5 Reasons You Should Shoot With A Gimbal
INTRODUCTION
Gimbals are often associated more with videography or prosumer camera gear than they are with big budget movies. However, this shouldn’t be the case. For years, this method for stabilising cameras and operating them in a handheld configuration has been used on many industry level shows, commercials and movies.
So let’s use this video to look at five reasons why filmmakers use gimbals in both videography and on high end productions alike.
1. MOVEMENT
For a long time in the early days of cinema it wasn’t possible to shoot with a handheld camera that could move with actors and could be operated by a single person.
Instead, filmmakers that wanted to move these heavy cameras needed to do so on a dolly - a platform which could be slid along a track using wheels. This trained the audience's eyes for decades to accept this smooth tracking movement as the cinematic default.
To this day, this language of smooth, flowing, stable camera movement has persisted and is often sought after by directors and cinematographers. Gimbals are able to achieve a similar movement, without needing tracks and a dolly, by using sensors that detect when a camera is off kilter and correcting that by evening it out with motors in real time.
These motors can control three axes of movement, hence why these devices are also called 3-axis gimbals. They can adjust and even out the up and down motion, known as tilt, the side to side motion, known as pan, or rotational motion known as roll.
Different gimbals can be set to different modes to control the axes of movement that you want. For example you could limit the motion to a pan follow mode, where the motors stabilise and lock the tilt and roll axes and only react and follow when the operator pans the camera horizontally.
Or you could enable pan and tilt follow, where only the roll axis is locked so that as the operator moves the gimbal horizontally or vertically, the gimbal will follow along with the movement of the operator. Gimbals can therefore be quite reactive to the handheld motions the operator makes, so are a useful tool in situations that require floating, smooth moves that need to track the motion of an actor or moving object.
Because they’re operated handheld, the kind of movement you get from a gimbal will have more of a floating, drifting, stability to it with small, meandering deviations in moves which is caused by the manual operation of it, compared to something like a dolly, which is super stable, heavy, and tethered to a specific line of track that creates more precise, cleaner moves. Certain filmmakers may want this drifting feeling of motion that is attainable from a gimbal.
2. UNEVEN TERRAIN
One advantage that a gimbal has over alternative grip rigs that also produce smooth camera movement, is that they can be more easily set up and operated over uneven terrain or in remote locations.
While it is possible to lay tracks on uneven outdoor locations - by first building a wooden platform to use as a smooth and level base, it is miles easier to operate the camera handheld on a gimbal and use your feet to move over uneven surfaces.
If venturing into very remote locations it also means that all that productions will need to carry is a gimbal camera build, some batteries and maybe a box of lenses. Compared to a massive truck and a full grips package - which may not be able to make it up to certain mountain locations.
Filmmakers may also want dynamic movement that squeezes through tight spaces where larger cinema grip rigs would otherwise not be able to fit - like through car doors or inside tight interiors. Or they may need the camera to move up or down a slope, which could also include something like stairs, which dollies can’t do since they need a stable, level platform to lay tracks on.
3. TIME & MONEY SAVER
On top of these advantages around moving the camera, gimbals are also a great tool for productions as they have the potential to save time and money. Paying for a single gimbal operator, or even having DPs operate the gimbals themselves and getting the first ACs to build and balance them, can provide a good saving on the grips budget.
On some shoots, you may be able to get away with using a gimbal for stable motion rather than having a dolly sitting in the truck for smooth moves on stable surfaces and a Technocrane waiting to be set up for moves across uneven terrain.
On top of the gear costs, you also save on crew costs, as choosing to use a dolly or a Technocrane will come with the costs of hiring a larger grip team to set up and run the gear.
While these savings may be less important on some jobs like high end international commercials that have the money to pay for whatever tool is deemed necessary - another type of saving that a gimbal provides that may still be valuable is time.
It’s almost always easier to walk through shots, make adjustments to positioning and do a run through on a handheld gimbal - without needing to get a team to lay tracks, or spend lots of time between setups building and positioning grip rigs.
And on these enormous jobs where the most expensive thing on set may be paying for a celebrity performance or locking off a pricey location - time, as the saying goes, is money. So gimbals may save money not only on the lower rental cost and fewer crew requirements - but also by speeding up the time taken to set up each moving shot.
At this point, some of you may be saying, “Why not just use a Steadicam? It’s a similar cost and gives you a similar feeling of motion.” Well, gimbals actually come with one party trick that Steadicams don’t.
4 - REMOTE HEAD
So, what is this extra capability that a gimbal has that a Steadicam doesn’t have? Because most large production gimbals like the Movi Pro or Ronin 2 have motors that control three axes of movement and have controls in the form of a joystick or wheels that enable operators to wirelessly control how the camera tilts, pans and rolls - it is effectively a remote head.
This means that it can double up and be used both in a handheld gimbal configuration for some shots, then rebuilt as a remote head and attached to rigs such as a crane, car arm, or as a remote head on a dolly.
So instead of hiring both a Steadicam to do tracking shots on the ground, and a Libra head that is attached to a crane for an aerial shot - productions can get away with using only one gimbal.
When gimbals are rigged as remote heads they basically transmit a signal between the wheels moved by the operator and the gimbal. There are three wheels that each represent pan, tilt and roll.
So if an operator wants to pan the camera left to right they can roll the side wheel forward. This will then send an instantaneous signal from the wheels to the head - which will pan the camera without the operator needing to be physically near the head.
Gimbals can also be used for ‘transition shots’ that change between two different builds or operating methods during a single take. For example, this shot, which slides the camera in a remote head mode up a story on a wire rig while being controlled wirelessly by an operator. It then gets unclipped from the rig and grabbed by an operator who can proceed to use it to follow the action like a handheld gimbal.
5. FLEXIBILITY
The final reason that many filmmakers opt to use a gimbal is due to the greater flexibility that it provides. This is a matter of taste and feeds into a preference for how directors or DPs like to structure their filming.
Some like to be more traditional, formal and deliberate and move the camera from some form of a solid base like a dolly. This provides a clear move from A to B which can be repeated multiple times, is predictable and relies on actors perfectly hitting their marks by following a prescribed movement based on the pre-established blocking by the director.
However, some other filmmakers like to work in a different way that is more open to experimentation, improvisation and embracing little magical moments that may be discovered.
This may be appropriate for directors who like working with non-professional actors, or in semi-documentary shooting environments - where the ability to change shots on the fly is very important.
It may also be good for directors who like to shoot in long takes - where they can work with actors and give direction as they go, putting the actors in a fully dressed shooting environment and then chasing after them, finding the best angles and moments of performance through shooting.
Having the freedom of a gimbal is great for these longer takes, as the camera can be transported great distances, up stairs, through gaps and over most surfaces as long as the operator's arms can hold it. It also eliminates the need to place tracks - which have a chance of being seen in the shot if shooting in an expansive 360 degree style where we see everything in the location.
Gimbals are great for scenarios where actors aren’t given an exact mark or blocking and are instead encouraged to move around and find the shot. Because their position is not locked onto a track, the camera is free to roam and explore - getting all the benefits that come from operating a handheld camera, while at the same time preserving some of that traditional cinematic stability that we discussed.
CONCLUSION
As we’ve seen gimbals offer value not only to lower budget, more improvisational, documentary based shooting, but also to larger productions who seek stabilised motion in unusual spaces, or with dynamic moves, with a rig that saves on set up time, can double up as a remote head and offers the ability to transition between different styles of operating the camera.
As high quality cinema cameras continue to get smaller and smaller and are more easily able to fit and balance on gimbals, this rig will continue to soar in popularity and be an increasingly useful tool for stable, cinematic movement.