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How to shoot the Michael Bay spinny hero shot in your own backyard

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There are certain things in some films that clue you in as to who directed them. J.J. Abrams, for example, is synonymous with over-the-top lens flares and camera shake. In the case of Michael Bay, it’s that hero shot, orbiting around the subjects with a long lens and the background whizzing by behind them. It’s not always an easy shot to make perfectly, but Josh Yeo at Make. Art. Now. seems to have figured it out.

It’s thanks to a new tool he’s developed for the Marbl Orbit, launched in 2021. It connects to the head and allows you to place speed rails of any length inside it, rather than being limited to the length of the Orbit’s arms. This allows you to get the camera out further from your subject to be able to reproduce that Michael Bay spinning hero shot. It’s not an inexpensive solution, though.

The Orbit is a single-axis robot arm that spins a camera around your head

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Well, this is pretty unique. A motion-controlled motorised orbiting camera rig. Developed by Josh Yeo of MAKE. ART. NOW. along with Axibo, the Marbl Orbit is a motion control rig that gets suspended from your ceiling to… well, spin a camera around you or whatever your subject is. And it can do it in realtime, slow motion or even timelapse.

The video above explains the goals of the product, who it’s targeted towards and what it attempts to achieve for them. Essentially, it’s a way to let you film yourself or a subject in a new and interesting way that doesn’t require a film crew. And it’s fairly affordable, too. It’s currently running on Kickstarter, with super early bird pledges starting at $799.

How to film an epic B-roll sequence entirely handheld

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B-roll adds value to your videos and makes them more dynamic, and there are plenty of ways to shoot an epic one. One of the most common tips is to stabilize your camera, be it with a gimbal, a steadicam, a slider, or even a tripod. However, you can get a pretty awesome B-roll sequence even handheld. Josh Yeo of MAKE. ART. NOW. teamed up with Tommy Callaway to do it, and they ended up with some interesting footage. In this video, they take you behind the scenes to show you how they did it and inspire you to try something similar yourself.

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