Robots and the Moving Camera in Cinema, Television and Digital Media
The moving camera is a ubiquitous element in visual culture, and one that is undergoing significant change. Camera movement has traditionally been bound to the capabilities of human bodies and their physical equipment. Computer-based and robotic systems a
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Digital Cultures Program, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia [email protected]
Abstract. The moving camera is a ubiquitous element in visual culture, and one that is undergoing significant change. Camera movement has traditionally been bound to the capabilities of human bodies and their physical equipment. Computer-based and robotic systems are enabling changes in image genres, extending the fields of perception for viewers. Motion control systems provide much tighter control over the movement of the camera in space and time. On television, wire-suspended cameras such as Skycam and Spidercam provide aerial perspectives above sports fields and music venues. Drones bring to the image a fusion of intimacy and magical elevation. An emerging domain of vision systems is in robotics and surveillance systems that remove the human operator entirely from the production and interpretation of images. In each of these cases, the question of the subjectivity and objectivity of images is complicated. Keywords: Moving camera · Robotics · Motion control · UAVs
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Introduction: Robot Controlled Cameras
Among the most widespread popular experiences with robotic technologies are the images made by robotically controlled cameras. These images are found in cinema, television, online media, and in robotics, and contribute to a range of new image genres. This paper provides a visual analysis of case studies of robot cameras that produce new kinds of moving image in a range of media. Theorists of the moving image make a distinction between a subjective camera, in which the perspective seems to belong to one of the characters in a scene, and an objective camera, which is more detached and abstracted [1]. Recent technologies are complicating the status of images as subjective or objective. The robot camera, with its capacity for greater degrees of control than traditional camera operation, affords seamless transitions between subjective and objective view‐ points, allowing long-takes that move from intimate close-ups to wide-shots and back. Robotically controlled cameras using technologies such as industrial robots, motion control rigs and wire-suspended cameras and drones bring a variety of new resources to makers of moving images, allowing new forms of perception, and new kinds of subjec‐ tive/objective positions. In movements, alongside edits, the robot camera tends to
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 J.T.K.V. Koh et al. (Eds.): Cultural Robotics 2015, LNAI 9549, pp. 98–106, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-42945-8_9
Robots and the Moving Camera in Cinema
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enhance experiences of speed, vertigo and presence. These additions to cinematic language can be considered another domain of social robotics.
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The Moving Camera in Cinema
The moving camera been a feature of cinema almost since its beginning in 1895. As early as 1897, the Lumière brothers attached a camera to a train to exploit the effect of movement. Camera movement became a powerful element in c
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