McConkey's work on Scorsese's 3D "Hugo"

[Chris Poynton]

A minor compilation of material about Larry McConkey's masterful work on 3D "Hugo" (2011) ... shot with the massive Arri Alexa/Pace twin cam rig which he describes as "the most satisfying job of my career" :

 

1) Behind the scenes footage from a GoPro camera mounted on top of the Alexa 3D rig during what is perhaps the film's signature long take steadicam shot ... including flying set walls and an actor on a motorised dolly (footage posted by Andrew Ansnick)

 

2) Recent press interview with Larry McConkey (Feb 2012 Film & Digital Times) regarding the 3D shoot including descriptions of the most challenging shots

 

3) Video interview with Larry McConkey which is possibly from 2008 era when he received SOC Mobile Camera Platform Operator Award (footage recently posted by Dave Frederick SOC)

 

4)

with Chris Fawcett (i.e. his "Steadiseg" system) and Larry McConkey (footage posted by Chris Fawcett)

 

5) Web photos of the Arri Alexa/Pace 3D rig:

 

 

[Kevin Andrews SOC]

Thanks for posting! The GoPro vid is great. Love the wall moving back at 1:05.

 

Very inspiring work again from Mr. McConkey.

[David M. Aronson]

Wow.

[Tommy Stork]

McKonkey is a true master! In the photo and segway video I couldn't help notice that he's using a PRO arm and not a Tiffen arm. Did he switch brands because the PRO handles more weight or what?

[Bryant Swanstrom]

From my understanding the pro-arm starts to sink at 80 lbs and the g-70 sinks right at 70. The Pro-Arm seems to have a bit of extra at the top end.

[Andrew Ansnick]

Glad you guys revived this clip! Larry also shared another video with me that's Hugo related. It's a breakdown of the VFX shots in Hugo and takes some time to load but it's definitely worth viewing. Click the link and go make some coffee, then come back and enjoy.

 

Hugo VFX Montage

[David M. Aronson]

From my understanding the pro-arm starts to sink at 80 lbs and the g-70 sinks right at 70. The Pro-Arm seems to have a bit of extra at the top end.

I don't own either, so I was just going by the numbers on the web sites. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the PRO springs sink at 80. The PRO skeleton could probably safely take 90-100lbs if they made springs for it*. I think Papert had a flyer arm at one point that could hold 27lbs while being rated at 15.

 

*I'm not a mechanical engineer and I've had very limited contact with a pro arm. These are only my observations and assumptions based on materials used, design, and testimonies from operators.

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

From my understanding the pro-arm starts to sink at 80 lbs and the g-70 sinks right at 70. The Pro-Arm seems to have a bit of extra at the top end.

I don't own either, so I was just going by the numbers on the web sites. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the PRO springs sink at 80. The PRO skeleton could probably safely take 90-100lbs if they made springs for it*. I think Papert had a flyer arm at one point that could hold 27lbs while being rated at 15.

 

*I'm not a mechanical engineer and I've had very limited contact with a pro arm. These are only my observations and assumptions based on materials used, design, and testimonies from operators.

 

 

I don't know where you got your 80lbs number because the arm has always been 72lbs max

 

Click here to see the chart on PROs site

[Andrew Ansnick]

I don't know where you got your 80lbs number because the arm has always been 72lbs max

 

Click here to see the chart on PROs site

 

The numbers don't lie.

[chris fawcett]

Larry's G70 maxed out at about 75lb, the Pro lifted 77lb. He needed the extra 2lb for that monster rig.

[Brian Freesh]

I think Papert had a flyer arm at one point that could hold 27lbs while being rated at 15.

 

The Flyer, 1st and 2nd Gen was rated for a maximum 15lbs camera payload. The arm carries the camera, the sled, monitor, and batteries. You need two batteries to counterweight a 15lb camera on that rig (no extendable post) so the arm itself was a theoretical 25lb maximum, though that's not an official tiffen number. It's also possible that the 15lb limit has more to do with the sled than the arm. My original springs for my 2nd gen arm lifted 32.5 lbs comfortably. One broke, now it lifts 30.5. I very rarely would put more than 20 lbs of camera on the sled, though I could do almost 24, because it really seemed like I was stressing the rig too much.

 

BTW, the spring did not break due to maxing out the arm (which I never did) it broke due to external damage.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

I own the prototype Flyer arm hand built by Garrett. It holds about 29 pounds. On that note, I'm probably going to sell it because being a PRO arm owner with 8 arm canisters, I'm pretty excited about the new light weight Atlas PRO arm (I already have the springs). If anyone is interested, let me know. Have not had the heart to list it in the classifieds yet. Oh, I have both the original arm post and a 5/8' adapter for "full size" gimbals.

[Andrew Ansnick]

Well, I don't know how this video has received over 4,000 views in the last 4-5 days but because of this my bandwidth limit was exceeded on Photobucket. I'd also like to keep this video from going totally viral since I don't really know what legal ramifications, if any, could come of it. For the aforementioned reasons, I have moved the video to a new album that is password protected so that now it can only be viewed by those of us in our community.

 

The video can now be seen here: Larry McConkey Hugo Final Shot GoPro "Witness Cam"

The password is: steadicamforum

 

Like fine scotch or lisigav, enjoy in moderation. Cheers.

[Sanjay Sami]

deleted

[David Baldwin]

"I think Papert had a flyer arm at one point that could hold 27lbs while being rated at 15"

 

That's "Mr." Papert, David. ;)