MOVI -- Competitors

Very interesting. On my Alexmos setup, when an axis is forced out of a commanded position it will smoothly return to this commanded position. Return speed controlled by "I" in the GUI. Give it a try!

I'll happily upload a video demonstrating this.

 

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The biggest injury to mankind in this industry is to DOPs /cinematographers is damaged backs, the ls51 part of the spine starts to rub and grind when lifting heavy objects for long periods of time that's why the Steadicam and vest was invented, the MoVI is will recreate that problem just remember these words when your hear this in years to come , Hollywood will never adapt to the MoVI especially when you can see moves like this.

 

a pro set up like this for a 100+ million dollar film only costs ten grand with all the bells and whistles so if you can have skills like this and full movability like this why break you back holding a bloody MoVI , Vincent laforet clearly says it hurts after only five minutes, I've had a vest set up on for several hours without an issue !!

Just watch what it and see a true skill and art of stabilising a camera !!!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdp6-8FJn5c

 

Wilson, I definitely agree with your point, vitriolic tone notwithstanding, that you cannot hold the MoVI for very long in front of you without tiring. I owned a Steadicam for many years, as did many who now own the M10. It is a great tool.

If one needed to hold a camera "for several hours without an issue" then I don't think the MoVI is the right tool. Also, if tracking a subject at close to the same lens height for a shot is what you need to do, then the Steadicam rocks.

However, if you're on a very typical film set and want to do more intricate or complicated moves, and a given scene between "roll camera" and "cut" is around 3-5 minutes, then the MoVI might work better for you. For example, yesterday I shot a scene where in one setup I tracked a couple out of a luxury hotel getting into a limo, pulling back low/wide scraping the ground on a 16mm lens, then handing off the MoVI to an operator in the limo who then passed it back to someone out the other door of the limo. This created a seamless shot that smoothly pulled back all the way through a limo. An incredible shot that took us 4 takes to get right, and couldn't be done with anything other than possibly a Supertechno if the head could even fit through, which I doubt.

Or last week when the Key Grip rigged it (in 10 minutes) under a horse wagon, and I got a great stabilized shot tilting down at the road 6" away as it raced by, slowly tilting up to reveal wagon wheels and horses hooves. Another great shot, barely possible before the MoVI or without a gyroscopically stabilized head or heavy post stabilization.

Or the day after when we quickly rigged it to a high rafter in a barn to get a big wide dutch-rolling overhead shot of a scene.

I've rigged to car mounts, I've rigged it to cantilevered truss on a scissor lift, giving us a smooth pull-up-and-away shot using the jerky lift's power, which the MoVI stabilized perfectly. I go from Low Mode to High Mode in half my handheld shots, another thing impossible with a traditional Steadicam.

Between all these special setups, I'm also using it in every scene doing regular "Steadicam" moves, with very little transition time. And that brings me to your point that "Hollywood will never adapt." Perhaps you're right, but every producer I've been around with it (currently producers with Academy Awards on their mantles) quickly sees the additional value it adds compared with it's cost, and that will always be the bottom line.

 

I disagree, Howard. I have worked with the Movi a little bit now, after months using various alexmos setups. I think the motors in the Movi are something very different. You can't feel the poles/cogging steps at all. And for that reason they respond much differently to movement and being jerked out of position, whereas an Alexmos setup will jump one or more steps when it reaches its power limit, the Movi acts more like a damper and smoothly goes out of position AS WELL as back into position. I can imagine how this helps enormously with vibration. In all my hours and hours tuning the alexmos setup, trying a multitude of combinations of PID's, it was worlds away from adjusting the Stiffness setting on the Movi. ONE setting to tune the performance of the stabilization on each axis. How is that exactly like alexmos?? Balancing the camera is critical in any setup, so that's a given.
Moreover, the Movi uses encoders on each axis, which opens up a whole can of worms I'm not qualified to speak about, but I know it gives it higher functionality.
Now as for the Roll drift. Yes, it seems that the Movi will lean into the movement sometimes, just like it happened with the Radians. A good operator can compensate for this, but the overall leveling performance of the Radians and Movi are on a different level than anything else in this range, so it appears it might be a compromise. The alexmos will do the Exact same thing if you have the Gyro Trust on the low end, and even with a high gyro trust a lot depends on your setup being perfectly perpendicular axis and calibrated correctly. The zenmuse is famous for drifting roll all over the place over time.
If you've worked with the Movi 1st hand you know it is a damn fine piece of gear, and a very different (and MUCH more pleasurable) piece of gear to use than any Alexmos controlled gimbal so far. Is it perfect?? No way, but it comes closer than any of the other copies out there. The proof is in the footage. There's plenty of video like "I built this DIY MeVi for $126" and there is jitters and poor stabilization all over the place, and that's with a small camera.
Just my 2 cents. Planning to have a friends Movi in the air next week!

