American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 104

serve.

That same cycle would be
repeated as the ball was returned by the
opponent's racquet. We calculated the
G-forces involved in instantly accelerat¬
ing a camera to 100 miles per hour, and
quickly realized that no camera system
could withstand that." Refusing to be
bested, Gill turned to a little piece of film
history for the answer.
In 1872, English still photogra¬
pher Eadweard Muybridge set out to

together as the ball's speed fell off."
Employing a Pentium PC to individually
trigger each camera in sequence, Gill
and his team accomplished the impossi¬
ble: a virtual dolly capable of instantly
accelerating to 100 mph, decelerating to
just over 30, switching directions and
then accelerating back to 100 mph in a
single smooth shot.

determine whether

not all four of a

system into a viable production tool,

ground during a
gallop. He placed a series of 24 still
cameras alongside a racetrack, and then
independently triggered the units with
trip-wires as a horse ran past them. The
famous series of photographs he took
would provide an essential link between

carefully adapting all of their 100 Canon
Rebel-EOS cameras to place them
almost completely under computer
control. "One of the problems that we
noticed early on stemmed from the

court.

or

horses hooves left the

A vertical MultiCinecam array

configuration was created for
artist Puff Daddy's "Public
Enemy #1" video, which demonstrates the dynamic abilities
of the system. In addition to this configuration, Weisz also
created a horizontal circle of 30 cameras surrounding the
cylindrical set to photograph a full 360-degree rotation. The
ring of cameras were placed outside of the set with lens
holes provided by removing several of the lamps that make
up the inner walls of the set. The missing lamps were then
replaced in the final shot with CGI fixtures.
director Martin Weisz and rap

displayed on its website at www.reelefx.
com). In 1996, commercial director Tony
Kaye approached Gill and his partners
with a technical conundrum: to dolly
with

tennis ball served from

a

then returned to

-

and

court

superstar
Andre Agassi. Completely opposed to
any compositing effects whatsoever,

method that would
capture the real thing. The

Kaye insisted
allow him to

-

on a

camera's

far

own

reaction time," notes Gill.

"Basically when you push the button in a
standard SLR, the computer in the
camera 'polls' that button 50 times a
second to see if its been pushed. In the
interim, though, the computer is asleep.
When you're talking about exposures of,
say, Vso of a second, that V6o of a second
is a long time to wait. When we 'told'
each camera to take a picture [in tests],
some of them would snap the shot
immediately, while others would have to
wake up first. The result was that not all
of the cameras shot exactly the same
a

time, which would have

bit of jitter

frozen action. To get

lem,

we

in the commercial's
around that prob¬

took control of the cameras'

functions ourselves."

still

photography and the concept of
pictures. Over a century later, Jim

Dylan Hixon, head of mechanical
engineering for Reel Efx, explains,
"We've built a custom processor that

motion

sits in the base of each

Gill would return to this concept to
achieve Kaye's goal.

complete control over the shutter, aper¬
ture, shutter speed and mirrors. When
we get ready to take a shot, we arm the

Gill recalls, "We

thought that
trying to push a camera
beyond practical speeds, we would take
instead of

a

series of successive

where that

camera

pictures from

would

theoretically

be each time the shutter

opened. To do
100 Canon SLRs across

that,

the court - 50 to follow the ball out and

we

lined up

ball from

50 to track it back-and calculated how

the ball

far the ball would

miles

a

100 December 1999

cameras

Over time, Gill and his team at
Reel Efx have refined their Multicam

moment in

ments first

Agassis serve. "We found that
initially topped off at about 100
per hour," Gill says. "It then

placed the

apart at first, and progressively closer

created

Reel Efx team examined the

require¬
by clocking the speed of a

We then

dropped to about 35 miles per hour by
the time it bounced at the other end

second, based

move

on

each fraction of

the speed of Agassi's

camera

and took

cameras

to fire

come

the shutters are lifted into posi¬

up,

tion and held

and the

-

all of the mirrors

by their electromagnets,

shutter

speed is already
programmed in. When we're ready, all of
the shutters drop instantly on our
commands.

"Each

camera

is identified

serial number that's burned into the

by a
chip

in the bottom of the camera," Hixon
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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