Follow Focus
Demo(Don't have QuickTime? Download it from Apple's QuickTime site, includingWindows versions if you don't own a Mac.)
Streak
Exposure Demo
Streak-Exposure demo shot with 16mm Bolex on JK animation stand with motion-controlled axes (pan, tilt, rotate, zoom, and follow focus) and digital RGB light source. DaveM's ANIMAL program featured streaking motion during exposures, in addition to incremental motion. Assisted by Michael Schiess, RoboMaster Industries, San Francisco, 1985.
Ironic Note: Whenever we showed the demo reel with this footage, people would say something like "Oh, that's nice work -- Oxberrys are really good at that sort of thing." Yeah, except for one thing -- this was shot with a Bolex on a JK, damnit!...
The "Sound of Music" test shot with 35mm Fries Mitchell on custom multi-axis motion-controlled camera rig, including pan, tilt, dolly, yaw, pitch, roll, follow-focus, and many others. ANIMAL program features interpolated moves from key-frame points for active axes, including follow focus. Under direction of Abdalla Saleh, Animationsakademien, Stockholm, 1986.
Ironic Note: Though this is called the "Sound of Music" shot, there is no sound or music. It just looks like one of those crane shots from the movie, but instead shot on a minature set. So you'll have to sing the music yourself while your watching the clip, OK?
Fade and
Dissolve Zoom, Rotate, Tilt Demos
Scenes from "Walls of Jericho" shot with 35mm Fries Mitchell on motion-controlled artwork table, plus zoom lens and variable shutter axes. ANIMAL program features in-camera fades and dissolves, in addition to interpolated moves and other previous functions. Camera stand installation for Korty Films at Interformat, San Francisco, 1989.
Final Ironic Note: Understand that these QuickTime video clips are extremely "downsized" versions of the original film material; ie, They are low resolution samples (160x120) of VHS dubs (525 lines) of film-to-tape transfers (forgetting how many generations of translation). Furthermore, such samples are highly compressed into small file sizes so as to be attractive for downloading.
Anyway, these demos are representative of motion-controlled animation camera systems which Ironic Research Labs designed and installed in the 1980s. Many of the ANIMAL motion control software features used for camera exposures are incorporated into the stand-alone ThingM controllers.
So if you can afford a few minutes of downloading time, please check out the clips. Thanks!
Contact Dave Milici at Ironic Research Labs via email: davem@ironicresearch.com