Operator Profile: Justin Brown
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
A conversation with Justin Brown.
Justin Brown is a camera operator and gimbal expert. He took the leap to become an Inertia Wheels owner at the end of last year and has seen them quickly become an integral tool in his workflow. He reached out to share his enthusiasm for the wheels and talk about the impact that they've had not only on his operating but potentially on gimbals and camera operating in general.
“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts… to say, ‘Oh, I brought some wheels,’ that’s just the beginning.”
–Justin Brown
Justin's work has spanned the evolution of the gimbal. He worked for Freefly Systems for several years and witnessed the early days of the MōVI. He has since worked as a freelance operator, gimbal technician, and cinematographer, where he's taken part in pretty much every use case a gimbal can go through.
Boyd Hobbs, founder of NODO, gave him a call to chat about it.
Boyd Hobbs: Tell us about your experience with wheels in general. Have you owned wheels before?
Justin Brown: Before the Inertia Wheels, I had the Freefly brass wheels for the MōVI ecosystem of the Pro and the XL, and before those were out in the wild, I would also sub-rent Sam Nuttmann’s Walter Klassen wheels, which were one of the earliest available wheel options out there for gimbals.
Back then, wheels were really a tool I would sub-rent or just bring on board for DPs that requested them. It wasn't really something that I used myself. I do come mostly from the Freefly and drone world of joysticks. So while I would supplement with wheels or bring them on for other people, I had very little experience using them myself. But the more I was around them, the more I started to get curious, and then at the end of last year, I decided to take the plunge with Inertia Wheels.
BH: Were there any factors that tipped the scales for you to invest in wheels, specifically Inertia Wheels?
JB: A huge part of taking that leap was, honestly, knowing that there was a simulator and software that gave me the ability to practice and get more familiar in a non-professional setting. That's always the chicken-and-the-egg situation on film sets. You want the opportunity to gain experience, but you need experience to gain the opportunity.
While I had some experience before purchasing these, using the training app got me to a place where I was comfortable bringing them onto a job and making them my key mode of control in a professional environment. It wasn't the whole solution, but it was definitely a good bump towards my comfort level and knowing I could take them onto a job and feel confident that I could get the shots required.
BH: Let’s talk MōVI. You’ve used the MōVI in all settings—as a gimbal, hand-held moving it through space, on drones, on cranes, with joysticks… How would you describe the experience and the evolution of how you’ve used MōVI before compared to using it with the Inertia Wheels now?
JB: The first MōVI shipped nearly ten years ago, which is kind of crazy to consider. Initially, many in the industry saw the MōVI as a tool for oners and long takes and overall just very novel approaches to filming. Thankfully, skilled technicians and operators pushed past that trend and the idea of a really compact remote head started to take form. It didn't take long to see how the MōVI could flourish in your hands, on a drone, on a cable cam, off a jib, and countless other use cases.
The more places you can put a remote head, the more options you need for controlling it and articulating what you want in a given situation. Obviously, the joystick side of this all came from the drone world, but people with varying backgrounds were seeing the power of MōVI as a remote head but didn't want to use a joystick. They needed something else.
Recently, I did a job where we had the MōVI Pro in play off of a MovieBird 17 controlled by the Inertia Wheels. They actually had to throw a bunch of sandbags and do some funny things to the crane because the team had never put such a light remote head on that crane before. So, we have this comically large crane with a little MōVI Pro and the Inertia Wheels for control. It all worked great.
It's a solid example of the different parts of our industry coming from different backgrounds and working at a very high level to get the job done. It's fascinating to see what you can do these days with small but nimble tools.
BH: It’s very cool. And all of that came about through these feedback loops between filmmakers and operators and the people helping evolve the gear, which is really important to us at NODO. We want to release a product, give it to customers, see how they use it, and then develop software updates to make Inertia Wheels an even more helpful tool.
While you may not have experienced that evolution yet with your wheels, do you feel a sense of that potential? That they are a tool that can evolve with how people use gimbals?
JB: Honestly, it's almost tough just to call them wheels when you think about what they can do. I've worked with three or four DPs over the last few months who have had their first introduction to these wheels through my MōVI Pro setup. It takes a few moments to walk them through the initial concept, but when you show them the hardware and the software and what you're able to do, they're sold.
The first thing they notice is that the Inertia Wheels immediately solve what I would say is probably the biggest problem wheels face, which is being limited by physics. I've seen a DP who's been using wheels for decades still struggle to get a shot sometimes with brass wheels and the momentum required to get to where you need to be.
The hardware is one part of it, but the software is where you build that ecosystem and create that longevity. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When you're able to quickly get back to horizon or kill the motors or set limitations for tilt and pan—those are things that no one has been able to offer before in this super-streamlined control interface. So to say, “Oh, I brought some wheels,” that's just the beginning of it.
