- All right, so today's mission is to try to get
some dope shots of my Jeep 'cause I love this thing,
so I'll be driving
and maybe you guys can kinda follow alongside and film me,
what do you guys think?
- I'm pretty fast, I could keep up.
- So we'll set up a gimbal and maybe have
a skateboard or something that you can kinda like
kick next to me and just like, try to stay up.
- Yes sir!
- Cool, cool, sound like a good plan?
- What about that?
- Oh.
Yeah.
This thing is massive!
Can I sit on here?
And you guys just drive me around like that?
(laughing)
- [All] No.
- 140 pound loads, we've had.
- If I ate a salad once in a while
I could totally sit in here!
This is George, the founder of Ultimate Arm,
that's in charge of doing all this stuff.
When did you guys make your first arm?
- Around 2002 I believe,
then it took about a year to make the first one.
- So you're saying this is one of your older arms?
- Yes, this is one of the oldest.
It's not the new Ultimate Arm Atlas
which is the one that's in South Korea now, and in Dubai.
- [Gene] Uh huh.
- And actually the Atlas is the first crane in the world
that can shoot with two gimbals, over and under.
- So you can independently control
two gimbals on the same arm?
- Exactly!
(gasping)
- That's awesome!
- All the way at 28 feet,
then do 120 miles an hour sideways.
- Are you serious?
- Yes - 128 miles, wow.
- We just tested it,
we did a full circle in two seconds at 28 feet.
- Yeah!
- Crazy dangerous at that speed,
so we made it down to about five now.
- I mean it's one of the first original
three axis gyro-stabilized heads.
- [Gene] Oh wow!
- This is one of the ones that won
the original Academy Award with the technology of the crane.
It carries big packages, so we've had 3D cameras on it,
we shot the space shuttle,
we got locked in doing it with this huge 3D camera, right?
We had to over-sling it, under-sling it
and the thing handled it perfect.
- [Gene] All right so George, what are we looking at here?
- Well we're looking at a Magnuson supercharged CTS-V,
this is the big blower that they got, it's 740 horsepower.
It's for sure the fastest six seater camera car
in the world, I have confidence in that.
This thing, it'll do 130 no problem
with the crane on the roof.
The gimbals, you have Dutch tilt,
and pan, 360 degree rotation.
The back of the crane is flexible,
so the front and the back are separate from each other,
so it absorbs the energy if you go over bumps down the road,
that's what I actually won an Academy Award for,
they called it a significant improvement
in crane technology.
- [Gene] So up here is where
the crane operator usually sits.
All right, so what's up here?
- So right here this is gonna be swinging
right and left with crane.
- [Gene] Uh huh.
- And up and down.
That's it.
- [Gene] That's it huh? - That's it yeah.
It's just a dangerous game you know what I mean?
- [Gene] Yeah, I would not want--
- Even though it's just left and right,
I mean there's a lot of responsibility.
You can just drag the crane along the ground
with the camera on it, no problem,
it's not gonna stop, you know what I mean?
You go down it's just gonna drag it along the ground.
You can clothesline somebody,
you always have to kinda be looking out for low power lines
or whatever because this will get 20 feet above the car
when it's up and it'll just rip the whole thing off.
- Hey, you think they'll let me operate the crane?
(stuttering)
- Yeah, where did the confidence go?
(laughing)
(chilled music)
They keep talking about how small my package is.
It's pretty, I think it's pretty decent sized.
It's a RED camera.
He keeps saying "oh it's such a small package".
At least average size!
Ooh look at that!
Whoa!
Oh my god this thing moves so fast!
This thing is a serious gimbal!
How much does that thing weigh?
- This system here is about 800 pounds.
- 800 pounds, okay, that's like the weight of an elephant.
- Well that's what the camera package--
- How much does an elephant weigh?
- [Man] A couple thousand?
- A couple thousand?
Okay never mind not an elephant.
- Baby! - Like, a baby elephant.
- Yeah, like a baby!
We've used everything, Mercedes, Porsches,
all different kinds of cars, and I'm telling you,
the CTS-V, the bomb.
- Shall we take it out?
- Let's go for a ride!
- All right let's do this!
We'll start rolling on this bad boy.
- [George] Action, action.
Here we go.
(upbeat music)
- [Gene] Oh my goodness!
(laughing)
Oh my god, this is nice!
Wow!
I am sweating, I am so nervous
just watching you guys do this.
I want one of these cars so bad now.
Who do you think got the better shot on that one?
Me, or that thing?
(laughing)
This is so much nicer than filming out the window.
This is crazy!
Oh my god, look at this!
This is so dope, I want one!
Steve, please buy me one.
It's so funny, 'cause whenever we're filming
out the side of the window it's like, oh accelerate slow
and then just here it's whoa!
I got a little adrenaline rush off that you guys,
and I didn't do anything!
Thanks for making this happen Avi.
- Yeah, no problem.
- By the way, you guys have to check out Avi's Instagram
and just look, if you just like fast cars and explosions
and cool stuff, you guys have to go follow his--
- Ultimate Arm Instagram too!
We can get, come on, join our team!
- You guys gotta go check out some of
the rad stuff they've got going on.
We need to get you in the studio for a little interview.
- I'm in.
- Ask us some questions in the comments down below
and we'll answer them in a later video.
This thing hauls, this thing was fast,
when you stepped on the gas we were like whoa!
Even with all this weight on top, that was nuts.
