Mike Connor

David and Mike Connor -

Motion Control and

Visual Effects

David & Mike offer their services for the production and post-production of complex scenarios for the film, television and documentary industries, and have recently developed an innovative 8k Mobile Digital Lab .

The two professionals have also worked with motion control cameras together with cutting edge post-production techniques for the ever more challenging creative challenges they have invented cost-effective solutions for.

Mike has clocked up over 30 years of camera experience Internationally. He has worked with film, digital, motion control & visual effects. He has worked alongside Directors such as Ridley Scott, Hugh Hudson, Sidney Pollack, Wolfgang Peterson, Milos Forman, Giuseppe Tornatore and also with many prestigious Cameramen and Creatives. Over the years he has often combined his own techniques with David as in these two examples "The Legend of the Pianist" and "Vajont".

David is also passionate about post-production following on from decades of work editing high-end commercials, documentaries & long format television programmes. These often took him out of the post-production facilities he founded, found the financing, designed and managed* in Italy. He went on to supervise and produce visual effects on set and, since 2008, he has also offered master classes and training for native stereography, colour and 3d grading. He has worked with Jean-Jacques Annaud, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ferzan Ozpetek, Roman Polanski, The Taviani Brothers, Giuseppe Tornatore, amongst many others.

*Imaginaction (Milan), Digitalvideo (Milan), Interactive (Milan) and Cinecittà Digital (Rome).

Mike's Motion Control Cameras Ltd was established in 1994, and, as he has done since the beginning of his career, Mike brought innovation to the Industry, mastering 'Motion Control Technology' while also causing pro-actively an on-going revolution in the Special Effects and VFX Photography sectors. Working over the last 25 years with David as VFX & SFX Director many new technologies, techniques and workflows have become established.

In the aforementioned films, David used Mike's motion control and expertise for many shots in the film. The crowds on the set in Odessa were multiplied with camera movements by making multiple takes and moving the extras with green screens behind them. Some 450 shots were worked on digitally to help create a film that director Giuseppe Tornatore dearly wanted to look more spectacular than the average budget of contemporary Italian productions.

The film's piano dance sequence was made with grips dressed in green suits running, pushing and pulling the piano and both Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince as they moved around the ship’s first-class saloon during a storm with the piano’s brakes released. Multiple takes were made with motion control to enable empty plates for the cancellation of the grips etc., and the sea movement itself. In essence, the camera moved, while the set remained still, greatly simplifying production design at the same time.

IMAGES AND STILLS FROM

THE "LEGEND OF THE

PIANIST ON THE OCEAN"

THANKS TO MEDUSA AND SCIARLÒ

The motion control system was connected to a time coded audio sync system so that the camera was started at specific time points in the music for playback. The 30 odd shots of this sequence were post produced with a very low budget thanks to the ease of compositing with elements in perfect register.

In several shots motion control was also used to make moving shots with Tim Roth (who learnt the body movements) and his music teacher (dressed in the same clothes) as in the film he was to be the world's greatest piano player.

We used Mike Connor’s two motion control systems - one a modified Panther and the other a full-blown Milo. Production made an agreement to have the equipment in Odessa and Rome for the necessary period, enabling the decision as to use motion control or not with ease, and depending on production schedules. When Tim Roth had to finish the film for a specific date, we shot several scenes with the Panther both in Odessa and, with the same movement in Rome.

In order to create the dam for Renzo’s film, David, as visual effects supervisor suggested creating a 1/8 th, segment of the dam, mounting this on semi-circular rails with the same width and radius as the real dam, and then shooting it in eight different positions with the same motion control moves.

In agreement with the production designer Francesco Friggeri this was all done near the actual location so that the backgrounds were shot with talent in camera and did not on the whole require green screens.

This also meant that extras could be multiplied to gtve the illusion that hundreds of workers were busy on the construction aind completion of the dam.

Two dam segments were made; one for the dam while under construction (see above), and the other, shown here, with the completed dam. The lower part of the dam was created by extension in cgi.

David leaning on Mike Connor’s Milo Motion Control rig with extended arm, seen while shooting dam segments for Renzo Martinelli’s film “Vajont”.