Motion control effects went out of fashion when digital post-production showed what it could do. But, according to Jerry Andrews of Toronto-based Driven Visual Effects, they are back.

‘It’s turned around again. On-set visual effects are becoming increasingly popular,’ Andrews notes. And he should know. The motion control rig operator was recently in the U.K., where he spent five weeks working on mega-productions Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Andrews became one of Canada’s few motion control operators when Toybox (now Technicolor) headhunted him from the U.K. to come to Toronto to operate its newly acquired Milo Crane rig. He worked at Toybox for five years before going freelance.

What separates Milo from other grip equipment is that the camera crane is motorized and operated by computer. ‘Rather than hand-operating a camera move, you can actually program a move through computer software,’ Andrews explains. ‘Once it’s programmed, a move can be repeated, run at different speeds or run in reverse.’

The data is then exported to post-production; it can even go the other way around. ‘You can actually preprogram moves, where you go into a CGI suite, design a camera move, and then export it to the crane,’ he says.

On Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Andrews mainly shot miniatures with Milo. ‘We shot the background for Johnny Depp [as Willy Wonka] as he is walking through the factory gates with a normal camera system on a regular stage,’ he explains. ‘But since the factory is actually a miniature, we shrunk the move down in post-production, put it into the motion control rig, and ran the miniature version of the shot on the miniature set.’

Manufactured by U.K.-based Mark Roberts Motion Control, the crane itself is not that big, but, according to Andrews, it can reach heights of about 14 feet, moves at about six feet a second and can run on up to 50 feet of track.

Andrews has operated Milo on major feature films that have shot locally including I, Robot, Chicago and eXistenZ. It is popular among directors who still prefer to accomplish a difficult shot by actually shooting it, rather than creating it digitally. Although working in the real world, the rig still allows a great deal of control. ‘Without having to rehearse or go through lots of film, you can produce a very controlled move and focus pull with the motion control rig,’ Andrews says.

Andrews started out as a cameraman in animation for broadcast TV in the U.K., where he learned motion control. He acknowledges that demand for it had slackened in the past few years, but that is of benefit to filmmakers, as the cost of using the Milo Crane – it is rented out through William F. White – has nearly halved since its introduction in the Canadian market.

-www.drivenvfx.com