View Full Version : Strada Crane, Akela Crane


Warren Kawamoto
November 1st, 2012, 08:21 AM
These are my favorite crane demo videos of the world's longest camera crane!
Strada Crane 360 Demo on Vimeo
Demo Reel Collection | Strada Camera Cranes (http://www.stradacranes.com/demo-reel/)

Trevor Dennis
November 2nd, 2012, 04:50 PM
Now that was impressive! So would that have been programmed into motorised movements, or done manually? Surely not manually with such smooth movements?

BTW This is my favourite Crane video (except it is actually a series of stills)

Aharbour_somewhereinIreland.avi - YouTube

Sander Vreuls
November 2nd, 2012, 05:13 PM
The big cranes are all manual.. simply because you can't risk it going wrong by having it motorized if something happens...
The massive weight of the crane makes it smooth, and the head operation is user skill..

I have worked in productions (couple of registrations and a live show) with a strada before.. and they are pretty impressive..

Though imho the star inside studios is still the supertechno.. they are so versatile :)

Warren Kawamoto
November 2nd, 2012, 06:34 PM
Sander is right, big cranes are done manually. The arc of the Strada is so wide that it looks like a track shot. It has a good pan/tilt head on it too, everything is absolutely jerk free.

Charles Papert
November 3rd, 2012, 02:23 AM
That's a fantastic demo clip, really nicely designed and executed.

I haven't used a Strada in a long time, they are fairly rare on set (as Sander noted, the Techno is a much more standard tool). I think the last time I used one was on a music video I shot for the theme song for "Scrubs" that Zach Braff directed--there's a pretty scratchy version of it on Youtube:

Video For Scrubs Theme Song - YouTube

The opening shot is on the Strada, starting on top of the three story hospital where we shot the series.

I hadn't watched this in a long time, we shot it just over 10 years ago according to the slate seen in the video! And I had also forgotten that I had a tiny cameo with the Steadicam, at 2:05.