Modern robotics hits Hollywood. IRIS: The most advanced camera rig ever created.

A couple of days ago on reddit this was posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKC6j7pW6T0

It's kind of similar and really interesting. The precision, speed and strength of this robots always amazed me.

This kind of reminds me of the Danish Christmas calendar (a TV-show with an episode for each day in December until the 24th). In this show all characters were played by the same actor, Anders Matthesen[1], a Danish stand-up comedian, actor and rapper. The show was named "Jul på Vesterbro" and in many of the shots characters sit side-by-side and interact. Along with this, there were camera movements and minor visual and sound effects. To do this, the camera was mounted on a robotic arm which could move in the precisely same way. For each scene and for each character, Matthesen would do the acting and then in the editing room they would cut the performances together.

I can't really find any sources on it, I only remember a Danish documentary about the creation of the show.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Matthesen

Animators have used motion control rigs for decades, they had the same range of motion but were optimized for extremely slow but the incredibly accurate registration required for repeated animation shots. The lightness of contemporary cameras also is a significant advantage.

It's an interesting competitor for Mark Robert's Milo. Smaller slider/dolly and pan/tilt companies come out of the woodworks right now and are very popular accesories, there're even a couple of small open-source shops in the industry. Obviously none on that scale though. (Dynamic Perception, eMotimo, etc.)