James Bruton’s Robotic Cameraman Captures Great Dynamic Shots
YouTuber James Bruton wanted a way to get dynamic shots without hiring a human camera operator, so he built this robotic cameraman.
Anyone who makes videos eventually comes to an important revelation: static camera shots are boring. Even the most interesting content imaginable benefits from more engaging presentation and that often comes from dynamic videos. But few content creators have the budget to hire a camera operator — and even those who can afford it might not want someone following them around all the time. James Bruton must be the latter. He has more than a million subscribers on YouTube and we assume he could afford a camera operator, but he chose to build this robotic cameraman instead.
Longtime subscribers to Bruton’s channel know that he almost always works alone and this project makes it safe to assume that he wanted to keep it that way. But he still wanted those fun dynamic shots that other YouTubers have in their videos. This robotic cameraman can capture them almost as well as a human operator. It might even be better in some cases, since the camera is always steady. The robot drives around on three omniwheels, so it can follow Bruton or perform tracking/dolly shots. The camera mount, which works with a Panasonic Lumix GH5 DSLR, can automatically pan, tilt, and zoom. That means it can handle all of the standard camera shots, with the exception of pedestal (boom up/down) movements.
The whole point here is to replicate a human operator, so Bruton needed his robot to work on its own without his direct control. It does that by monitoring him and any movement using computer vision software running on an NVIDIA Jetson Nano single-board computer. That will attempt to keep Bruton centered in frame and will also zoom in or out to keep any motion within the frame. An LCD on the front of the robot lets Bruton monitor the video while he works or presents a project. A set of three foot pedals also let him trigger specific events. A foot press can, for example, trigger a camera movement that focuses on the project and then moves back to Bruton when he releases the pedal.
The Jetson controls the robot’s various motors through an Arduino Mega 2560 development board and motor drivers. The structure of the robot consists of a 3D-printed base with the wheels, a camera tripod that mounts to that base, and the pan/tilt/zoom camera mechanism that sits on the top of the tripod.
Bruton’s work here is as impressive as always and we’re eager to see the dynamic videos he makes with this new robotic cameraman.
