Using the AGITO robotic dolly to shoot close up soccer action

AGITO shoots, scores. In shooting the recent biopic of the influential French female soccer player Marinette Pichon, Motion Impossible’s AGITO robotic dolly was used to get a lot closer to the action than the usual Camera 2 position.

Following the recent FIFA World Cup, interest in women’s soccer is moving comfortably off the charts, making the recent biopic of France’s Marinette Pichon more than timely. Pichon is one of those players who deserves to be more known to a wider audience; one of the greatest female soccer players of all time and a crusading activist for LGBTQ rights, she is one of the people that has got the sport to exactly where it is today.

In the simply titled Marinette, director Virginie Verrier has delivered a multi-faceted portrait of the soccer star, channelling the energy and emotional toil of her life through near-tactile visuals developed by DOP Xavier Dolleans. He explains, “While much of the film takes place on the soccer field, Virginie’s vision was a contrast to the typical production of a soccer game. She didn’t want to be far away from the players and use long lenses; she instead wanted to be close to the action and capture their reactions.”

There were logistical challenges to be considered here. A typical playing pitch can only sustain 90-minutes of game before the grass becomes tarnished – and Xavier would need to shoot on it for a day at the very least. “When you consider Virginie’s visual requirements, alongside the fragility of the grass and the typical film choices for camera movement, we were limited. Quads are too heavy; tracks are too limiting; Steadicam’s don’t have enough speed, and wires are often visible when creating dynamic shots.”

He continues: “We did many tests before we came across Motion Impossible’s AGITO, which is available from two rental companies in France, including Nova Grip who were open to the idea of using it to shoot narrative. They use it for following models on the runway and artists at music events, so it wasn’t too dissimilar to what we were trying to achieve visually – except, we needed it to be much closer and go a lot faster! After just one day of testing, we were amazed by what it was able to do.”

We’ve talked about the AGITO before (and will again during IBC we suspect), but to get you up to speed if you don’t know it yet it’s a lightweight and free-roaming dolly system capable of creating smooth camera movements up to two metres in height. Regarded as the Swiss army knife for filmmakers, it can achieve the same motions as most equipment on the market – from rickshaws, jibs and dollys to sliders and tracking vehicles – all into one compact package. But for Xavier, it was able to achieve so much more than that: “The AGITO enabled me to capture movement intuitively; it could drive with agility and speed in between the players as if it was one. It became part of the team.”

Even behind the camera, the AGITO inspired collaboration. “It’s a two-person job manning the AGITO because you need a pilot and a camera operator. I was then able to direct the visuals and shots through a radio that was connected to them. This still has less footprint than most other options that require crews of people and days to set-up and get right. When we needed to change something – a tire, for example – I often felt like I was watching a Formula 1 pit stop with how quickly it came together. It’s a tool of the future.”