Schwebewerk

About Schwebewerk

Schwebewerk is a Berlin based company specialized in high end aerial drone cinematography and drone hardware development. Schwebewerk was founded in 2015 by drone pioneer Stefan Müller, who is designing and flying drones dedicated for movie production since 2010.

Back in 2011, when the first RED Epic hit the market, Stefan was able to build one of the first drones worldwide for this new era of cameras. In collaboration with DOP Frederic Doss and visual effects company Omstudios, they were able to bring new camera movements to a variety of international film productions. featured on red.com

Amongst the early adopters of this new technology where undoubtedly DOP Chau Ngo, the BBC program ‘generation earth’ as well as Fast Productions Ltd. with ‘Fast & Furious 6’.

With the development of the Momentum gimbal and the X12 drone, Schwebewerk brought several years of on-set experience and unique ideas into a very capable toolset which clearly plays on top of the game.

Team

All our team members share the same passion for moving pictures. We look back upon a long history of drone operating projects and are therefore able to communicate visual ideas fast track.

Our team consists of a small core accompanied by longtime friends and freelancers, who are regularly working as cameramen as well, when they are not operating with Schwebewerk.

Stefan Müller

UAV Pilot, Founder
Benjamin Frik

Aerial DP, Remote Head Operator
Norwin Hatschbach

Aerial DP, Remote Head Operator
Stefan Müller

UAV Pilot, Owner
Benjamin Frik

Aerial DP, Remote Head Operator
Norwin Hatschbach

Aerial DP, Remote Head Operator

History of Schwebewerk

2016

The Momentum Gimbal already existed in 2016 as an early prototype. Yet, some of the final ideas would possibly not have been realized without the introduction of 3D Printing at Schwebewerk in 2016.

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2015

Driven by the passion for bringing our own ideas to life, we started a complete redesigning process in 2015. Our aim was, to design a system, that would have been the primary choice for all the different kinds of production environments we worked on.

Compact but powerful enough for dynamic flying. Suitable for heavy lenses, but still sleek and lightweight. Featuring an extremely rigid core structure with easy access to all electronic systems.

This is what became the Schwebewerk X12.

2014

In end of 2013 the rc servo gimbal was replaced with a completely redesigned and lightweight Direct Drive Gimbal, which introduced a new level of stability. Productions using this setup have been german TV Series ‘Tatort Hamburg’, ‘Agent 47’ and ‘Der Nanny’ among others.

Project: Der Nanny

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2013

2013 brought a completely new propulsion setup, utilizing custom designed triblade Carbon Fiber Props, and made use of even more Carbon Fiber parts on the gimbal.

It was used on a variety of productions including a Sony Bravia Commercial and ‘Hercules – The Thracian wars’, where we covered a huge outdoor set for the VFX department.

Project: Sony Bravia

Press: Arte X:enius

Press: Deutsche Welle

Press: Der Tagesspiegel

2012

One of the first productions in 2012 was Til Schweiger’s ‘Schutzengel’. We met DOP Dean Semler and DOP Stephen Windon in Pinewood Studios on Pre-Production for Disney’s ‘Maleficent’ and were flying for ‘Fast 6’ in end of 2012.

For ‘Fast 6’, we build a lightweight focus control, integrated into the gimbal.

Project: Schutzengel

Project: Fast and Furious 6

Project: Mercedes G 63 AMG 6x6

Press: Australian Cinematographers Society

DOP Dean Semler wrote a sweet article about our test day at Pinewood Studios for Disney’s Maleficent.

Press: No Film School

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2011

In summer 2011 the RED Epic hit the market and it was clearly evident, that this camera needed to fly. Since gimbals and drones fitting a RED Epic have not been commercially available at that time, Stefan Müller prototyped a gimbal which was first used on a Tech Demo called Ninja, which became a vimeo staff pick: Ninja

Literally a few days later it was used to work with DOP Chau Ngo on his feature film ‘Feiglinge’. Soon after that, Stefan was on a plane to Japan, filming a documentary about an abandoned island for the BBC.