Motion Control (Bolt X)
Fast, precise, and repeatable to the frame.
The Bolt X is a high-speed camera robot, a cinebot. It holds the camera on a long robotic arm and drives it through a move that is fast, precise, and repeatable to the frame.
In filming terms
It does the shots a human operator cannot hold steady or repeat:
- Whip-fast moves that snap from a wide to a tight in a fraction of a second.
- The exact same move run again and again, so passes line up for VFX and compositing.
- Speed ramps, from a slow glide to a violent push, all in one take.
- Fast tracking alongside a moving subject, a car, a runner, a product on a rig.
- Product, food, and liquid shots where timing has to be perfect every take.
- Frozen-moment and timelapse work with movement built in.
Because every move is stored as data, it can be slowed down, sped up, mirrored, or handed to the VFX team as a camera track. It talks to Unreal Engine, so the same move drives the real camera and the virtual scene together.
What it does
- Programmable, repeatable camera paths.
- Target tracking to simplify a complex move around a subject.
- Speed ramping and timelapse.
- Camera and move data straight into Unreal for virtual production.
- Runs on Flair, which controls up to 500 axes of motion.
- Frame sync through our proprietary framework, so the Bolt X, the motion base, and the lighting fire together on the same frame, take after take.
Every move is data
Slow it, speed it, mirror it, or hand it to the VFX team as a camera track.
Specifications
Operating envelope
- Maximum height on track
- 4.3 m
- Maximum reach from rotate centre, the longest in the Bolt range
- 3.2 m
- Lowest position
- -1.3 m
- Vertical travel
- nearly 5 m
Speed
- Arm move, at the camera
- up to 10 m/s
- Arm plus track, at the camera
- up to 14 m/s
- Track
- up to 4 m/s
- Vertical, on a 3.1 m arc
- 9.6 m/s
- Horizontal, on a 3.1 m arc
- 9.7 m/s
Axis range and speed
- Rotate
- 360° total (±180) · 180 °/s
- Lift
- +135 to -90° · 180 °/s
- Arm
- +206 to -80° · 180 °/s
- Pan
- ±200° · 400 °/s
- Tilt
- ±150° · 430 °/s
- Roll
- ±455° · 630 °/s
Payload, weight, power
- Payload
- 20 kg
- Rig weight, robot
- 560 kg
- Rig weight, pedestal
- 372 kg
- Power
- 415V 3-phase
Built for
- Repeat passes and matched takes.
- VFX plates and clean elements.
- Product, food, and tabletop.
- Car and high-speed tracking shots.
- Stunts and complex choreography.
Moco into virtual production
01Move programmed on Flair
02Move data into Unreal
03Real and virtual camera driven together
04Camera track to the VFX team
Recent work
- We have run the Bolt X on recent productions, including work for Netflix.
- See the full breakdown on the dedicated case study.
Next step
Bring us the shot.
