If you’re looking for suggestions, I really liked “My Name is Nobody”.
With obvious exceptions like “Blazing Saddles”, I had figured that most of the old Westerns were the same sort of tense, action-fests. While those are great, I was surprised to find “My Name is Nobody” to be a legitimately funny comedy and also intriguing.

If you just stick with Clint Eastwood flicks for a while, you’re in for a treat.
“Two Mules for Sister Sara” was another great one.

There have also been some more contemporary westerns that “get it”.
I think the opening to "The Harder They Fall’ is an homage of sorts to Van Cleef’s introduction as Angle Eyes in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.
“The Old Way” is a Nicholas Cage romp that’s also interesting.

True, somewhat of a “look for the story and you’ll find it” dark souls vibe. I got the impression from dev logs that the end goal is a more traditional RPG story

Exanima, it’s mostly a testing ground for a game the devs want to make around this concept. It’s a good time, and also exactly what I think you’re looking for.
Not to bury the lede, it is a fairly full featured action game, but there’s not really a story element at this stage.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/362490/Exanima/

Yeah, it sucks living here.

I know this is way later and doesn’t really matter, but I really liked your idea and thought about it for a while.

I ended up coming up with this spring “quick caps” for quickly moving, rearranging, or de-tensioning them for maintenance and it has really improved how the whole boom operates.

Anyway, thanks for the idea!

I greased the captured post that it spins around and I’ve only almost hit myself with it a couple times.

Weirdly enough, yes and no.

I assumed you were linking this video: https://youtu.be/p68Y1e4acF4?si=vS-Dpx9isLgJdFHX

Which is where I thought I was pulling inspiration from, though I’m sure I watched his gantry video and had it sitting somewhere in my mind. I totally forgot he did basically the same thing hahaha.

I also ripped off took inspiration from Inheritance Machining’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1sXvMY_vAw

And a smaller YouTuber I was talking to had a small series doing some things with 3d printed camera arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fble2ifR0NI&list=PLNQ9UrHMNMNhJP1yVZK1tsiatytQrkfFw

Just manual, it only needs to be moved into position and remain there for my purposes.

But I have been tinkering with a camera slide made from almost all 3d printed parts that will be motorized (when I get around to it lol)

There’s some pretty good gas spring monitor arms, I use a few at my desk. The one I use for a fairly heavy 27inch monitor might fit your use case but they can get pricey. https://www.ergotron.com/en-us/products/product-details/45-241#?color=polished aluminum&attachment option=2-Piece Clamp

The springs I used here might be a bit weak for a monitor, I think the long ones are four pounders. But I don’t know much about springs and I just got ones that looked right from Lowes :)

As far as tips from this build, being able to change configurations and adjust positions did a lot to shore up the gap between what I wanted to do and how little I knew about any of this. Also, I’d probably do a 90 degree bend at the middle link.

The rods are 3/8ths inch and the bolts are 1/4 20 hardware, plus 4mm machine screws assembling smaller parts and as grub screws. I think it’ll stay together fine, but there’s enough load over a long distance that it does have a little sway and bounce after moving it. Although, after a few seconds it settles and I haven’t had any issues. I figure that my phone’s video stabilization will filter out the small stuff.

Oh yeah, and I printed the components with an 0.8mm nozzle and 0.5mm layer height. They’re chonky.

Originally I was using all four, but after working with it a bit and changing the springs orientations I found it worked well with just the one set. I’ve left the other two in case I change my mind :)

Now you’ve got me thinking of some sort of quick release system for switching these in case I do want the lean direction to change… That would be super useful.