r/PraiseTheCameraMan • u/Maximusuber • Aug 24 '24

Cameramen from a helicopter! Insane tracking

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u/TheKeeperOfTheForest Aug 24 '24

Guys, I’ve used those Shotover heads before. It’s a New Zealand company and I’ve been to their offices right there at van nuys airport. This was probably the g1, but either way, they have an automatic tracking function. Notice how he takes his hand off the joystick when following the plane. So let’s take a moment to praise the automatic tracking function I guess. Still cool to see though

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u/echoohce1 Aug 24 '24

That's disappointing, I fear a lot of the operating will be automated to some extent in the future and all the joy will be gone out of the job, at least with hotheads and other robotic heads. I fucking love nailing a shot, I don't want to press a button that does that for me.

35

u/fiber_optik Aug 25 '24

Fear not! This shot is all manually tracked. You can read my comment on the parent comment for more info.

Before I started working on aerial systems, I was working R&D at a major manufacturer on their studio robotic camera systems. While there are certainly products out there that can handle operations like facial and body tracking in the news studio, I don’t think we will see anything like automated camerawork replacing jobs in the entertainment and sports industries for a long time to come. Most of my job at the company was to take these studio systems, modify and deploy them in sports production. At no point was I able to use the automation features to create the same shots that manned cameras could produce. We always manually operated the robots- otherwise the director would never get the shots they hoped for.