Announcing the Proteus Cage!

[Dennis Wood]

This little project has been brewing on the back-burner for nearly 7 months and we finally got it sorted. The Proteus cage is a whole lot more than a handle, although for the Stillmotion.ca crew, it was immediately adoped as a crazy angle rig. The picturers are pretty self explanatory in terms of how you can use it. If you've got our Proteus rails already, the cage attaches to your existing tripod mount plate, converting it to a dual block design. If you don't use our rails, the cage will be available with the second block and tripod plate fully rigged. The "hot" shoe (not hot) attachment allows mounting mics, transceivers etc, the tool "pod" allows safe and handy storage of any adjustment keys, and finally, our 5/8 or 15mm universal rails blocks can mount in three different locations. The laptop/transciever clamp will also be available as an accessory. Made of CNC stamped/bent/machined components, the cage is 100% aluminum and powder coated for a lifetime of use. The bare rig is about 950grams, or just under 2lbs...so it's light but incredibly strong. We'll have the catalog updated tomorrow with pricing starting at $189 US. Our professional grip (Chris, seen outside the car) claims never to have seen such a thing in 10 years of working on movie sets...but loves it!





Note our follow focus mounted in a rather novel fashion!








Grab from the XH-A1, using CFXL and our Zeiss 35mm f2 lens.

[Jon Wolding]

Cool!

I was wondering what that was... saw it in a photo or video you posted not too long ago.

[Benjamin Eckstein]

That is pretty rad.

[michaelgrob]

Dennis, any news on availability, prices and available options? I'm waaaaiiiiitiiiiing!

BTW, I wish you all nice holydays.

[Dennis Wood]

Michael, they should be going to powder this week. Pricing for the basic cage is expected to fall below $200

[michaelgrob]

Dennis, if I understand it correctly, the Cage comes in handy when you use the Pegasus cable mount thingy, so you don't have to have the camera upside down..

Amazing stuff, really. And it all comes together...

[Dennis Wood]

The applications for the cage are pretty limitless really, including inverted mounts.

I just found out where the little guys were...CNC shop #2 is doing the aluminum frame using a CNC waterjet. This is a new technique for us, and a very cool way to make perfectly formed aluminum parts. If you watch "American Chopper" then you've seen a lot of CNC waterjetting.

[soren k jensen]

Hi Dennis,
Coming hom from a 5-day Steadicam workshop I'll tell you that the Proteus cage may act as a nice foundation for a tilt head as well as Antlers base for Steadicam. If you're interested in the idea, just PM me. I'll have my technician here make something similar, might as well develop it for you.

Kind regards, Soren K. Jensen, Communications dept. Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark, DPU.

[Dennis Wood]

Sounds good. I just checked out the water-jetted units yesterday and they're perfect. They'll be computer "braked" into shape and should be back from powder coating in about 8 days.

[Dennis Wood]

Here's the cage used in a way that we were expecting for the Canon D5Mk2 : http://www.stillmotionblog.com/?p=1000

[Dennis Wood]

Finally, they're here and up in the catalog: http://www.cinevate.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=22

Cheers,