History Channel approves HVX200's HD

[Jarred Land]

Long Read but pretty good...



FILMMAKERS REENACT EPIC BATTLES OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR WITH
PANASONIC’S AG-HVX200 HAND-HELD AND AJ-HDC27 VARICAM HD CAMCORDERS

* Two-Hour History Channel Documentary Will Air Fall 2006*
SECAUCUS, NJ (March 27, 2006) – Historians often bemoan the fact that The Mexican-American War (1846-1848)
is the “forgotten war,” sandwiched chronologically between the Battle of the Alamo and The Spanish-American War, with its larger-than-life figures including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. That oversight is to be righted with The History Channel’s upcoming broadcast of a two-hour documentary, The Mexican-American War, airing this Fall.

The sprawling documentary, hosted by boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya, is being produced by Jim Lindsay Productions, Inc., with Lindsay as producer/director and Kevin O’Brien as Director of Photography—the same team who brought The History Channel its blockbuster hit, The True Story of Alexander the Great.

Recognizing that high-definition is no longer “the future” but “now”, AETN Networks contracted with Lindsay to produce the program in HD for airing on The History Channel and History en Espanol, its sister network broadcasting in Spanish. DP O’Brien purchased Panasonic’s AJ-HDC27 VariCam® HD Cinema camera expressly to use as the “A” camera on the project, while Lindsay bought two AG-HVX200s, Panasonic’s affordable, full bandwidth AG-HVX200 HD hand-held camcorder, for use as “B” cameras to shoot the 15+ battle reenactments planned for the documentary.

In the Mexican-American War, the U.S. defeated the Republic of Mexico and acquired over 500,000 square miles of new territory that today comprises much of the nation's Southwest. American military forces took up several major campaigns in the course of the war, with engagements extending from Texas to California to several sites in Mexico. These were the battles that Lindsay recreated and shot with the HVX200s (operated by second-unit cameramen Andrew Parke and Jerry Massimei).

“Reenactments are very expensive to produce, and you need as much coverage as possible,” Lindsay explained. “I love the VariCam—it would always be my choice as ‘A’ camera on a project such as this—but it would have been prohibitively pricey to rent two more to use as ‘B’ cameras. I wanted to put the budget up on the screen—more cannons, more guns, more soldiers, a marquee-name host—not behind-the-scenes.”
He continued, “In ‘pre-handheld HD’ days, I shot with Panasonic’s DVX100 series camera—I love the 24p look. (Lindsay shot the reenactments for Alexander with DVX100s, e.g.). On the strength of DVX100 performance and the incredible potential of the HVX200, I ordered two shortly after NAB 2005. Here’s what sold me: 100 mbps DVCPRO HD and VariCam-style shooting, moderately priced; tapeless with P2; 4:2:2 color space for vivid colors; incredible versatility in terms of formats and off-speed effects; and 720p recording, which I consider the perfect format, economical in every aspect and the basis of a terrific editing work flow.”
The AG-HVX200 offers full bandwidth, contribution quality HD with independent intra-frame encoding, 4:2:2 color sampling, and less compression, making HD content easier and faster to edit and more able to stand up to image compositing versus long GOP MPEG-2 systems.

Lindsay needed to shoot his reenactments in January, so in early December made an arrangement with Panasonic to shoot test footage to show to The History Channel. “My editor, Shane Ross, and I attended DV Expo in Los Angeles, and early one morning shot the same scenes with both the VariCam and the HVX200. We intercut the scenes, bumped the material up to D-5 HD, and presented it to the network for a Q/C sign-off. The History Channel, traditionally committed to leading-edge technology, gave the HVX200 camera the thumbs up.”
During the Fall of 2005, Lindsay and O’Brien used a VariCam exclusively to tape Oscar De La Hoya in Mexico City, historian interviews in Texas and HD B-roll at every location where battles occurred during the War … all the way from Veracruz, Mexico to Palo Alto, Texas. Ross began editing a rough assembly of the program in December and Lindsay took delivery of his two HVX200s on January 10. Two days later DP O’Brien matched those cameras to approach the settings of his VariCam. On January 14, the three-camera team began two weeks of battle re-creation shooting in the California desert near the Mexican border, a ranch in Salinas near San Jose, and Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve in San Diego County. A portable exterior green-screen set-up was used to composite battle action with background plates taped at battle sites in Mexico.

“Ultra” software from Serious Magic provided live preview keys, ensuring perfect positioning of foreground and background.

The shoots involved dozen of soldiers, photographers, weapons experts, makeup artists and horse wranglers. In terms of surrounding conditions, Lindsay cited “deafening shock waves from the live fire of five two-ton cannons, early-morning freezing temperatures, sand, dust, and 40 mph winds blowing it around. None of these conditions, including rain, affected the performance of any of the cameras, though we paid a lot of attention to keeping the lenses clean.”

