Talk to DPs and directors about the latest developments in camera support gear and it quickly becomes apparent that they’re all looking for the same thing: equipment that’s smaller, lighter and user-friendly. Add to that list a remote capability and you have a very happy end user.

“I use remote heads more and more, and size and weight considerations are always crucial,” says DP Checco Varese, whose credits include the recent terror film Prom Night and the acclaimed drama Under the Same Moon. Varese found “the perfect” remote head for his latest film, The New Daughter, in the form of the SL Pod, made by Geo Films. Starring Kevin Costner, the thriller is being shot in Charleston, South Carolina, and features “a lot of tiny underground tunnels in the storyline, and everything is shot from Kevin’s POV,” he explains. “So we attached the Pod to a beam and sent it down the tunnels, just like a probe. The whole rig can fit through a basketball hoop, and it’s the only way we could get all these shots. Before the Pod, you’d have had to do a very complex and costly build to get the same effect.”

Varese is also a big fan of the Ultimate Arm, which he used to great effect in the horror hit Prom Night. “It’s an amazing piece of gear as it’s all remote-controlled, gyro-stabilized, and can give you a 360-degree pan around,” he notes. “It’s fantastic for car chases and stuff like that, and I loved it so much I also used it for a new NBC pilot, Life.”

Remote-controlled systems have long been a key element of Florida-based Mako Products. CEO and DP Jordan Klein, Jr. reports that the 36-year-old company has recently updated its popular Aquahead and Aquacrane systems. “We’ve had a lot of demand for them, especially in the commercial world,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of personal watercraft spots with them recently for companies like Honda.”

Mako has also seen a lot of demand for their revolutionary Makohead 2.0 stabilization system. “We’ve made a number of recent upgrades to improve performance and make it far less susceptible to centrifugal forces that affect it when making rapid moves,” adds Klein. “It’s just been used on the new Bond film on location in Panama and Chile, as well as on some big wave surfing films and various jobs for the BBC, including a shoot in Antarctica. In fact, overseas demand has been very high lately.” As a DP himself, Klein, like Varese, sees “a big trend towards using more and more remote heads and stabilizing systems to get those really cool shots you can’t get any other way.”

At Chicago-based Zacuto, Steve Weiss reports that, as usual, “speed and ease are our main focus and we’re unveiling 24 new products at NAB.” This year the Zacuto line is all about quick-release locking devices that cannot unwind or loosen, and new items include The Z-Focus, Zacuto’s follow focus; Zamerican II articulating arms with new features and improvements; Universal rod adapters, interchange between 15mm lightweight, 15mm and 19mm studio rod configurations; and new mounts and lens supports for 15mm and 19mm rods.