The gimbal revolution has opened up a whole world of camera movement that was beyond most of our budgets before, and with the Tilta Arm, the Chinese company further extends that freedom into rigging your camera for stabilized car shots. Filmmakers have been using gimbals to stabilize cameras on cars since at least the 1970s, with a famous early example being Claude Lelouch'sA Certain Rendevous, but the technology was far from mainstream until very recently.
The flexible system can be used both with dedicated camera cars and with properly rigged aftermarket car mounts.
With stabilized gimbals now becoming practically a staple of film sets, Tilta has released a dedicated arm for rigging its Gravity gimbal to your camera car to make for exceptionally dynamic moving camera shots that remain smooth even on rough terrain.
Credit: Tilta
The arm has shocked absorption built into three areas of its design: a shock absorbing spring arm, a hydraulic damping pole, and a shock absorbing cradle head. These work together to isolate your camera gimbal from the vibrations and shocks of your moving car. By isolating the camera head from those disruptions, the gimbal motors can focus more of their effort on keeping the shot itself exceptionally smooth, allowing for amazing shocks to be created even with less than ideal mounting conditions.
While most high end stabilized camera cars work on luxury vehicles with exceptionally smooth suspension (Lelouch used the stabilized Benz 450 SEL and modern Russian arms are frequently on Porsche SUV platforms), with the combination of stabilization in the arm and gimbals in the head more aggressive off-road mountings enter the realm of possibility. Of course, you'll still get the best results with the smoothest platform.
Credit: Tilta
The arm is smartly designed to mount directly onto 1.5" speed rail, which is a common rail system you see mounted to a variety of camera cars on set and a pipe that most any grip truck should have in abundance. By mounting directly to the rail, instead of to something like a Mitchell plate through a Garfield mount how a Steadicam arm might be attached, Tilta offers users a flexible system that is always cost effective and can be used both with dedicated camera cars and with properly rigged aftermarket car mounts. Used in conjunction with the wireless follow focus, operating, and monitoring systems provided by Tilta, the possibility for a cost-effective chase car is here.
Credit: Tilta
For more check out Tilta.com.
Tech Specs
- Aluminum-Alloy and Stainless-Steel
- 28.8 lbs
- Payload: 10kg-25kg = 22lbs-55lbs
- Mounts to 2 inch outside diameter pipe AKA - 1.5 inch speed rail
