Brian Burling
Active member
Hey, Brian Burling, eMotimo founder here. Lots of questions and great responses. We are excited about this thread. We will check in on Tuesday (a week after this post was put up) about the group buy, but it looks like there is some strong interest.
Let me respond to a few comments/Questions:
Thanks Mike, very nice of you to say. Feeling is mutual and your industry stories are amazing (chat him up at NAB, Mike has secrets). Since last NAB, it's been exciting to bring this project to life with you. Combining eMotimo with Dana Dolly opens up a ton of possibility for our customers. Getting Phil's experience in there too has helped to validate that we are still heading down the right track! Thanks!
Why Dana Dolly though? It is smooth quiet and supports our maximum payload easily. We tuned our motors / size and drivetrain to give us a very usable range of speeds with nearly no motor noise at the most interview speeds. While other integrations are lighter, none have the capacity and balance of speed / quiet, and run length that we have been able to hit with the Dana Dolly. If you need to go light and super portable there are other solutions. If you want a long run with big cameras, this integration with DD is very good.
1. What do I want to shoot with Motion Control and why? Interviews, tabletop product shooting, VFX, timelapse, stop motion, high speed?
2. How usable is it for that function?
3. Does it give me the results I am looking for?
4. Will it support the cameras I shoot with now/future?
5. Does it fit into my existing kit and other solutions?
6. Will it grow with me?
7. What is the total cost of ownership? How much can I make with it?
Well sort of. Getting an easy-to-set up kit is really important to us. Belt tension, alignment, clean mounting, support . . . all of it matters and some of it is surprisingly hard to get right. The kit can be modified, but depending on your skill, results will vary.
As far as using Fz with slider . . yes and encouraged. The power of the spectrum is easily programming your pan/tilt/slide/focus for 2-9 onboard keframes QUICKLY to get natural looking moves that keep the subject framed and and sharp. I think we tackle complex interview setups (where you might need Pan/Tilt/Slide/Fz) very well and get great results without spending a long time setting it up.
Thanks for the questions and considering our gear. We are excited to check in early next week and show what's next.
Best regards and happy Friday,
Brian Burling - eMotimo founder
Let me respond to a few comments/Questions:
Thanks Mike, very nice of you to say. Feeling is mutual and your industry stories are amazing (chat him up at NAB, Mike has secrets). Since last NAB, it's been exciting to bring this project to life with you. Combining eMotimo with Dana Dolly opens up a ton of possibility for our customers. Getting Phil's experience in there too has helped to validate that we are still heading down the right track! Thanks!
Glad they gave you a good demo - really cool new shop they have! Integration to other's sliders? You bet, but we wanted to focus on Dana Dolly first. We like they guys at MYT Works and think they make a sweet slider too. See the next response too.
Yes, works now and has for a long time. In fact, in our original product video, Danny Brown did quite a bit of work on them. https://vimeo.com/160755974 around 1:30. In fact we integrate to lots of companies like Dynamic Perceptions, Rhino Camera Gear, iFootage, and Kessler. Some like it and help cross promote it, some don't as they like to sell their own moco heads. We try to keep our customer's best interests in mind and keep the cost of ownership low without locking them into a brand.
Why Dana Dolly though? It is smooth quiet and supports our maximum payload easily. We tuned our motors / size and drivetrain to give us a very usable range of speeds with nearly no motor noise at the most interview speeds. While other integrations are lighter, none have the capacity and balance of speed / quiet, and run length that we have been able to hit with the Dana Dolly. If you need to go light and super portable there are other solutions. If you want a long run with big cameras, this integration with DD is very good.
I will likely add my opinions later, but not in this post as it requires some tact. Comparing our 4-axis solution that costs about $5K all in, to one that costs about $14-15K** is going to ruffle some feathers. In general we think asking the following questions is really important:
1. What do I want to shoot with Motion Control and why? Interviews, tabletop product shooting, VFX, timelapse, stop motion, high speed?
2. How usable is it for that function?
3. Does it give me the results I am looking for?
4. Will it support the cameras I shoot with now/future?
5. Does it fit into my existing kit and other solutions?
6. Will it grow with me?
7. What is the total cost of ownership? How much can I make with it?
eMotimo can export camera move data for all 4-axis through our API to a text file. This file can be massaged pretty easily in excel or with scripts if you have the knowledge of the destination format. Long term, utilizing the micro sd card for this makes sense.
Not currently on just the onboard computer. We always had this in mind with the microSD card and see the value in it, but we want to ensure we have a clean, well understood workflow. Making mistakes and reloading a 10 foot move on a 6 foot track is exciting in all the wrong ways. Keep track of us in the next couple weeks as we are working on something that we think will be good around this concept.I have a few quick questions
Is it possible to save your programmed moves and then reload them into the system on another day? Is it possible to export the data of the programmed move you have conducted to an SD Card or similar and then reload it onto the system? Also how many programmed moves can the system have stored 'on it' at any one time? Can they be named?
Thank you very muchLooks like an extremely exciting product!
Well sort of. Getting an easy-to-set up kit is really important to us. Belt tension, alignment, clean mounting, support . . . all of it matters and some of it is surprisingly hard to get right. The kit can be modified, but depending on your skill, results will vary.
As far as using Fz with slider . . yes and encouraged. The power of the spectrum is easily programming your pan/tilt/slide/focus for 2-9 onboard keframes QUICKLY to get natural looking moves that keep the subject framed and and sharp. I think we tackle complex interview setups (where you might need Pan/Tilt/Slide/Fz) very well and get great results without spending a long time setting it up.
Thanks for the questions and considering our gear. We are excited to check in early next week and show what's next.
Best regards and happy Friday,
Brian Burling - eMotimo founder
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I had to bring them to a machine shop and have them routed out a bit.
