Robotface Put The Cinebot Mini To The Test
Robotface recently added the Cinebot Mini to their toolkit, harnessing its user-friendly and portable motion control to enhance their workflow. They initially put it to the test in an outdoor shoot in Lorne, taking advantage of its impressive 10-hour battery life. Soon after, Robotface put the Cinebot Mini on track for a shoot with Creamsource, capturing their new Vortex lights range in stunning slow motion and finish off with a heartfelt homage to the original Star Wars trilogy.
User-Friendly And Portable Motion Control
Our mates from down under at Robotface recently got their hands on the new Cinebot Mini and have begun using it for its simple and portable motion control, providing us with some incredible use-case videos.
In their first trial, Robotface deployed the Cinebot Mini for an outdoor shoot in Lorne, with the rig’s lightweight enabling easy transportation and setup outside of a studio environment.
The director of production could personally program keyframes using PushMoco® for fast and efficient filming, moving the bot from one location to another in record time!
The Cinebot Mini’s 10 hour battery life made this all possible, sustaining the rig for the entire shoot day. The user-friendliness provided by the robot increased efficiency 10-fold, proving the Cinebot Mini to be a valuable new tool for Robotface.
In their second project, Robotface collaborated with Director of Production Matt Wood and Creamsource to bring to life their new range of Vortex lights, utilising the Cinebot Mini on track for 7 axes of movement this time.
Once clipped together, the track and robot were easily rolled around the space and lowered into position.The 3m of rail proved to be more than enough and was fully utilised throughout the day to maximise its reach. While the Cinebot Mini may not belong to the high-speed Bolt range, it was still more than capable of delivering quick and dynamic camera movements. Paired with the Phantom VEO 4K shooting at 1,000fps, it resulted in some stunning slow-mo shots!
Finally, Robotface wanted to pay homage to Star Wars and John Dykstra’s pioneering 7-axis camera motion control system. In the original Star Wars trilogy, real model spaceships were filmed on a stick in front of a blue screen, with the camera creating the illusion of movement. Using the first camera motion control system, John and his team captured each spaceship individually, resulting in independent movement when layers were stacked.
Robotface recreated the challenges, shooting their own space battle exclusively with the Cinebot Mini as a model mover. This was made easier by manually shifting the robot to find optimal model positions. Synchronised with the camera on their Bolt robot arm, they replicated orbits and movements. Primarily shooting at T8-16 to maximise model depth of field and enhance scale while preventing a miniature appearance, Robotface found the Cinebot Mini to be an invaluable tool for manipulating lighting around cockpit pilots.
The Cinebot Mini is making motion control more accessible and customisable than ever before, offering countless options for shooting a wide variety of videos. Robotface is proud to have added this little robot to their arsenal and will be releasing even more unique and completely different use cases soon, so stay tuned. Check out the videos below to see the results for yourself!