Camera stabilizers are an integral tool in filmmaking. The technology has evolved over the years, from the first Kenyon Gyro (invented in 1957 and initially used in military surveillance applications) to the advent of the harnessed Steadicam in 1975, to the gamut of handheld gyro stabilizer rigs found on the market today. Here at Anthill Films we have been using stabilizers since our first mountain bike feature film The Collective (2004) and have been upgrading to the latest and most efficient stabilization systems ever since. Our stabilizer of choice for the last few years has been the Freefly Systems MōVI Pro.

“With our latest film Return to Earth, we really wanted to try to use the MōVI in some new ways,” says Darren McCullough, director and co-founder of Anthill Films. “We mounted it to our cable cam system with the Phantom VEO4K-PL 990S camera to get some cool parallax-style shots with a fast-moving  camera panning around the subject. That created some really dynamic shots, but it was the custom-built backpack-mounted rig we used when shooting the Hawaii segment that really pushed our creativity, and the equipment.”

The concept of the Hawaii segment in Return to Earth was to capture all the athletes and their experiences coalescing in one place, all in one moment. This required the Anthill crew to film nine different athletes riding and merging together in groups before all coming together to hit one final massive jump to end the film. To make this ambitious vision come to life, the crew had to execute a series of exceptionally long follow camera shots with multiple mountain bikers riding down several interconnected trails, all at speed. Such a unique scene called for a very unique camera setup. With the Mōvi Pro and Red Helium 8k camera mounted to his body by a custom harness, Anthill director Darcy Wittenburg drove an electric motorbike along a custom-built trail that was specifically designed to allow him to follow the athletes’ choreographed movements down the mountainside. Meanwhile, the film’s DOP Darren McCullough followed on a nearby road in a side-by-side to control all the camera movements remotely. With so many interconnected elements, it was easily one of the most technically difficult shoots the Anthill crew has ever pulled off.

Anthill’s grip Fraser Newton spent many hours in a machine shop fabricating a backpack rig that could handle the weight of a steel tube arm, the Movi Pro, the RED camera and multiple vibration dampers, all while remaining light and portable enough for Darcy to wear it. The prototype was tested at the Anthill Films office in Squamish and the final version required extensive testing at the film site in Hawaii before attempting the shoot.

“Darcy’s route with the e-motorbike seemed to work pretty well,” says McCullough. “The biggest problem we had was maintaining the signal from the control terminal I was using. We needed to stay ahead enough to not be in the way, but too far ahead and we’d lose the signal and the shot would be done. I was in the front seat of a side-by-side controlling the panning, tilting, focus, zoom… all while I’m getting thrown around from all the bumps in the trail.”

Mōvi and Red camera rigged up on a side by side while filming in Big Water, Utah

McCullough almost could have used a second stabilizer for his own control terminal. After rehearsing countless times the shots were starting to work, but they were still losing signal from trees obstructing the line of sight. The team had to build an additional antenna mount on the vehicle in order to maintain a clean signal.

“We had a 20-foot tower of pipe mounted to the side-by-side that acted as the wireless video receiver. We were driving around, hauling ass around corners with this huge pipe hanging off, rattling like crazy. That was the only way we could get the signal to transmit over the trees.”

The effort paid off, with Return to Earth featuring some of the most unique mountain bike shots of 2019. 

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Return to Earth: The Series was developed in partnership with Freehub Magazine. Animation by the talented Taj Mihelich. Photos by Sterling Lorence and Anthill Films.

Return to Earth is brought to you by Shimano and Trek Bicycles featuring Brett Rheeder, Thomas Vanderham, Casey Brown, Matt Hunter, Reed Boggs, Ryan Howard, Joey Schusler, Thomas Genon, Brandon Semenuk, Carson Storch, Emil Johansson, Jackson Goldstone, Jakob Jewett and friends. In association with Pink Bike, Trail Forks, Evoc, Clif Bar, Sony, Whistler Mountain Bike Park and Freehub Magazine with additional support from Bike Park Lenzerheide, Spawn Cycles, Rocky Mountain Cycles. A 4K film by Anthill Films with art direction and creative by Good Fortune Collective. Photography by Sterling Lorence and Margus Riga.

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