We didn’t think about it early enough and it almost delayed the original shipments of MōVI.įor MōVI Pro, none of us wanted to cart a stand all over the world, and we really wanted the ability to instantly put the gimbal down to combat operator fatigue. When we built the original MōVI, the stand was a huge pain in the butt. While some of them won’t be enabled at launch, we are excited to see how people will use MIMIC and how we can quickly develop and enable features to allow users to interact with the MōVI in the most natural and organic way. With its suite of sensors and long range wireless, the possibilities that exist with MIMIC are incredible to think about. In the end, we created an incredibly flexible and adaptable building block for our camera movement ecosystem. Control of MōVI Pointing / FIZ / and Camera.When we sat down to design MIMIC for MōVI Pro, we had a huge wish list: We knew we would come back and do a new version of the MIMIC at some point, but wanted the technology in people’s hands until we had the time to tackle the project in earnest. The idea was so powerful we decided to use existing hardware and rush it to market in just over a month. Once we tried it with customers, we were sold. We got the idea to put handles on the controller to create an intuitive controller that allows all camera operators to successfully point the camera. It also makes a really cool growling noise and they made a special “NECKFACE” version for the release of Ty Evans, Neckface video: Shane has helped me tune many a gimbal over the years, but now I can achieve a ‘Shane Tune” even if he is sleeping… He drastically reduced the time it takes to autotune, and added the ability to set the filters. Shane to the rescue…he devised the algorithm behind Autotune V2 which finds optimal settings for Pan,Tilt, and Roll stiffness and filter settings in around 10 seconds! We knew by now that people just want to shoot - not pet and tune their gimbal for hours. We have had plenty of emails over the years where people have had trouble getting smooth footage only to find out their stiffness values are all 10! We knew a key aspect to ultra stable shots was improving customers’ success with tuning and optimizing their gimbal. Basically, only a few people on our team are ‘gimbal whisperers’ and can tune them to their full potential. The optimal tuning changes with lens, gimbal pose, accessories, etc. Being able to hot swap and run on longer periods is Huge. Especially for cable cam shots, previously we were having to battery swap and power down every hour. Ryan: Phenomenal, be able to hot swap and power our Alexa Mini or Red for that amount of time will change our workflow drastically. The feedback from people on set has been that this is one of the best new features on the MōVI Pro.įreefly: How was the workflow with the new batteries? It took quite a few iterations, but we ended up with a battery that achieved all these goals. Zero slop / play in the battery mount - this could negatively impact gimbal tuning.Quick charge - robust cells that could take intense discharge and charge rates.~ 1 hour run time while powering common cameras.Integrated ‘fuel gauge’ so users could instantly know charge status.Hot swappable (one pack would need to power the gimbal while swapping). We knew that we wanted dual batteries with some key features: We had all lived with bare 4s LiPos for too long and wanted something better. Smart batteries were on the ‘must have’ list at the conclusion of sprint week. In the end, we managed to pack not only the FIZ, but all sorts of accessory ports into the area beneath the camera plate (we call it the TSU - “Tilt Stage Unit”). They checked all the boxes…great cycle life, latching connector, robust design, and we could create a nice custom overmold. Instead, we opted for small / lightweight Molex Micro-fit connectors. To shrink the size way down, we had to ditch the Lemo connectors. We thought we could go even smaller, perhaps small enough that we could build it right into the camera mounting plate. We had previously developed an ultra small 3-axis FIZ controller with the Wedge. It was clear we had a challenge ahead of us! Integrated FIZ It was clear coming out of sprint week that we had an absolute boatload of features that we dreamed of including, but we had to balance all these features with upholding the MōVI legacy of lightweight and simplistic design. Let’s talk about some of the technical hurdles associated with developing MōVI Pro (many of these turned into my favorite features).
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