The Design Journey

But one thing we know about on set workflows, they are rarely typical! Every shot, and every set is different. Not an easy design brief.

We began designing in ernest. With so many contradictory forces to deal with, many innovations needed to be made to overcome these hurdles. 

But there was one area where we knew we would not re-invent the wheel. The vertical stabilisation was to be taken care of by a simplified version of the steadicam arm designed by Garret Brown. The original steadicam is a brilliant design. Utter genius. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

But getting a simplified, single stage, non hinged arm to perform well is not straight forward. 

We have now gone through four separate prototype stages to get where we are now. With refinements to the function of quick releases, vest fit and ergonomics, damping and other materials, module fit and function, structural strength and many other design considerations, we are now at a stage where we have an exceptionally useful and functional tool.

We even have a few design enhancement in mind for the production model that will make it even better....

The Kinehawk Nostromo is the brainchild of Marcus Dineen, an Australian cinematographer living in Stockholm, Sweden.

Shooting a commercial on one of the first Freefly Mōvi gimbals in Sweden, he realised what a liberating tool it was, but also how awkward it was to use all day. The commercial was one of those improvised "keep shooting" productions and by the end of the day, both he and his assistant (who shared operating duty) were exhausted! It was then the idea for the Nostromo was born.

What was needed was something that was robust but not too heavy. Simple in operation so the learning curve is not too steep. It needed to help spatially stabilise the camera, as the gimbal itself only deals with rotational movement. It needed to be quick to get up and running. There is never enough time on set!! Ideally it would be modular so it could perform more than one task.

It had to, as best as possible, fit into the typical on set workflow.