GH1 used for BBC Documentary

N

nathankw

Well-known member
I've recently produced and directed a history documentary about the Battle of Quebec in 1759 which is going out in the UK this Tuesday (16th March) on BBC 2. It was mainly shot with an EX1 but I used a GH1 as a B-camera, and quite a few of the GH1 shots made it into the finished programme.


It was great having it on location. I could use it to get extra footage whilst the cameraman was using the EX1. We also used it to shoot 2 camera sometimes eg for interviews. I was amazed how well the EX1 and GH1 footage intercut.


I also used a home made slider (thanks to Zaza's dvxuser thread) which was great with the GH1.


You can see a trailer here which includes a few GH1 shots.
A lot of the closeups (for instance of the musket and cannon) are GH1. I think the last shot with the title is also. To be honest, we intercut the footage so much I'm not always sure now which is which.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tco7WBQuqw


If you watch the final programme, look out for shots with the slider (pretty much all GH1) and the two camera setups (eg the interview with the wilderness expert – the shots of Dan Snow are GH1)


It's called The Battle for North America, BBC 2, 9pm, 16th March.
 
Fantastic trailer!! Great to see EX1 and GH1 intercut without much telling which is which. I will look forward to watching your documentary!!
 
Hi, any technical issues with compliance from the BBC? I'm due to shoot a cookery show for 'Good Food' and want to use a GH1 for 2nd camera

Andy
 
AndyW69 said:
Hi, any technical issues with compliance from the BBC? I'm due to shoot a cookery show for 'Good Food' and want to use a GH1 for 2nd camera

Andy
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No issues at all. Mind you, this was a Standard Def commission.

So even though we filmed at edited at 720p, the final delivery was downressed to SD which the GH1 was more than capable of.

A couple of shots had a little bit of artefacting (for instance in a clear blue sky which was easy to blur out), and you wouldn't have been able to get away with heavy grading. But otherwise no problems at all.

You'd have more problems with an HD production, as the GH1 (and even the EX1) doesn't meet the BBC HD Standard. You could still use it but it would have to be part of the non-HD quota.
 
nobbystylus said:
Looks good! Interested to know what lenses and stabilisation if any you used?
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The GH1 was mostly on a tripod or on a DIY slider (Zaza style!)
For some of the action shots (like the closeups of the muskets firing in the trailer) it was just handheld.

I used either the kit lens or Canon FDs with an apaptor (mainly a 50mm f1.4)
 
Thanks for the info nathankw! I think it shows that it really adds to a look of a doc using a GH1 for 'beauty' shots, particularly close ups etc Hope the programme is well received.
 
It looks interesting! Well done, I really like the score to it. I'm going to tivo it (I'll be out of town).
 
Watched this tonight (in the BBC oddly enough!) very impressed with the quality of the shots. Was the GH1 used for the slo-mo stuff (particularily the "in boat" material near the start)?
 
Energy80s said:
Watched this tonight (in the BBC oddly enough!) very impressed with the quality of the shots. Was the GH1 used for the slo-mo stuff (particularily the "in boat" material near the start)?
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Thanks!

The really slowmo stuff was actually done with a casio EX-F1 at 300fps.
That gives you really nice slowmo but the image you get is low-res and very compressed. You get away with it in small doses though.

The GH1 was generally shooting at 50fps and some of it was slowed down 50% to get a more gentle slowmo effect.
 
Very very nice. This is the second time I've seen this pop up as I am an active part of the Blender community as well and it was shared that the CG sequences were done in it.

Very nice work and way to make use of top notch low budget equipment.

What did you use for audio capture in the field? Did you have professional audio equipment or make use of a ZoomH4n or something else? Very professional top notch job, and I'd love to know more about how you did it.
 
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I managed to watch half the show last week, whilst trying to get my daughter to go to sleep. I thought both cameras looked great and it all inter-cut pretty seamlessly. I also saw your post over at Blendernation. It's great that you used Blender this way and retained the the style of the old maps.
Good work!
 
Thanks for the kind comments.

blaxer003: The sound was mainly recorded on a Zoom H4N. It's a great piece of kit and the sound quality it produced was more than good enough.

Synced it using pluraleyes.

GH1 + Zoom + pluraleyes is a great combo.
 
nathankw said:
Thanks for the kind comments.

blaxer003: The sound was mainly recorded on a Zoom H4N. It's a great piece of kit and the sound quality it produced was more than good enough.

Synced it using pluraleyes.

GH1 + Zoom + pluraleyes is a great combo.
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Did you use a lav or boom mic with the zoom for the speaking parts? And what model?
 
We usually went with both a boom and a radio mic with lav.
The boom mic was usually a sennheiser M66.
We had a few different lavs - can't remember the models.

We then mixed the best sound in the dub.
 
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