MōVI’s Network Debut + a Lucky Winner

Today was a pretty momentous day for several people related to the MōVI.

As you’ll see above the MōVI made its first appearance on set of it’s first Network Television show – NCIS Los Angeles just a week after it was revealed at NAB.   

As I shot the still frame above (full resolution file here), I saw a pretty interesting depiction of what I think are 3 very important steps in the evolution of Cinema – the Dolly, the Steadicam and the handheld MōVI.   I wish I could show you how the 3 operators worked in total unison to work 3 unique angles on this shot…

The MōVI videos also broke the 1.9 million view mark today with just under 10 million loads.  (I mention loads because YouTube tends to autoplay their videos, ergo everyone who loads the page counts as a view.. ergo a Vimeo metric is a bit different than the "views" you might see on YouTube videos… now you know a bit more about how PSY’s Gangam Style reached a Billion views…)

Another lucky person woke up early this morning in the Leeds, England by a Direct Message letting him know he had won the very first MōVI off the production line.   Mike Ritchie is a 28-year-old director/cameraman who has been making films since he was 15 – which is when I started with photography on my end anecdotally.    The winner  (Mike) was picked when we selected a number from zero to the total number of followers @freeflycinema had on the closing hour of NAB last week with a random number generator app.   Once we downloaded the list of followers, the task of figuring out who that exact person was, took our very tired brains a few days to figure out and confirm 😉    So I’m happy to announce the first winner of the MōVI here!

We’re going to pick the second winner of a MōVI M10 this month – and all that you need to do to qualify is to follow @freeflycinema and @vincentlaforet on Twitter.  

That’s it.  

We’re going to pick a slighlty more exciting way of picking the second winner… we had a great idea at NAB but there was simply too much packing up to do to put that together in time.

The MōVIs are in production and Freefly is taking pre-orders here should you be interested in putting your name down on the list with a $2,500 refundable deposit.   

If you’d like to read more about the MōVI you can do sohere as well as here should you want answers to common questions.   And download footage here while also making a small donation to a wonderful charity.

From Mike:

I’m 28 now and have been making films since I was 15. My first project was a horrendously cheesy gangster film, shot on a PD150, where we pretty much taught ourselves to shoot, direct and edit. My shining moment of creativity that film was the synonymous shot from inside the boot of the car as the gangsters unload the gear. We had no idea what we were doing but it was a lot of fun.

 

I love working with actors and telling stories, I’m also a huge camera geek. The price/performance ratio of cameras and gear now is staggering, which is a brilliant thing for anyone wanting to get into the world of film making.

 

I try to spend as much time as I can working on my own projects – mostly simple, short dramas exploring a particular theme or idea. One day I hope to start making features.

 

In my free time I love travelling – I’ve been fortunate enough to explore a fair chunk of the world so far. I’ve recently bought a wreck of a house, so I’m learning DIY the hard way. And I’m looking forward to getting married to my fiancée, Katy, in 2014.

 

and a final note from Mike that he was nice enough to share:

 

I was absolutely amazed when I saw the first MōVI shots. I couldn’t wait to try it out but had no idea when or how I’d get my hands on one!

This is awesome, I’ve got so many ideas for my first MōVI shoot. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Thank you SO much to the guys at Freefly. Wow!

Blind from Mike Ritchie on Vimeo.

Tags: MōVI