When Warner Bros. releases “Collateral Damage” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger later this summer, moviegoers will see people falling through an elevator shaft almost as if they were taking the fall themselves.
Hair-raising special effects are nothing new to Hollywood, but a new camera system developed by a Van Nuys company will provide even more up-close action.
Four-year-old Coptervision made its mark with a remote controlled mini-helicopter fitted with a camera for close-range aerial photography. The Coptervision system can film from under bridges and inside tunnels at angles that traditional systems cannot.
The most recent invention, Rollvision, goes a few steps further. Weighing just 15 pounds and able to roll or pan a full 360 degrees, or tilt 180 degrees, the camera can be set up on anything from a bicycle to a Steadicam. This allows it to fit into almost any space and to film action from points of view that previously took many hours to set up if it could be filmed at all.
“The idea of a camera head that can pan and tilt and roll is not brand new,” said Mark Centkowski, president of Innovision Optics Inc., a Santa Monica-based firm that makes, sells and rents specialized production equipment and is helping Coptervision market Rollvision. “Coptervision has taken that idea and made it very lightweight and portable, and that’s the uniqueness.”
Team effort
Sarita Spiwak, Coptervision’s president and chief executive, spent years helping her physician husband build his medical practice. When it was sold, Spiwak began looking for a new venture. By chance, she met up with Carlos Hoyos, a photographer and film director, who for years tinkered with remote-controlled camera equipment in his garage.
The two Colombian & #233;migr & #233;s formed Coptervision, with Hoyos as vice president for research and development. Soon after, Spiwak’s daughter, Daniela Meltzer, joined as vice president and chief operating officer. Within a year, Coptervision launched its first product, a remote-controlled helicopter that the company rented to production companies.
Coptervision has been used for live sports coverage, films and music videos and on TV series such as WB Network’s “Charmed.”
The executives won’t divulge revenues, but they say Coptervision has grown by about 30 percent each year since its launch in 1997. The trouble is that the system requires a specially trained crew to pilot the helicopter, work the camera equipment, and manage the microwave transmissions. That limited growth prospects.
So when the industry began to show interest in the company’s lightweight camera heads separately from the choppers, Hoyos came up with the newest product.
“We noticed a lot of people expressed interest in the camera design itself because you could detach it,” said Meltzer. “The idea for Rollvision started with that. We took it off the helicopter and put it on different platforms.”
In the middle of action
Rollvision was mounted on the race cars in “Driven,” a feature film about Formula One races starring Sylvester Stallone. “You really felt like you were in the car,” said Spiwak.
For “Collateral Damage,” it was attached to a cable that traveled down an elevator shaft. And in “The Scorpion King,” an upcoming sequel to “The Mummy Returns,” it was used to film an action shot that shows wrestling superstar The Rock hurtling down a two-mile drop from a mountaintop.
Coptervision is looking to establish a distribution system for Rollvision that will expand the company’s reach both nationally and internationally. “It’s going to add a lot,” said Spiwak. “With sales and rentals and the interest out there, it’s going to put the company at a different level.”