“We had all three cameras working continuously,” the filmmaker recalled. “The VariCam was always on the ‘hero’ shot, while the HVX200s were either shooting different angles of the same scene or different battle scenarios at another site on the same location. Heavy-duty smoke machines with experienced operators accompanied each camera team to provide battle-action atmosphere.”

DP O’Brien, who’s worked with Lindsay since 1984, is an Emmy-Award winning cinematographer (On the Trail of Lewis & Clark) whose credits include music videos with Paul McCartney, interviews for the feature documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now, and more than 250 episodes of the NBC primetime series, Unsolved Mysteries.

“After shooting all the non-reenactment material on VariCam, we were faced with huge battle re-creations to shoot in just a couple of weeks. The only efficient way to do it was to use several units that would shoot independently,” O’Brien recounted. “Initially, I was hoping to actually rent a second VariCam for these ‘battles, but the HVX200s quickly won me over.”

“By using the HVX200s we were able get massive amounts of footage we could not have done logistically with multiple VariCams. The cameras seemed to handle the contrast of full sun pretty well, and color matched well after tweaking to blend in with VariCam footage. The camera feels solid, and recording on the P2 cards avoids the issues of tape bouncing off the heads if the camera is being jostled a lot, or under g-forces above normal.

“Our second and third units had to move quickly. They were familiar with the DVX100 cameras, so they were able to pick up and go with the HVX200s out of the gate. They were able to run around and do shots with moving cameras facilitated by the cameras’ small size, while I was able to focus on the VariCam shots, including exterior green screen. We got so much more done that I was really was sold on using the HVX200 as a companion to the VariCam.”

O’Brien added, “The most useful feature of the camera was its ability to shoot 24 or 60 frames for any particular shot. Having 60 frames to use as a slow motion shot in a 24 frame timeline was the closest I've come to the days of 16mm, where you could dial up to 72 frames for slow motion. The 60-fps shots can be easily converted in Final Cut Pro to 24-fps if we decide not to use the shot as slow motion. Knowing this, we were unafraid and shot anything that we might want to be slow motion at 60 frames. This gave us a freedom we would not have had on film, where a slow motion shot would be expensive to convert back to normal.

“HD is coming on strong now, and I see the HX200 as a camera that will be the main camera on lower budget shows, and a good additional camera on bigger projects like our current one. I see it fitting pretty seamlessly into the Final Cut Pro workflow of VariCam work. Of course, the HVX200 also shoots DVCPRO50, 25 or DV, so you have tons of versatility. If you insist on shooting interlace, that cave man aspect of NTSC that someone thought should be dragged into the 21st century, the HVX200 can do it. If I had to shoot a show that was 1080i, I would certainly choose the HVX200 as an additional camera over any of the HDV cameras.”

To edit The Mexican-American War, Lindsay enlisted Ross, a veteran of many History Channel documentaries. “In exploring our 720p HD work flow, I felt fortunate that I didn’t own a lot of legacy editing technology,” Lindsay recounted. “Shane is acutely savvy to FX and post issues, and together we consulted with John Thorne of AJA Video, who persuaded us that we wouldn’t need high-end RAIDS for the project, given DVCPRO HD’s low data rate. Instead, we purchased several G-RAIDS, 1TB Firewire 800 drives from
G-TECH that perform beautifully and don’t lose speed as the drive fills up—and cost just over $1000.”

Discussing the work on set, Ross said, “Once we received the cameras, Jim and Kevin spent those few days before going on location setting up the camera and testing the P2 workflow they intended to use in the field. They loaded both a PC laptop and Mac PowerBook with P2 software that came with the cameras. Inserting the P2 cards into the computer PCMCIA slots, they were able to see the files, transfer them to backup drives and verify the copy before re-formatting the cards for further shooting. On the PC, they were actually able to screen the raw MXF files using P2 viewer software, which will hopefully be made available for the Mac as well. Currently, the Mac requires importing the files into Final Cut Pro to actually view the footage.

“When they were in the field, they would have two 4GB cards in each camera, with three others on reserve (Lindsay had purchased a total of ten 4GB cards, five for each camera.) Jim worked out a system with the cards and the rubber caps that cover the connectors. In white permanent marker he wrote FULL on one side and EMPTY on the other. When a card was full, it was ejected and the cap was put on with the FULL side face up. Also, the copy protection tab was flipped to protect against accidental erasure. Then the cards were brought to the download station where a tech would slide the P2 card into the PCMCIA slot and copy the footage from it to one of several bus-powered portable Firewire drives. They were organized into individual folders to keep things separated, and the folders were labeled A, B, C and so on.”

Ross continued, “After the contents of the card were copied over, the card was then erased and the rubber cap put back on it with the EMPTY side up. By the end of the two-day shoot, there were three full 80GB drives with all the footage on them. The footage was both 23.98 and 59.94, the latter intended for slow motion purposes. Jim took the information from the smaller drives and copied them onto the 1TB G-RAID. It was the G-RAID that I received to import the footage.”