 

The footage coming from a properly configured Alexmos and Movi setup are indistinguishable.

Tim, again it all boils down to tuning and using the correct components. Once you're past that the footage coming from a properly configured Alexmos and Movi setup are indistinguishable. There are countless examples that prove this. If you're a technically saavy user and want to save $12K you can have an Alexmos setup with EQUAL performance to Movi. It's already been proven countless times. Obviously there are users who are unable to get the Alexmos properly setup (like yourself) and OF COURSE there are users who are having issues with Movi, like some users here in the forum and the many that contacted FF directly by email.

Forget the tuning aspect, it's the end results that we're after and the end results are equal

 

Howard, the results are comparable with a perfect Alexmos setup, but:

Working on a set with a crew and a maybe slightly impatient director/dop is another important if not crucial point when making an investment in equipment. I have the Mōvi up and running in less then fifteen minutes, if needed, regardless what cam i get. Try this with a copy..i did quite often ;-) by the way, i'm working with copters and remoteheads since 2007 and had one of the first ever alexmos three-axis firmware on two 2-axis boards. I would never trust a "chinese-style" piece of gear when working in a real set situation, when everybody is waiting for you.

It's what made me choose the Mōvi, and thinking of my experiences so far, it was the right decision. I nearly have my investment back, in less than three months and am in the need of thinking about nr. 2, since the number of requests is rising day by day.


My 2 cents...

Cheers,

Wolf

 

Well said, Wolf.
Howard, I agree bout it being about the results, but I think you'll find the success rate to get to there is much much lower for anything other than the movi right now, and so, for the average person that wants this tool to work with minimal hassle, their best option is to spend the extra $$.
This is probably why the zenmuse locked their gimbals into one camera and lens combination, to take the tuning part out of it.

 

Altough I have a Movi 10 and others Alexmos based gimbals, I can´t see any difference on the footage from both. They are both difficult to tune properly. I agree that Movi has a totally different feel but if you had 32bit processors on the Alexmos boards that´s when the things will get interesting. Every software release from Alexmos gets better. I have to say that in all the jobs I did with the Movi I had 0 problems...still I can´t say the opposite about the Alexmos. One comes ready to use (Movi), the other ones with Alexmos come ready to be tuned. If you know it you´ll get results if not you won´t....But that is the same as Steadicam vs Glidecam vs Flycam vs whatever. They all have their space and that is why I have both.

There will always be people who can´t tune a gimbal....People thought that it was a kind of magic connecting a battery and going out shooting. Exactly like steadicams there is a lot of physics on the Movi + electronics...it is not easy to balance and tune if you are not an insider. I recently got a rental for 5 days and the client didn´t want to pay my fees. Ok I balanced and tuned the gimbal. By the end of day one the production was calling me to ask if I could operate it for the remainder of the shoot as it was not easy to shoot with it. They had excellent camera operators but a Movi is a Movi and it has to be practiced and studied. It is not plugging in the battery and start flying it around. It doesn´t work like that...

 

Hi Wilson:

I have to partially disagree with you. I have been operating steadicams for many years and even with a vest the weight is so forward heavy that we break our backs just to avoid the rig to tilt forward. In some ocasions I had to operate it for a few hours in a row and to be honest it was a nightmare. It can´t even be compared in terms of weight to the Movi...Of course hand holding the Movi for long time it is not easy but nothing that can´t be solved with an easy rig or even a steadicam arm. Yes even using a steadicam arm the weight of the frame is completely different between both the steadicam and Movi. You don´t have even half as much on the Movi as you have on the steadicam. I also use the easyrig a lot and the Movi has been a revolution to my work and clients. Probably that is why I have already paid it back in full...I probably would need another but I only have one pair of arms and legs so who will operator the second unit?