For my first interview, I present to you the Amazing Mr. Dick Kaneshiro and his Magical Motion Control Rig. I first met Dick working at Screen Novelties, and then later at Buddy System while he was bringing in his home-made motion control rig. It was quite a sight to see the rig being assembled and set up. I became interested in the story behind how the rig was built and how Dick came to build it. I asked Dick if he would agree to an interview, he said 'Yes', and this is what transpired...
J.S.
Let's talk motion-control...
Personally, I wouldn't even know how to begin to build a motion-control rig. Could you give a brief description of the process, tools, and amount of time you spent on it?
D.K.
Actually, I didn’t have a clue either! This is my first rig. I knew what I wanted in my head so I just had to flesh it out on paper. The rig actually started with a single BiSlide with a hand crank. I then added a stepper motor and got a couple of rotary tables. I took the rotary tables to a machinist to make the L-brackets to create a pan and tilt head. This was before I owned my own mill and knew how to machine. I knew I wanted to add more axes in the future but didn’t know how to go about it until I discovered extruded aluminum. The 80/20 extruded aluminum made the rest of the rig easy to build. It took me a couple of months to complete. It was time consuming because I had to devise a way to machine the plate’s different angles and I ordered parts as I needed them. It takes about a week for the parts to arrive from Indiana. I used a dry cut saw to cut the extruded aluminum to length which saved me tons of time.
J.S.
When designing your motion-control (mo-co) rig, did you do a lot of research into past designs, or have any influences?
D.K.
Once I found BiSlide, I knew I wanted a Cartesian type mover. They had a lot of samples on how to build different movers with their slides so it was easy to imagine a camera on top of their rigs. A Cartesian mover consists of linear sliders in three dimensions, X, Y and Z. I was also impressed by the special edition DVD of “More” by Mark Osborne. They shot this amazing little short at Cal Arts. In the documentary they showed the Cartesian motion control rig they used. When I saw this rig, I felt my vision was validated. It was done before so I knew my design could work. Only after working at Screen Novelties did I actually see a real moco in person. It was a crane type and it was enormous. I thought about changing my design but in the end, stuck to the original vision and I’m glad I did. It makes for a more compact rig.
J.S.
One, what is BiSlide? Is it an online store only, or is there a shop locally?
D.K.
BiSlides are made by a company called Velmex in New York. You can find them at http:// HYPERLINK "http://www.bislide.com" www.bislide.com. They sell them in either manual or motorized. Velmex also sells the rotary tables I used. You can find them at http://www.velmex.com.
J.S.
What was the reason you decided to build your rig?
D.K.
When I was doing research on stop motion, the question of how to move the camera came up. Back around in 2003, I started visiting stopmotionanimation.com and read up on what I could. This got me started with my first slide and did a few test shots with it. From there it just grew. When I left Shadow Animation in 2008, I decided I needed to finish my rig and see if I could get work with it.
J.S.
When you were making your mo-co rig, did you really teach yourself how to machine parts on lathe?
D.K.
I purchased videos from Swarfrat ( HYPERLINK "http://www.swarfrat.com" http://www.swarfrat.com) to learn how to do the basics of machining on the mill. I also took a weekend armature making class with Tom Brierton a while back. So I had a little training before I started the camera rig. One of the challenges that came up was to create jigs so that I could machine the plates I needed.
J.S.
Were there any 'hiccups' encountered when building the mo-co rig?
D.K.
I think the one thing I would consider a “hiccup” would be the fact I was trying to write a program from scratch to run it. This ate up a lot of time. I am now running Kuper Controls which is very robust and is an industry standard. Maybe someday I’ll finish that program for users who want something straight forward and don’t want to spend a lot of money on a Kuper system.
J.S.
What makes your rig stand out/attractive to prospective renters? Is it all about size and weight, or are there other reasons?
D.K.
I think it has a lot to do with size and weight. I designed the rig with stop motion in mind. The rigs that I have seen are really big and bulky built for 35mm film cameras. A Cartesian type rig has a very small footprint and with the extension arm, it can be out of the way of the animator. The pan and tilt head was designed for a Bolex 16mm camera but a digital SLR sits nicely on it. It also has special casters so that it is very easy for a single person to move it to different stages and make stationary quickly.
J.S.
With your rig completed, what's the next project you have on your table?
D.K.
I would like to improve on the camera head actually. I have a design floating around that would incorporate roll along with the pan and tilt. Focus pull would be nice too! I would also like to learn animation. This was my initial idea when I started doing research on stop motion. I would also like to learn how to make ball and socket armatures. There are so many disciplines I would love to learn but I am slowly realizing it is not realistic to do in one lifetime. I would love to learn how to make puppets and sets for instance. Sculpting would be nice too! And lighting…
J.S.
What advice would you give to someone who is considering the possibility of making their own 'at home' rig?
D.K.
If you want something inexpensive, look into 80/20 extruded aluminum at http://www.8020.net. They are great for building things but they also make platforms that ride on them as well. They make great camera movers. I put one together for Shadow Machine back in 2006 and they put together a few more since then to use on Robot Chicken and Moral Orel. You move the camera by hand but you can get really smooth moves.
J.S.
How about some background...
J.S.
Almost everyone I know has some sort of story about how they got into stop-motion. Some knew from an early age that that's what they wanted, others, like myself, fell into it by accident. What category do you fall under, and what's your story? Or is it a secret that nobody can know?
D.K.
Back in the late 90s, my niece inspired me to try and build a website of fairy tales. I hired a few people to do the reading, illustration and music and put together a little Flash presentation. I thought it turned out great but when I showed it to a few people, they lost interest very quickly. And so I decided it might be better in stop motion. And that’s when my research began. I started interning at Shadow Machine on Moral Orel in 2005 and quit my audio job in 2007 to do it full time. Did I ever get to do a fairy tale in stop motion? Nope. Maybe someday.
J.S.
One final question for now...
What kind of philosophy do you have when you approach your work and stop-motion?
For example, just before I start working, I take a moment to ask myself, what am I doing, and why am I doing it? This usually puts my mind in a zone, and I can see what I need to do to finish the task at hand.
D.K.
For my camera rig, a lot of faith that in the end I know it will work. It took a lot of time and money to build. So if I didn’t believe in my work, then I wouldn’t have started it or would have quit half way through. A lot of it is problem solving. When I had to figure out a method to machine a part and had no idea where to start, I kept calm knowing the answer will come. The more experience you have, the quicker the answers will come.
Thus concludes the first installment of Stop-Mo Interviews. I greatly recommend you visit Dick's website to learn more about his motion control rig at
http://www.kaneshiro.name/
There are also a lot more pictures of the rig, and a couple of tests that you can watch which really show just how smooth the rig moves.
To my readers, if you have a suggestion for someone to be interviewed in the stop-mo community, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.
