In the field of movies and TV production, motion control refers to 'precise and repeatable control of the camera movement, focus, zoom, iris..' Its been widely used in movies and commercials these days. I'm not sure about TV series since I dont watch TV at all :)
To explain better the standard possibilites of motion control technology, watch these 4 parts of Mark Robert's Motion Control Demo..
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
But, for viewers from USA and some other countries, WMG has blocked Part 3 due to copyright issues (Sad!)
As you have noticed, its majorly used for VFX where on the post production end two or more clips are composited into single clip and the effects work seamless..
An interesting example...
This was shot at 600 fps with Phantom Gold HD camera. I came to know from the blog of Vincent Laforet(the DP of this commercial) that he has used 225,000 watts of light, f 2.0, 360º shutter. HELL YEAH! still a very little amount of light reaching the sensor. Check out 'behind the scenes' here.
But the point is... Motion control was used here to do multiple shots with different focus points.
"You’ll notice one shot where the actor puts his foot down from the cab – `and the actress is running towards him. Getting them both in focus at 600 fps wide open would have been impossible. Here is the magic of Motion Control + a great post house to splice them together seamlessly." - From his blog
And this one down here with the use of time-slice technology....
No clue how they did it.. I came up with so many possibilities... but check the discussion about this on VFXTalk.com here.
And to add the awesomeness to this, the camera data saved on either end can be used on the other. For example, let say you have a 3D previz of your shot. The camera data can be exported from the 3D applications and imported into the motion control system. And, it works the other way too. The motion control camera can export camera data into the 3D applications for 3D modelling, matte painting, compositing, etc.. HOW COOL?
Check out more cool stuffs here.
Now, watch this clip..It is from my semester film I shot when I did Cinematography in NYFA..
This could be done using motion control. But instead, I merged 3 different static shots in After Effects and created a camera to pan. You could actually see the attachment(flaw) towards the end on the front wall- a thin vertical line.. Thats because of the light change when I shot the third(right-most) clip when I asked my crew to sit on the bed. I didnt realize that they cast shadows over that wall. Quiet easy to fix, but too lazy :p
Text me to know more on how to make shot like this. Pretty easy and could be done just with a camera, tripod and a little knowledge in After Effects. This trick can be used to make so many cool shots as long as there is no dolly which creates the 3rd dimension and its not possible to attach the clips in post unless the very same camera movement is done in precise timing in every shot. Thats the reason motion control evolved.
Alright, I think we have enough to cover the basics. I will try to find more technical side of this, may be some post production works of the footages shot with motion control. Later!
