Pacific Motion Control

On the set of a recent Tsubaki commercial, I had the opportunity to capture a few hundred pictures of the Gazelle Motion Control Camera Crane in action, in order to put together a couple of really good 3D photo sets on Microsoft’s Photosynth website. For someone unfamiliar with motion control equipment, this is a good opportunity to see what a motion control camera crane looks like, set up and ready to go.

For this shot, we were on a very long track run, and the rig needed to go about 13 feet per second, so we were using our large servo track motor, and a 5/1 gear ratio for the track drive. we also needed to pan very quickly, so we fitted our motion control pan/tilt head with a servo motor for pan, and a large servo amplifier rode on the rig.

At the time of this shoot, this was as fast as we could possibly make the Gazelle go, and it performed flawlessly. Since this time, we built a much faster track drive system. Originally built for the Cheetah dolly, this track drive system can be used on all of our rigs, giving them the fastest tracking speeds of any full motion control systems.

Many people assume that because motion control equipment is precise and repeatable, that shots filmed with motion control will feel sterile or mechanical. The two commercials below illustrate how motion control can be used to capture a “live” or “hand held” camera feel, while still allowing for precise repeatability for filming multiple passes and background plates.

Pacific Motion Control can provide handwheels or panbar encoders for live control of our motion control pan/tilt, or pan/tilt/roll heads. Additionally, we can provide encoders for dolly/track, all crane axes, and focus, iris and zoom, which allow for complete control of the rig and camera lens when designing shots. This means that very organic moves can be recorded live, then repeated precisely. In addition to our standard encoder package, Pacific Motion Control can provide a Preston FIZ motion control interface or a full Preston kit including wireless hand controller, receiver, and motors.

90 Second Ad

60 Second Ad

“Making-Of” The Commercial

Filmed in January, 2009 on a stage and on location in Los Angeles, using the Gazelle live-action motion control dolly and a motion control bogie dolly on circular track.
Motion Control Operator – Mike Leben
Motion Control Techs – Craig Shumard, Garritt Hampton, Adam Francis

Mexican pop singer Yuridia is  an international sensation, with 2 Diamond albums in Mexico, 18 Platinum albums in Mexico, 2 Platinum albums in the Unites States, 23 Gold certified albums in Mexico, 3 Gold certified albums in the United States, and 2 Gold albums in Central America. She recently spent a day at Pacific Motion Control, filming the music video for the song “Irremediable”. The London Alley Entertainment production was directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, and produced by Christian Heuer. The crew spent two days at Pacific Motion, unloading props and dressing the set on the first day, and filming on the second. With a relatively short time spent on production, the video looks amazingly LARGE!!! Production on the video is top notch, and in just a few weeks since it’s publication on YouTube, the video has received over 1,983,563 views (it is receiving an average of 10,500 views per day!!! This only counts the official version on Yuridia’s channel. There are many copies, with tens of thousands of additional views).

The video was filmed using a Red One camera on the Graphlite motion control crane. The production made very good use of the Pacific Motion stage, and this video is a good example of what can be done in the space.

Yuridia “Irremediable”

Making-Of Yuridia “Irremediable”

Visit Yuridia’s Official YouTube Channel

Visit Yuridia’s official website – www.yuridia.tv