MōVI M10 ships in 30 days M5 details announced!

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The first MōVI M10s will ship in 30 days… on August 15th. That’s 45 days ahead of schedule (if you take their announcement literally that they would ship at the end of the 3rd quarter of the year.)

Freefly will also start to ship the new lighter duty rig, the MōVI M5, which supports cameras up to 5 lbs – for $4,995 and will ship in the 4th Quarter (Freefly is saying October-December range.) You can hold you place in line with a $500 deposit as of now.

I’m really happy to see them be able to come in well under the $7,500 price point they initially announced back at NAB. This means a lot more people are going to be able to put the MōVI to use on productions big and small.

They crew at Freefly have been pretty darn busy since NAB continuously improving the final design – and making the balance adjustment tool free. And they’ve been busy testing the MōVI in the real world as well on over a dozen film, television, and commercial productions and it’s gotten a pretty incredible amount of praise from filmmakers such as JJ Abrams, Alfonso Cuaron, ASC cinematographers, and dozens of independent filmmakers.

Refinements to the M10 since it was shown at NAB include:

1. The widening the camera tray to better accommodate larger camera packages, including the Canon C300 and C500, the RED EPIC with side handle, Canon EOS 1DC, and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera

2. A new ability to run somewhat heavier camera packages than Freefly showed at NAB – now up to 12 lbs/5.4 kg.

3. A new feature to center balance the camera without tools.

Friend and fellow filmmaker Alex Buono has had the M10 in his possession for nearly a month now, used the MōVI for Saturday Night Live’s (SNL) season finale, featuring actor Bill Hader’s fitting sendoff piece, “Stefon’s Farewell”.

In his latest blog post Alex says he’s "completely sold on the MōVI” The SNL spot featured actor Seth Meyers sprintinging off to the church to stop a wedding.

“Enter the MōVI with its ability to smoothly pan, tilt or roll remotely while it’s being operated – which allows me the ability to create camera moves that are unlike anything I’ve ever seen and yet are incredibly easy to execute. After they nailed the shot on take one, I just stood there with a dumb look on my face: “Uh…I guess we should do it again, right?” So we did another take and they nailed it again. I looked at my watch and realized that at this rate, we were far ahead of schedule which gave me the opportunity to further finesse the shot, and the luxury to create half a dozen shots instead of just one or two – and in a very rare occurrence for any of our SNL shoots – we finished ahead of schedule.” – Alex Buono

Freefly and I were recently invited to demonstrate the MōVI rig at a recent American Society of Cinematographers event, where event host Kees Van Oostrum, ASC simply stated “MōVI was the future”. That was a pretty darn cool evening to say the least… definitely very special and a big honor. Seeing some of the top cinematographers get pretty excited about the MōVI and seeing their wheels start to turn was a great thing to be a part of.

Freefly is also pulling the wraps off the new smaller, lighter, lower-priced MōVI M5, which will they will ship in the 4 quarter of 2013. T he M5 camera stabilizer is sized to accommodate most DSLR sized cameras like the Canon 5D, Panasonic GH2/3, Nikon D800, and Sony A99.

SO, WHICH MODEL DO YOU NEED?

This is likely the single most common question we’ve all been presented with since NAB.

To get a better understanding of which unit you might need, here’s a link to a chart that helps to clarify the types of cameras each MōVI is intended for.

It’s actually pretty basic: both units have the EXACT same features. Freefly is NOT going to limit the features on their product. The deciding factor: the final weight of your camera package. If it’s 5 pounds or less: the M5 is for you – and for many of you that will work fantastically well. You can operate the M5 just like the M10 – in either solo (Majestic Mode) or Dual Operator more with a remote control.

What I recommend you do is to go to a variety of manufacturers’ sites and get the weight of the lens and camera combos you want to be using (they’ve put a chart below to help you.) The add anything else – from filters, to remote video transmitters if you need them, to wireless follow focus systems if you want to get fancy. If your package comes to 5 pounds or less you’re good. You should be able to get a pretty solid HDSLR package on the M5.

What you’ll find is that if you go towards the heavier cameras and start adding a lot of accessories to it, such as the heavier Preston Follow Focus etc. you’ll end up needing to go to the M10. Note that none of the accessories you put on the handles (such as wireless monitors / receiver etc) count against the max weight capacity of the motors.

I hope that helps… to repeat: it’s basically ALL about weight capacity – the features on both models are identical.

So…30 days and soon to be only 29 and counting!

To find out more about the MōVI or to put your deposit down on an M5 or an M10 go to MōVIRig.com.

Tags: MōVI