HVX partially used to film Cloverfield

just curious, but anyone know what camera he's holding in this shot?

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Here's some info on the use of the HVX on this film from 1st AC Joe Buscaglia on the Cinematographer's Mailing List discussion board:


I got a call from DP Michael Bonvillain ASC, last November to work on “Addition Photography” for "Cloverfield", as the 1st AC. I did say, as a film AC I wasn't an expert on the "Viper" and other the HD cameras they were using. He said he wanted me to work, not as a camera tech, but as a focus puller. The irony was that they wanted me to pull off of an HD monitor instead of the usual way. As different as that was for me, I got the hang of it. As a matter of fact, they asked me to "fish" for focus instead of landing rock solid. I must tell you, this was hard to do when your instincts are to do otherwise. They wanted it in and out of focus in a creative way. The way they it described to me was "Blair Witch" meets "Godzilla".

I think an important point that has been missed is that this is a POV "home movie", 30% of which is shot on the prosumer camera: Panasonic HVX-200. As a matter of fact, the actor T.J. Miller actually operated most of the footage with that camera. He probably shot enough days to apply for an operator’s card with Local 600.
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Thanks for that.

I'd still love to know whether the HVX was the primary camera in the party scene though. Most of those shots looked great in the theatre.
 
The Majority of this Film was shot on Viper and HVX200. I worked for the rental house which supplied these cameras. The F23 was tested and that was it. I still have not seen the movie but it looks like it turned out well.
 
It was the primary camera for the party scene. I helped set up the HVX200 for
them as well as retrieving the data from the sticks. tThey must of used 25 to 30 8gb and 16gb sticks.
 
Oh, come on... donation? This was a $25,000,000 budget film! More than enough to buy or rent a lot of cards. Renting some P2 cards for a couple of weeks does not imply that there was any "donation" on Panasonic's part.
 
It's not meant as any sort of negative remark. It's remarkably similar to product placement (brand integration) which is in nearly every modern hollywood movie.
If GM will donate 60 cars to a single film, I can't imagine it would be a big deal for Panasonic to donate some hardware. Can you think of a better way to promote the HVX?
 
All I know is there's a line of people a mile long asking Panasonic to donate cameras, promising they'll make them look great, etc (I know, I was in that line in 2005). I've never heard of them doing something like this.

JVC, I believe, paid for promotion to be in "Jurassic Park" so yes product placement can happen, but I don't think that's what happened here.
 
Barry_Green said:
All I know is there's a line of people a mile long asking Panasonic to donate cameras, promising they'll make them look great, etc (I know, I was in that line in 2005). I've never heard of them doing something like this.

JVC, I believe, paid for promotion to be in "Jurassic Park" so yes product placement can happen, but I don't think that's what happened here.
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Right. Panasonic might have been persuaded to donate HVX200s if the cameras themselves were shown in the film in a way that would amount to direct promotion of them. But they weren't. The only people who know (or care) that HVXs in particular were used are those of us in places like this. And we're already all over it anyway...
 
Jason36 said:
It was the primary camera for the party scene. I helped set up the HVX200 for
them as well as retrieving the data from the sticks. tThey must of used 25 to 30 8gb and 16gb sticks.
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Great! There's my answer. Thanks.

So then I can assume that the few obviously lower rez shots in the party scene were from lesser cams like the one shown in the grab in post #21 (on page 3) of this thread?

The primary, now-confirmed-as HVX shots, really looked great to my eye on the *huge* screen I saw the film on (the "Loews" room at the AMC Lincoln Square theatre in NYC - one of the largest in the place aside from the IMAX screen). And I was sitting pretty close too - about 1/3rd of the way back. Didn't want to let the camera off easy!

They were very crisp, clean, and film-like. It's *most* thoroughly reassuring now that I've confirmed it, especially compared to the only other HVX-based film I've seen in a theatre, "Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour", which looked...well...awful. Regarding that, in fairness to the HVX itself, there were evidently a number of easily explainable reasons why it did, which have been discussed at length here previously.
 
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For someone who has seen the film - where does the party scene come in? Meaning, half the way through the film, or at 1 hour, etc.?
 
NeverColdCall said:
This caught my eye since I see so much complaining about the HVX's sharpness on this site:

the HVX200 looked “sharp and a bit extreme.”
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Yeah that jumped out at me too.

The HVX party scene footage looked absolutely great on the *huge* screen in the theatre I saw it in. I could hardly believe my eyes.

Conclusion: HVX + filmout + big screen theatre = no worries...
 
SPZ said:
At the start of the film, aproximatlely 10 to 15 minutes in.
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Thanks, SPZ. I was able to catch that beginning and then leave (getting my refund) as I was already getting motion sickness. I made it all the way through Blair Witch, but this was too much. I found the operators were overdoing the shakey-cam. Even amateurs don't shake their cams that much.

When we discussed the Sarah Langdon film, which I am not in any way associated with, I reported that looking past the weak acting and poor writing to judge the quality of the HVX footage alone, I was surprised to see it was a huge improvement over previous low budget digital films. I think the projection must have varied greatly, because at my theater it did not look as terrible as Ted reported. It was far better than the picture quality of Tadpole or The King is Alive or other films I had seen at digital festivals. Those screamed cheap digital. I now know the Langdon cameraman was not working under ideal conditions but I think he worked hard to get the most he could out of a film that I believe was budgeted somewhere under 1 mil, vs Cloverfield's reported $25-30 mil. Of course that is considered low-budget in the studio world, but still high compared to an true indie budget.

So my point is that of course HVX footage in a 30 mil dollar film is going to look better than in a 1 mil dollar film. But for me, the difference wasn't huge -- just slightly.

It will be good to see some indie films in the theaters or at festivals made on the HVX-200.
 
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