Sometimes there is simply no substitute for a model mover, whether large or small. When filming large things in a simulated moving environment (like people inside a fast car) the flexing and physics involved just don’t look real unless you really move the set. And when filming smaller items like a clay figure for stop-motion animation or jewellery for automated product photography, it just makes sense to move the object instead of the camera.
That’s where the family of products from Mark Roberts Motion Control, a Nikon-owned company with over 50 years of expertise in motion control robotics for the film & entertainment industry, comes in. MRMC offers model movers in a range of sizes to suit your needs. From model cars to real cars, MRMC’s model movers can move it, rotate it, and shake it.
The latest high-speed robotic arm from Mark Roberts Motion Control is a new entry-level machine allowing companies to enter the world of high-end motion control at previously unreachable price points. Meet the Bolt Mini Model Mover, big on creativity, low on price, an extremely versatile, lightweight, 6-axis high-speed arm designed for payloads up to 8kg, that starts at only $68k (£49k). The robotic arm can be used as a standalone system or synchronized with a camera shooting bot and enables full manipulation of products with repeat pass precision, timing, and triggering capabilities.
The Bolt Mini Model Mover comes with three mounting plates, including chuck mount and cheese plate, giving users a wide range of capture possibilities, as well as a gripper option. The 42kg unit is designed to be set up quickly, can be mounted to a table or set on the floor, and comes transport-ready in a compact flight case. In tandem with MRMC’s industry-leading motion control software, Flair, it allows users to shoot classic liquid pours, stirs, whirls, and splashes, or mount utensils like forks, spoons, or even sports accessories such as shoes or rackets to get the most dynamic high-end shots.
“The Bolt Mini Model Mover might be the smallest arm we do, but we have taken no shortcuts with it. It features the same Academy-Award-winning engineering excellence as the rest of our Bolt family,” comments Assaff Rawner, Managing Director, MRMC. “By bringing the entry-level price of high-end, high-speed robotics down to a sub £50k price point, we hope to introduce a whole new sector of the industry to the enormous creative potential of motion control.”
Other model mover solutions available from Mark Roberts Motion Control include the Bolt Jr+, Bolt High-Speed Camera Robot and Bolt X, designed to cover a variety of situations faced by professionals. Here is a brief description of each of the models:
- The Bolt Jr+ is a lightweight, affordable small cinema robot with a longer reach than the Bolt Jr. The agile, high-speed camera robot comes with a 10kg payload and is an ideal solution for smaller spaces or location work.
- The Bolt High-Speed Camera Robot is the fastest of its kind – capturing images in crisp focus that would be impossible by hand or any other method. The precision cinema robot adds an entirely new perspective to filming – whether shooting commercials, tabletop work, film or television.
- The Bolt X offers the longest arm reach of MRMC’s high-speed robots. With a reach of 3.2m, the Bolt X allows for greater flexibility in capturing shots at high speed in the studio and at location settings.