Movi
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How They Pulled Off Creed’s Two Biggest Shots: A-Camera Operator Ben Semanoff
There are few moments in cinema as iconic as Rocky Balboa bounding up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown galloping alongside him off-screen. The technology for Brown’s camera stabilization system was new enough at the time that the seminal shot required a crew member to sprint behind Brown with two car batteries attached to the camera via jumper cables in order for the rig to function in the cold Philly winter. Creed, an expansion of the Rocky universe from Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler, offers a barometer for the Steadicam’s evolution with its […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 14, 2016 -
“Found Footage with Style”: Cinematographer Maryse Alberti on M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit
As a teenager in the south of France, Maryse Alberti’s first two trips to the cinema led her impressionable eyes to Duel and Harold and Maude. If she’d instead began her cinematic journey with The Barefoot Executive and Escape From the Planet of the Apes, maybe she wouldn’t have become the cinematographer of The Wrestler, Happiness, When We Were Kings and Crumb. But the combined spell cast by Steven Spielberg and Hal Ashby – the great populist entertainer and the iconoclastic humanist – set Albert on a path that has led to a four-decade career pivoting between documentary and fiction. Alberti’s latest straddles […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Sep 21, 2015 -
Steadicam Operator Larry McConkey on Filming the Goodfellas Copacabana Tracking Shot and The Early Days of Steadicam
The Copa Shot: It’s one of the few shots in the history of cinema readily identifiable by name, instantly conjuring the image of Goodfellas gangster Ray Liotta leading Lorraine Bracco – and by extension the audience – through the back entrance of New York’s legendary Copacabana nightclub, as Steadicam operator Larry McConkey glides along behind them. How long did one of film’s most famed tracking shots take to pull off? It was in the can before lunch — which isn’t to say it was easy. With a 25th Anniversary screening of Goodfellas set to close the Tribeca Film Festival on April […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 23, 2015 -
Camera Moves with the Freefly Tero
Freefly made a splash with their MōVI brushless gimbals, and now they have a remote controlled car. The Tero is a remote controlled car that has had a “full overhaul.” This includes run flat wheels, larger shocks, and wire rope isolators between the mounting cheeseplate and the car to further reduce vibration. At the recent Massachusetts Media Expo, Dylan Law, the in-house Freefly MōVI tech at Rule Boston Camera, talked about the car and even did a short demo. The car can reach speeds of up to 55 miles per hour and is literally plug-in and go. The car was fitted […]
by Michael Murie on Sep 10, 2014 -
DJI’s Ronin Hits Camera Stabilizer Arena at NAB – Big Features, Low Price
While today is the official day the exhibition halls open their doors at NAB, last night some companies got to release a sneak peek of some do their new products. Definitely the most exciting in the production field is Ronin, a new handheld gimbal stabilizing system that’s a direct competitor to the MoVI. Like MoVI’s manufacturer, Freefly Systems, Ronin comes from a company with a background in making aerial drones with gyrostabilizers, DJI. They’re probably best known for the Phantom, the GoPro aerial drone that’s made high altitude shots available to just about anyone. While Ronin and MoVI look pretty […]
by Joey Daoud on Apr 7, 2014
