HVX in FIJI Shooting a Television Pilot.

[SteadiChris]

Hi,

This is my first post but I have been browsing for the last few months, before deciding on a new camera system. I am a DP with 14 years working in LA as a DP and operator mostly in film but a bit in HD and even more this past year. Primarily it has been the F900 and Varicam but I was intrigued by the HVX when I heard about it last year.
I was hired to shoot a pilot and 3 episodes of a comedy show shot in FIJI on the beach. The idea of the show is a Friends meets Cheers on the beach and it seemed like a good time to try out the new cameras. The show would be primarily hand held with a slightlly improve style like "Curb Your Enthusiasm". I tested the HVX and liked the results and decided to buy a couple of cameras for the show. I purchased a system from Abel Cinetech in Los Angeles and have been receiving support from them as well.
I thought I could post some info on shooting in these conditions and maybe some pictures as well. I am in my 3rd week of production and have been ironing out a few problems with the cameras but overall we are liking the results and getting some beautiful footage.
I have one issue and some help would be appreciated. Currently it seems like the camera asigns random clip names and despite using the P2 Viewer to create ID's when the clips are imported to FCP the clips remain randomly numbered. Our editor (he came with a portable system to cut on location) is starting to see similarly named clips and is worried about repeating file names. A simple system to name the clips after the camera (A or B) and roll number should be possible. The manual for the P2 Viewer is lacking and if anyone has a system they are using that info would be greatly appreciated.
Currently we shoot the use the P2 Store and then import into the system and finally we are backing up everything on DVD as quicktime HD files. The editor and assistants have worked out a system but it requires quite a few hours every day and we now have to machines working.
The Main edit system is a new MacBook Pro 17" using firewire 800 drives from G-Tech and the backup system is a PowerBook with external Firewire400 drives for logging and making DVDs.
Anyway I actually have to go to set but any replies would be appreciated and I will post some stills if people ask.

thanks,

Christopher Gosch

 

[mico]

There seems to be a lot of positve feelings about HD Log by Imagine products that can help manage your material.

http://www.imagineproducts.com/hdlog.htm

This might be a program that will run under Rosetta emulation on your Macbook pro if that matters to you. I have emailed them for clarification on this.

 

[SteadiChris]

Thanks and Equipment Info

Thanks and Equipment Info

I appreciate the help with the logging program. I downloaded the demo for our editor and we will try it today.
Today our set was washed out from a continuing rainstorm so I have the day off. I thought I would quickly post our equipment info for shoot and our workflow for the P2 system.
We are using 2 HVX200 NTSC cameras I bought from Abel Cinetech. We have 4 8 gig cards and 2 P2 Stores. Each camera has matching Chrosiel Matteboxes and the Varizoom focus and zoom device. I had red rocks follow focus on order but did not receive them prior to leaving for Fiji. We have one Cartoni Focus fluid head and one Miller 30 Fluid head. and we have been extensively using handheld with 2 modified Spider Braces. We added weights and moved the mounting plate forward so that the viewfinder was not hurting the necks of the operators. I have been using circular polarizers and ND to keep the cameras wide open in the sunshine to help limit some depth of field. For monitoring I purchased a Panasonic BT-LH1700 and have been very pleased with it. The biggest problem I have is the lack of an sdi out on the camera. The component out is already failing with the colors changing constantly depending on how you touch the cables. We have had to rig quite a cable run to the cameras to check color and contrast and I really appreciate the SDI output I have on the Varicam I use more frequently.

Our Basic workflow is to shoot each card like a film magazine. Each camera has 2 cards loaded but the second card has write protect enabled to prevent it from switching over automatically. As we get down to one minute or if a take will go over we switch off the write protect and pull out the first card. The AC then downloads to the P2 Store and returns the card to the camera. When the P2 Store hits 6 cards or lunch occurs we give it to the editor who then imports into FCP and begins a logging an backup process. We brought both single layer and dual layer DVDs (The new Macbook Pro is a dual layer burner) Each file is backed up onto DVD though Toast Titanium and the editor logs at the same time.