Anyone that has used a gimbal without a support harness for longer than a few hours knows that it can get exhausting, and stretching the use longer can be downright painful. Now, many people will say: "hey, why don't you get a Support Vest to take the weight?" That is a viable option. However, with those systems, you're frequently locked into a height, and you don't have the opportunity to change from a low level shot to a high level shot. Even shooting freehand, you're only able to get as high as your arms will reach.
A Solution
Well, what would you say if someone told you that you could combine the smoothness of the gimbal, the vertical movement of a jib, and to top it off, move the weight from your arms and shoulders to your hips and legs? Sounds good right? Apparently, a company called Cinema Devices has done just that and more. Unveiled this week at NAB, their Antigravity Rig promises to be an easy-to-use system that gives you everything above as well as isolating foot steps from the camera setup, giving you, with practice, smooth, fluid movement in a huge range of motion.
With it just being released at NAB, there isn't too much more information at this exact moment than what is in the videos, but some of the key things of note are:
- No Counterweights: This means no added weight to the rig for the sake of balancing out the system.
- Body-Mounted Suspension System: This means less strain and less extended lengths of time of muscle exertion leading to rapid fatigue.
- Weightless Operation: The system relies on the mechanical advantage via suspension cables to make it fluid and effortless throughout the entire range of motion.
- Rigid and Durable Construction: It's able to carry some of the heaviest cameras on the market with the same ease of use.
What this means is that smaller film crews with less equipment can achieve similar results to using a jib, dolly, and Steadicam all in one device, without having to switch mounts and units for different types of motion. Product launch is in July, and base price starts at $10,000 USD. More info can be found at Cinema Device's website.
[via No Film School]
I can just Imagine the first crew to use these at a wedding.
I totally would! Haha
This would be definitely for bigger productions.
It could be indeed, but you never know what could happen to someones creativity on smaller projects if they could get their hands on something like this. Literally opening up a new axis of thinking. The price point definitely makes that a challenge though but you never know what could happen.
Definitely looks amazing. Look forward to a cloned version for 1/5 the price.
If the gimbal is operated by a crew of 3: a carrier, a framing operator and a focus puller, they can just switch roles every 2 or 3 takes to avoid exhaustion. Doesn't cost a dime and people don't get stuck into one role. My 2 cents.
Well in theory that's a good idea, however that only takes care of the problem of the fatigue on the operator and doesn't add to the range of motion which is one of the principle advantages of the system above. Additionally, I don't know too many camera operators that work for free often so not costing a cent I would consider to be kinda inaccurate. Granted for a single project it may be cheaper but if you're main business is video production investing in something like this might not be a bad thing. Everyone has their opinion and style though but thanks for reading!
That's not what I meant, I'll detail more.
Considering a solution to fatigue only, you have 2 solutions:
1. have 3 operators and switch them
VS
2 .have 3 operators anyway, don't switch them and rent/buy the antigravity rig.
Therefore, if solving for fatigue only, solution 1 is the cheapest and easiest to implement.
If you want to consider additional range of motion such as simulating a jib, most of the time you probably also want the jib's motion restrictions i.e. being able to lift the cam in a perfectly vertical plane ... which you can't do with the antigravity rig. Just as you cannot have a perfect dolly move with a movi or steadicam. Different tools for different uses and purposes.
My guess is this one is overkill and is adding an unwanted layer of complexity to an already complex tool: a gimbal stabilizer.
Gimbal stabilizers are popular for 2 reasons: they open a new world of motion and they are easier to grasp (but not to master) than a steadicam. BUT they are a high tech solution to the stabilisation problem VS the steadicam being a low-tech solution to the stabilisation problem. That means a steadicam or a jib has less chance to fail than a gimbal and even less chance to fail than a gimbal with an antigravity rig.
Conclusion, I think this rig will only serve for very specific and seldom uses.
DROOL!!!! WANT!!!