People are Excited for the GlamBOT Camera at The Oscars 2024
The internet is getting excited for the GlamBOT camera at the 96th Academy Awards this weekend — with the photographer behind the slow-motion videos becoming a star in his own right.
Canadian filmmaker and photographer Cole Walliser has become an online sensation as the man behind E! Entertainment’s GlamBOT camera on the red carpet.
Walliser has become well-known for capturing dynamic, slow-motion videos of the biggest celebrities at prestigious awards shows like The Grammys, the Golden Globes, and The Academy Awards.
The photographer’s stunning 1000fps slow-motion portraits on the GlamBOT camera see stars striking a pose in the span of a second.
Walliser’s videos have become iconic for not only emphasizing the outfits that these stars are wearing on the red carpet — but also their personalities and energy on the night of the awards show.
The Vancouver-born filmmaker grew up making skateboarding videos. However, in 2016, he began operating the GlamBOT camera system on the red carpet for E! Entertainment.
The GlamBOT itself is a Bolt high-speed cinebot by Camera Control holding up a Phantom 4K Flex camera with a Leica Summilux lens mounted on it.
“We shoot using a motion control camera arm called the BOLT that comes from a company called Camera Control based out of Santa Monica,” Walliser says in a post on r/filmmakers SubReddit.
“We attach a Phantom 4K Flex camera along with Leica Summilux lenses, and we shoot at 1000fps (938 to be technical.)”
‘One Minute, One Take’
Walliser says that he only has about one to two minutes with each celebrity that walks up to his camera — and often just one take.
"Footage [then] goes through fiber to a truck where our phantom tech sits and records, he offloads it to an ingester, who uploads it to a server, that goes to the editor in the truck who edits it, pushes it out to social for E! to put online and as well delivers a 16x9 version to producers of the E! Red Carpet show."
The final slow-motion videos are then played back at a rate of around 24 to 30 frames per second, according to Walliser.
In an interview with CBC, the photographer says that he typically advises celebrities to do a big movement for the GlamBOT camera because "the bigger the movement, the cooler it is in slow motion."