Lindsay added, “I got an exact duplicate of Shane’s drive, so he can e-mail me a project file that I can run at full-res on my system. Theoretically, he and I could be anywhere in the world as we post and finish the project.”

Ross said, “We did receive delivery of a P2 Store unit halfway through our shoot and were able to try that out as well. It’s quite a fantastic little device that facilitates very easy card downloads in environments where a laptop might not be a viable choice (bad weather, shooting on the move, etc.) The P2 Store is very rugged, with no LCD or keyboard vulnerable to dust, wind or rain. You simply insert the card and press the “Start” button. Four-five minutes later (just about the same time a laptop would take to download a 4 GB card), the unit’s LED lights show a completed, verified download. You reformat the card with two-button-touch and the card’s ready for the next round of shooting. The unit is very small, takes the same batteries as the HVX200 (quite energy efficient, one battery lasts a full day) and also makes for a great way to download cards if the computer available doesn’t have a PCMCIA slot, as it connects directly through USB. We used the P2 Store on two days, filling it up on each day and downloading to larger drives at night, with no problems whatsoever.”

In terms of the ongoing post-production work, the editor noted, “We shot 720p24 and captured into Final Cut Pro at that rate, using the EASY SETUP and working at 23.98 fps in full resolution. Much of the footage was shot 720p60 with the intention of slowing it down in post using the DVCPRO Frame Rate Converter. All of the footage was captured to the G-RAID drives and will be edited at full resolution. We will edit until we have locked picture, then output to D5 via the Kona 2 or Kona LH, performing a real-time upconversion to 10-bit uncompressed HD running at 59.94. The D-5 material will then most likely be taken to a DaVinci color corrector, and color corrected tape-to-tape to ensure the best quality picture.”

Lindsay said that he will deliver two masters to The History Channel early this summer, one in 720p D-5 HD, the second in letter-boxed DigiBeta SD.

The ultra-versatile HVX200 records in 1080i and 720p in production-proven 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD quality, with the ability to capture images in 21 video formats. The DVCPRO HD format offers users cost-effective, intra-frame compression, where each frame stands on its own for editing, and its full 4:2:2 color sampling allows the image to hold up under color correction. The camera records video on a P2 card as IT-friendly MXF files in 1080/60i, 30p and 24p; in 720/60p, 30p and 24p; in 50Mbps DVCPRO50 and in 25Mbps DVCPRO or DV. The HVX200 can capture fast or slow action in 720p at various frame rates--the first time this function is available in a hand-held camera. The shooting frame rate in 720p native mode can be set for any of 11 steps between 12fps and 60fps including 24fps and 30fps. For more information on the AG-HVX200, visit www.panasonic.com/hvx200.

The AJ-HDC27 VariCam replicates many of the key features of film-based image acquisition, including 24-frame progressive scan images, time lapse recording, and a wide range of variable frame rates (4-fps to 60-fps in single-frame increments) for “overcranked” and “undercranked” off-speed in-camera effects. The
AJ-HDC27 VariCam also features CineGamma™ software that permits Panasonic’s HD Cinema camera systems to more closely match the latitude of film stocks.

[Isaac_Brody]

Great read Jarred. Thanks.

[BigMike]

Great article!

Yeah. We done good choosing this camera.

[HVXguy]

Long live the HVX!

[Owen]

From the article:
"The only Canons on this set are the ones being fired on-screen. We are Panasonic to the core!"

Okay, that wasn't really in the article. Shame on you for not reading the article and thinking that it was.

[DP StrangeLove]

What was your capturing solution on the HVX for the 'massive amounts of footage' your advice would be of great help.
Thanks,
Ben

[TedRR]

Thanks for the article.
We have always mainained that the HVX is NOT just for low end stuff, but can handle any clients request to give us INCOME!
This is a great example of the versatility of the HVX200.
Thanks!!!

[Shane Ross]

Hey! That's about me!

Who says that the HVX is only for low end stuff? It is an expensive camera...expecially with those P2 cards and the need for a Powerbook, PC laptop, P2 Store or P2 card reader to get the footage off of those cards and onto...oh yeah...hard drives that also cost money.

And the fact that it shoots more formats than any other camera...that alone make it a high end camera.

We intercut it with Varicam and it cuts well. Only the DPs can tell the difference, as the engineers kep asking us what was shot with what.

-shane

[Barry_Green]

"If you insist on shooting interlace, that cave man aspect of NTSC that someone thought should be dragged into the 21st century, the HVX200 can do it. If I had to shoot a show that was 1080i, I would certainly choose the HVX200 as an additional camera over any of the HDV cameras.”

SNAP!

Hey Shane, glad to see you here! I've seen your posts on the Cow and on DVInfo but I haven't seen you on here much...

This article has been added to the "who's using the HVX" post.

[Aaron Koolen]

I'm going to be purchasing a DVX100b soon...I feel so behind the times ;)

One thing's strange though, I thought the HVX was shoulder mounted....or, it was in the dream I had last night where I got to shoot with it