Robert Hollingworth – macro DoP and founder of Haddenham Studio – designed and developed over the last 5 years a bespoke motion control cine robot to facilitate macro cinematography principally of wildlife subjects:

The 4 axis gantry has XY and Pan and Tilt axes and is designed to accommodate RED, Arri and other large format cinema cameras. The unit is designed to work with macro lenses and is routinely used with focal lengths such as 200m micro lenses and 10x microscope objectives.

The camera can be flown with a PS4 controller live, or recorded and played back for repeat VFx moves.

It mounts on a 100mm bowl, or 3/8″ tie down and work in any orientation. Tilt is +/- 45 degrees and Pan is 360 degrees. X rail is 18″ and Y is 12″. 

As featured on sets in:

All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
A Real Bugs Life (Disney+)
Super/ Natural (Nat Geo)
Sphere Vegas
Frozen Planet II (BBC)
Green Planet (BBC)

The current gantry is the result of 5 years of iterations and R&D by macro DoP Robert Hollingworth in collaboration with leading motion control engineers and the software / controller is designed by eMotimo.

There are now 3 of these precision, portable macro cine gantries and they’re used daily on sets around the world and one lives permanently at Haddenham Studio and is powered by a Dragonframe DMC16 system adding further speed to each axis as well as additional axes such as Z and FIZ.

The location kits pack into one Peli case of 25Kg for easy flying to remote locations and power off one V Lock battery for 2 days or more filming on one charge.

The system has Patent Pending status in the UK.