Pacific Motion Control

This promo for the Google Science Fair, featuring a fantastic Rube Goldberg machine consisting of typical science fair elements, was filmed in a single continuous pass using the Graphlite motion control camera crane.

Motion Control Operator – Paul Maples
Motion Control Tech – Adam Francis

TNT Leverage Season 3 Promo – Behind the Scenes

Pacific Motion Control’s Cheetah Dolly was recently used to film a promo for season 3 of the TNT show “Leverage”. The dolly was running at full speed and carrying a Phantom HD high-speed camera. The rig captured some breathtaking footage of the Leverage cast frozen in the act of creating mayhem.

TNT Leverage Season 3 Promo

First in Motion Control

These commercials for Samsung were filmed, using the Cheetah high-speed motion control dolly, and a custom built low-profile head. The client needed a fully repeatable motion control dolly, and an extremely low-profile head for this shoot, and the cheetah was the only dolly that would do the job. It was required to move at 20 feet per second, throughout the whole shoot, and did so without any problems. The Servo motor and geared track drive proved to be very accurate and fast, and the rig could repeat both slow and high-speed moves perfectly.

The custom low-profile head was constructed specifically for this commercial, and measured just 5″ from it’s base, to the top of the camera plate, yet it had fully repeatable pan, adjustable, locking tilt, and could hold a full sized 35mm camera package, but in this case, a Sony F23 CineAlta high-definition digital camera was used to film multiple passes at different frame rates.

Footage from this shoot was also used extensively for interactive content on the Samsung website.

View some behind the scenes footage from this commercial shoot on the Cheetah Dolly page.

The commercial was produced by Motion Theory.

Motion Control Operator – Rob Menapace

Motion Control Technician – Craig Shumard

Second Motion Control Technician – Garritt Hampton

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