- When he hit the gas I could feel it,
like I could feel a rumble.
- How weird was it driving around
and then just seeing this thing just follow behind.
Dude the camera got so close to the car so many times
and I'm like, "is this on purpose?"
And I look over at these guys
and they're like "yeah, this is fine."
- Very first thing he told me when I was gonna drive
is don't pay attention to the camera,
don't look at the camera, so there was a couple times
where I caught it outta the corner of my eye,
I was like "holy (beep) it's like right there".
(laughing)
But yeah, for the most part I tried
not to pay attention to what he was doing,
just so that I didn't run into the camera or whatever.
- Think we're going to have to book this from now on,
filming out of the side of the minivan
isn't gonna cut it after that.
- Back in the back you got your camera operator,
your joysticks, or you can have wheels
if you like to use the wheels options.
- So these are your director's joysticks,
your crane operator can sit in front
or right here beside you.
With this you can Dutch, pan, tilt
and zoom all at the same time.
This is Dutch, the zoom, pan, tilt,
and then you can set this up for focus
if you wanna control your own focus.
Generally in that back seat you'd have your AC back there,
pulling focus and iris control in back.
A director would have a cam up
and the director would be in the middle
communicating what they want to the whole crew.
- [Gene] Okay, gotcha.
- And there's kind of a crazy choreography really
to see it all in full swing between driver, crane op, cam op
and focus puller 'cause you guys are all,
and then see look down here, you see this?
You're all on comms, and this pedal right here
is what allows you to talk open com to the driver
that's driving the picture car you're following,
whether it's talent or stuntman.
- [Gene] I see.
- So you could be here and you have your comms on,
and right now you're talking to each other in the car,
and then when you hit this pedal down here,
it opens up the mics in the car that you're following
so you can tell them "okay look,
"you're gonna remain constant, we're gonna come up
"and wrap around you and we're gonna go from say,
"18 mil, three quarter rear up into 100 mil,
"of your face talking to your passenger."
- [Gene] I saw when you were doing
that Pierce Brosnan shoot,
like you were sitting in the middle.
- Yeah, I was sitting in the middle because there just
a lot going on for me to be opping to,
and then George is an incredible operator
and so I had my stunt coordinator there,
George was operating camera here, crane op was in front,
driver, and then AC is in back.
- [Gene] Gotcha. - And so we're kinda like,
when we're choreographing
a million and a half dollar Porsche going 100 miles per hour
sideways with four SUVs chasing an S-class
and extras walking, through traffic, it's also stunt guys,
there's just a lot of stuff going on.
And so definitely at that point,
when you're doing really specific choreographed stuff,
it helps to kinda just be directing.
- [Gene] Yeah, totally!
- And have really really incredible talent
doing the rest y'know?
- Awesome!
Check this out, this is a seat right back here,
in the trunk.
- This is for the camera assistant,
so this is where the guy's pulling focus from in the back.
- Yeah, the crane operator can come back here
and shoot in the back if they wanna go to the back
or he goes to the front if he wants to shoot off the front,
we bucketed it out and even put a little hole
in the bottom there for your feet, and all the electronics,
all the batteries are inside of here,
so all the power is condensed inside.
- They have their monitor here,
and then they're gonna have a Preston Follow Focus
right here so they're gonna be just watching
really really really closely.
They don't need to do anything but focus on this
and then do focus and iris.
Also some follow focus units have full camera control
and you can be irising that,
I mean beyond iris and focus you can be doing shutter,
frame rate, whatever from back here.
- I just wanna start pressing these buttons
and see what happens. (laughing)
Like, it's comfortable,
it's just getting out is like the tough part.
Every seat is kind of in use now right?
So who's sitting here?
- Yeah, crane operator is sitting here,
crane operator can however if they need to,
say they're doing a bunch of
really really technical stuff off the back of the crane,
say that you're in the snow with snow tracks or whatever,
you could get your crane operator back here
and shoot off the back of the car if they need to
watch their crane out the back the whole time.
Typically crane op is going to be in the front seat
because they just have a lot more visibility of the crane
through the windshield and out this window,
but they can be back here also.
This is an episode of Top Gear I directed.
There was a review on this car.
- Oh my god there it is!
Oh wow!
That thing is spinning so, wow.
- So look we go from 18 mil,
and then we'll wrap around us 360 to 120 mil on his face.
Boom.
- Oh wow.
That's dope.
Check out Avi's bike though!
This is sweet!
Are you gonna let me ride it?
- Yeah!
(motorbike engine growling)
- Oops.
- [Avi] It always does that!
- I didn't stall it I swear!
(motorbike engine growling)
Nope, nope, nope, gotta get off.
I sat on that thing for five seconds,
I was like no this is too much power.
(motorbike engine growling)
- Kids at home, this is a very bad example,
he's supposed to have a helmet on.
- You are a madman!
(growls)
Like George said, you should be wearing a helmet.
- You should also have been wearing a helmet!
(laughing)
- Big shout out to Avi for bringing us out here,
and also Ultimate Arm, boom.
- Get down, bring the crane Mark.
Bring the crane down.
- [Mark] It's on the (beep) deck (beep).
- [Avi] No it's on the floor, all right.
- [George] He can't get it any lower Avi, don't cuss Mark.
- [Avi] All right
- [George] Kids are watching this program.
- [Mark] Kids, I'm sorry, I apologize, I'm Italian.
(chilled music)