Holiday Video: MōVI M10 in Majestic Mode

by Nino LeitnerDecember 21^st, 2013

I’ve been using my MōVI M10 for a few months now and I am still learning – as with any tool, you get better and better over time. In a series of posts about the gimbal-stablizer, I want to share my journey and learned lessons with you, our great audience. The last MōVI post focused on a test shoot that we did on a cobblestone street, driving up to 65mph, and see how well the rig handled the vibrations (click here).

This time I will write about my experiences on my last MōVI shoot: Screenagers, an über-creative Vienna-based digital agency, hired me to shoot a very special “Jingle Bells” video with them after they heard that I had a MōVI M10.

Around 200 IKEA glasses filled with more or less water, tuned to specific musical notes, spread out over their huge agency loft would be the basis for the video. Add some of the folks from Screenagers to play those glasses, and me following all that with the MōVI M10, and the video is almost done :-)

MōVI M10 operated by Nino Leitner in Vienna at Screenagers for a Christmas special.

We thought about trying to really make this happen in one single long take, but it turned out to be impossible because normal work would have had to stop entirely in the agency to make this happen. Also, we would have been forced to compromise the image in some places because of various issues, and last but not least, it would not have turned out that well … so we went for the “invisible cuts” and I think it was a good choice. Can you say how many edits there are in the video?

We used the MōVI M10 with my Canon C300, a 24mm Canon Cinema Prime, a Bartech Remote Follow Focus (although we used it rarely, I tried to keep the same distance to the glasses mostly at around f/5.6 anyway), Teradek Bolt wireless video transmitter and 5″ and 6″ monitors from Marshall (on the MōVI) and Small HD (at the wireless receiver).

Freefly provides a Mac and Android application to fine-tune settings of the MōVI. Those settings allow to make detailed adjustments for various parameters of the device – among them the reaction window and smoothing of pan and tilt modes in the Majestic Mode. The Majestic Mode is Freefly’s name of single operation of the MōVI – without an operator on the supplied remote control. In other words, the MōVI follows one’s movements in this mode, and the application lets you determine how fast that should happen. It’s really dependent on the kind of the shoot you’re on to determine what would be best. Ideally, I would always work with a remote operator who can work with a remote video uplink (like the Teradek Bolt) – however, it’s not always practical and especially if the budget doesn’t allow for an experienced remote control operator you don’t have much choice. (People who regularly operate other remote heads are definitely more capable of operating the MōVI remote than others – it takes quite a bit of practice to get the grip on this.)

The final shot almost in the can!

The shoot, including camera preparation, took around 10-12 hours. Operating the MōVI for such a long time is really fatiguing as you have to stuck your arms out quite a bit to operate it. It definitely helps to be in good shape if you operate a MōVI, it is very exhausting for your back and lower arms and shoulders after a short time already. If you don’t need to change the height of your shots, consider combining it with an Easyrig like I did on this test shoot (click here).

There’s more great MōVI stuff going online here soon, check back in a few days – we are putting the final touches on a short film I shot for a bunch of students from the Vienna Film Academy in a 24 hour competition sponsored by Red Bull in Berlin. All of it was shot on the MōVI too and it has a really, really special shot in it that you will most likely appreciate :-) Stay tuned and check this space in a few days!

Happy holidays to all of you from the entire crew at cinema5D!

Credits:

Director: Deniz Arslan
Producer: Screenagers & Nino Film
Cinematography / MōVI operator: Nino Leitner
Sound recordist / Boom operator: Rudi Pototschnig
Team Assistant: Katharina Dietl