting. Of course we will be keeping you regularly
informed with our Motion Control Update Newsletter |
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| BSC Show Success The new Ulti-head track system and 360 degree roll shown at the British Society of Cinematographers show last month proved very popular. Working with industry standard rails and using MRMC racking or toothed belt (on request), the system provides an invaluable additional axis of motion to the Ulti-Head. Able to achieve speeds in excess of 3 metres per second, the compact track/dolly system allows the user to either fit a tripod directly on the platform or use extendable "bazookas" (columns) with the Ulti-head mounted on top. Currently being worked on and also due to be released soon are curved rail adaptions to allow the head to achieve full 360 degree circles, as well as vertical lifting columns.
Some of the Mark Roberts staff pictured with the Ulti-head track system at the BSC show |
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| MRMC Maquette System A few months ago MRMC delivered an interface to the VFX Co to provide them with a 6-degrees of freedom model-mover system for special effects. The motion base platform is capable of moving a 1-ton load in any direction or rotation and is currently being used for a feature film to simulate actors riding flying dragons. Now MRMC have designed and supplied a "Maquette" or 1/6th scale model of the model mover which can be moved by hand to directly record and control the motions of the full sized model mover. Special sensors within the arms of the Maquette allow Flair to record the users motion and directly control the motions of the dragon.
6-degrees of freedom model-mover system and the MRMC maquette |
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| Rig Model in Flair and V5 development Several major new developments have recently been added to Flair with more planned for the rest of the year. The first is the implementation of a 3D graphical model of the Milo within Flair. This allows the user to program in moves and view on-screen how the rig will perform those moves. The animated 3D model can show a perpective view from any direction or a camera view showing what the camera will see through the lens. Additionally the animated model move can be exported as an AVI or MPEG movie, therefore simple to email, showing what the rig will be doing or what the rig was doing on set. While a more advanced version of this facility is available within Pre-visualization packages like IKTRIX, this rig model allows for very straight-forward 3D viewing of moves within Flair to complement the existing pre-viz packages. It also has the added advantage of being an excellent Flair learning tool by allowing you to run Flair on a laptop and see the move executed without connecting to a full-sized rig. Moves can be run in complete safety even by complete novices! Also currently in development is version 5 of Flair which is currently undergoing a complete overhaul.
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| Join the discussion group today at http://www.mocoforum.com | |
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Do you know anyone else who should be getting regularly informed
about the industry? Let us know; we would be happy to send them our
newsletters or DVD Showreel - The 2005 Motion Control Explained DVD. |
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