Dancing with the Ronin 4D — A Field Note from the Shoot
We were fortunate — and frankly, thrilled — to have the DJI Ronin 4D arrive midway through our shoot. It landed like a spaceship on set: sleek, promising, strange. One of the first units to be delivered in Europe, it felt like a quietly momentous occasion. Not just because of its technical novelty, but because it opened a door. A new way to move, to see.
At first, we approached it with a cautious reverence — the kind usually reserved for rare instruments or untamed animals. It demanded attention. Precision. Patience. But soon, the relationship softened. After a handful of tests and a few bumps along the way, we began to trust it. To let it breathe with us.
We ended up operating it four-handed. A kind of choreography emerged between us. One of us would frame — gently, intuitively. Yes, you can stroke it, like a creature. The other would pull focus, tracking rhythm, light, emotion. We’d swap roles when the moment asked for it. A silent exchange. Hands learning from each other.
What grew between us was a form of non-verbal communication that the camera itself seemed to enable. Often working in separate positions — sometimes not even within each other’s line of sight — we developed a tactile language through the Ronin’s focus wheel. A subtle shift, a pressure held half a second too long, a gentle brush on the rim: this was how one would say to the other, “Look there.” “Stay longer.” The Ronin became an interface not only with the scene, but between us.
When the team stopped speaking, it tuned in to breath. To the murmur of the dancers. To the dancing silence. In those moments, the Ronin allowed for a rare form of attentiveness. The system’s ability to function wirelessly — theoretically over several kilometres — meant that the one holding the camera, often within arm’s length of the dancers, could surrender to the frame as a dancing body among dancing bodies. Half technician, half participant. Half visible, half vessel.
Meanwhile, the focus puller experienced something else entirely — a delicate balance of director and first audience. Fingers resting lightly on the wheels of the robotic head and the focus dial, they followed not logic but sensation. Watching the live feed as though it were already a finished film, they let their touch be guided by what the unfolding image suggested to their emotions, their desire to see. An intimate duet between vision and intuition.
Of course, not all images in the film were captured using the Ronin. The five site-specific solos each called for a distinct approach, technically and artistically. But three-quarters of the film — particularly the segment shot during our two-week residency at Orsolina — was made through this shared, four-handed dance. Each image from that intensive phase of self-directed choreographic exploration carries the imprint of that silent, tactile collaboration.