The really amazing thing, though, is I spend five minutes with a cinematographer in the morning, show them a couple of things, and then I'm able to walk away, and they can adjust their drag and mass on the fly. They can set their limitations on tilt and pan very rapidly. It takes a very short amount of time to get them comfortable because the interface is so user-friendly.
In the past, whether it's a joystick interface or some other wheels out there, I have to spend a little more time getting them comfortable but then also have that continual interaction to check in and make sure that things are going well. But with the Inertia Wheels, you have intuitive hardware backed by really smart software, so it creates that shorthand very rapidly.
I mean, it's all about that shorthand. There's a reason why the ALEXA camera platform is so amazing. It's because it's really powerful, but it's got a great user experience, and it's very easy to get people comfortable. Our industry requires a lot of shorthand because of the constant influx of new challenges and people we work with. We need to have O'Connor heads, Teradeks, etc. because everyone knows how to use these industry-leading tools. We will continue to need camera systems that are quite familiar, and I could totally see Interia Wheels becoming like that. They're approachable and powerful.
BH: That’s amazing to hear the perspective of other cinematographers. What’s your experience as a cinematographer when you use them on your jobs? Do you find yourself thinking of new options for camera movement because you have this controller in front of you that presents more options to you?
JB: I think I've had two revelations while getting more comfortable with these wheels myself. The big one is that ergonomics is a huge part of my life as a camera operator. When I'm using a joystick, I often ride pan and tilt input levels and try to work extra hard to make sure I don't accidentally bring unwanted movement into the shot. Being able to isolate each axis is such an obvious benefit of wheels but beyond that, I actually find my body and my cadence much more relaxed when I don't have to exert that extra effort to avoid accidental input.
I feel it in my hand, my elbows, my arms. I physically feel better using wheels because I don't have that white-knuckle grip on a joystick. I'm not constantly thinking about accidental input on pan or tilt. So I'm filming in a more relaxed state.
BH: Yeah, I used to travel with aluminum wheels because they’re so lightweight and convenient. But a really similar thing happens. I would find myself tightening my whole body in order to hit something right because you don’t have a lot of margin for error with finesse. Now with the Inertia Wheels, when I feel that I’m tensing up, I just change my mass or drag settings to be more in line with what I need the physics of the shot to be. It requires a lot less physical stress.
JB: Absolutely. The other big difference is that I feel more connected to the camera with wheels. I feel the physicality through the interface. I feel the momentum of the shot on pan, on tilt, on roll. With a joystick, there is obviously some resistance built into the joystick itself but being able to feel the shot due to the nature of wheels is a huge benefit that I think a lot of joystick users just don't realize they're missing out on.
BH: And beyond the physics of the wheels, are there elements of the software interface and the options it provides that you’ve found are impactful?
JB: Beyond the dynamic ability of changing mass and drag in real-time with a knob, having those quick keys at your fingertips for various things is so nice. We were doing some whip pans the other day, and the DP was able to set both pan and tilt limits in a single shot and have the wheels help dial in the exact moment. The DP simply said, “I haven't been able to do this before with any tool.” To be able to ramp into a shot and have a perfect second position is such a great feature of the quick keys.
And to have a button that can immediately bring us back to level horizon is something that used to be a multistep process for me. I'd have my phone app open on my chart, and then I have another app open, and I had to manually roll horizon back into place while monitoring this digital chart so I could lock it from there. It wasn't an easy process, but I had to do it. Now it's just a button.
BH: We love hearing that. That’s one of the reasons we want to keep adding features to our software and keep the wheels adaptable—to make it a superior operating experience for DPs. One of the things you’ve talked about is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In that sense, how do the Inertia Wheels fit into the larger ecosystem of the type of work you do?
JB: As a specialty camera operator, I deal with a lot of equipment outside of simply camera operating. As someone who requires a lot of gear to get the job done and be marketable, when I buy something, it either needs to raise or improve the standard of living, or it needs to change or improve the quality of the work.
Buying these wheels was definitely an investment in myself as a camera operator who wanted to adopt wheels into my professional offerings. It was honestly a pretty aspirational purchase, and in a few short months, I've become immensely more comfortable with this ecosystem. It's now a staple of what I offer.
They also feel future-proof. The hardware is polished, but the software developments I've already seen are really promising. It's comforting to know that in an industry where the tech moves so fast, I think these wheels will keep up for years to come on the software side—alongside a strong backbone of really good hardware.
They work on the MōVI Pro, and I’m sure they'll work for the next gimbal from Freefly, ARRI, DJI, etc. It’s a sound investment thanks to the evolving software, refined hardware, and committed team behind them.
