Well, I have had the camera for a couple weeks now, and have gone full blown into production with it since 5 minutes of it arriving on the doorstep. Sorry it has taken me so long to post my thoughts, but remember I just moved to LA a few days before the camera arriving... so been a little busy.
The two projects I put the HVX to the test was a doc, about Joe Goossen the boxing trainer shot with 2 HVX's, and the second completely removed project was shooting comp pickups for the foreign theatrical release of Munich, Steven Spielberg's latest film.
P2- the Doc was the thing that had me a little worried about the P2 workflow. We had interviews with world champion athletes filming over 4-6 hour chunks and the first day we filmed we only had 1 4gb card for each camera. The shoot was in a pretty controlled studio over greenscreen, with lots of power so laptops/drives would be ideal.
I considered going out to laptop to capture directly.. But shooting with 2 cameras means 2 laptops and a little mess.. So after talking to Boon ( Director ) and Rob Schneider ( Producer ) we decided to give the shoot for 10 then break for 10 a go. We where shooting at 720p. I brought in Rush, who's shooting and HVX experience gave me condidence to pull it off.
Boon and Rob (many of you may know him as Deuce Bigalow ) both had a history of shooting on film so the whole 10 minute reload thing wasn't that big of a deal.. In fact it turned out to be an asset rather than a liability as when we stopped to "reload" the P2 cards, they had time to chat with the talent and work out details etc. The next couple days we had 2 4 GB cards, one day we had 1 4 and 1 8 GB card each camera, and today we finished off with 2 4 GB cards for each camera.
Shooting with 2 cameras, 1 of them pretty much being locked off in a wide, it allowed the 2nd operator to operate the daisy chain of P2 offloading during the shoot, eliminating the need for a dedicated tech to take this task (although it still would of been nice to have that extra person)
Using 2 4 gig cards. allows almost exactly the perfect amount of times to keep swapping, formatting the P2 cards on the laptop, then reinserting them before the cards filled up again.. Remember, 2 cameras, so 2 cards going off in 10 minutes. We still though took breaks every 20 minutes, as the director and producer got used to the breaks, and preferred them.
P2 for Munich - This was an entirely different workflow.. Again in a studio, but obviously for a very high caliber production, with an effects and a team of 10 techs and artists on location. Most of you are probably asking why the hell did they use the HVX instead of 35mm for the elements? Well a few reasons.., one of the big reasons was DVCproHD's color space, effects houses live on green screen and the color space really helps. A deadline for the project also eliminated the whole film processing/printing/scanning option. P2 also was an asset, the effects house really wanted to give P2 a go because it saves them a tremendous amount of time. Scenes where shot in a green screen environment, and DVCpro's color space is incredibly superior to any HDV flavor out there. Shooting scenes in a dramatic environment, the P2 shooting times had zero issues, as we probably only shot 5 minutes per hour on average. We where able to take the cards out of the camera, offload to Drive and The techs took it into Avid then Fusion with an incredible fast turnaround time.
Resolution:
The resolution from the HVX is pretty incredible. I don’t care what the numbers are, it just looks good.I have fallen in love with 720 24pn mode. For a downrez from 1080 (not center pixel native) it sure looks damn good. Looking at the final comp from munich, the HVX footage matched up the the film stock incredibly well. The resolution is there. People look at the monitor (and these are very experienced people) and have noting but fantastic things to say... it just looks good.. and to me that is what matters the most. Period.
Overall,
I’m pretty optimistic about this camera.. we have gotten to use it pretty much to the max of its abilities, and there are very few weaknesses. Yes you can see a little noise, sometimes ( just like every other camera ). And the menu rocker panel location to me is just totally odd.. but I think I have just gotten so used to the DVX's side rocker.
All and all the workflow is pretty fantastic. The skipping of digitizing is great. It works at home for me in FCP, and it works in the mega effects house post lab with the super avid machines.. once Avid ingests it all the other clients can use those files (fusion etc.) P2 is good for me.. 2 4gb cards are all you really need in 720p mode. 8gb cards is good for 1080i. 16gb cards will just be gravy.
As others have mentioned, the extra focal lengths is an asset as well, that little extra bit sure helps.. makes a fixed lens less of a liability.
The weight of the camera is also very nice.. its not too heavy, but not too light. Steadicam guys are gonna love this thing. Pans and Tilts are much smoother, just from mass. A 501 head though might be a little underpowered for the HVX with accessories though.
The two projects I put the HVX to the test was a doc, about Joe Goossen the boxing trainer shot with 2 HVX's, and the second completely removed project was shooting comp pickups for the foreign theatrical release of Munich, Steven Spielberg's latest film.
P2- the Doc was the thing that had me a little worried about the P2 workflow. We had interviews with world champion athletes filming over 4-6 hour chunks and the first day we filmed we only had 1 4gb card for each camera. The shoot was in a pretty controlled studio over greenscreen, with lots of power so laptops/drives would be ideal.
I considered going out to laptop to capture directly.. But shooting with 2 cameras means 2 laptops and a little mess.. So after talking to Boon ( Director ) and Rob Schneider ( Producer ) we decided to give the shoot for 10 then break for 10 a go. We where shooting at 720p. I brought in Rush, who's shooting and HVX experience gave me condidence to pull it off.
Boon and Rob (many of you may know him as Deuce Bigalow ) both had a history of shooting on film so the whole 10 minute reload thing wasn't that big of a deal.. In fact it turned out to be an asset rather than a liability as when we stopped to "reload" the P2 cards, they had time to chat with the talent and work out details etc. The next couple days we had 2 4 GB cards, one day we had 1 4 and 1 8 GB card each camera, and today we finished off with 2 4 GB cards for each camera.
Shooting with 2 cameras, 1 of them pretty much being locked off in a wide, it allowed the 2nd operator to operate the daisy chain of P2 offloading during the shoot, eliminating the need for a dedicated tech to take this task (although it still would of been nice to have that extra person)
Using 2 4 gig cards. allows almost exactly the perfect amount of times to keep swapping, formatting the P2 cards on the laptop, then reinserting them before the cards filled up again.. Remember, 2 cameras, so 2 cards going off in 10 minutes. We still though took breaks every 20 minutes, as the director and producer got used to the breaks, and preferred them.
P2 for Munich - This was an entirely different workflow.. Again in a studio, but obviously for a very high caliber production, with an effects and a team of 10 techs and artists on location. Most of you are probably asking why the hell did they use the HVX instead of 35mm for the elements? Well a few reasons.., one of the big reasons was DVCproHD's color space, effects houses live on green screen and the color space really helps. A deadline for the project also eliminated the whole film processing/printing/scanning option. P2 also was an asset, the effects house really wanted to give P2 a go because it saves them a tremendous amount of time. Scenes where shot in a green screen environment, and DVCpro's color space is incredibly superior to any HDV flavor out there. Shooting scenes in a dramatic environment, the P2 shooting times had zero issues, as we probably only shot 5 minutes per hour on average. We where able to take the cards out of the camera, offload to Drive and The techs took it into Avid then Fusion with an incredible fast turnaround time.
Resolution:
The resolution from the HVX is pretty incredible. I don’t care what the numbers are, it just looks good.I have fallen in love with 720 24pn mode. For a downrez from 1080 (not center pixel native) it sure looks damn good. Looking at the final comp from munich, the HVX footage matched up the the film stock incredibly well. The resolution is there. People look at the monitor (and these are very experienced people) and have noting but fantastic things to say... it just looks good.. and to me that is what matters the most. Period.
Overall,
I’m pretty optimistic about this camera.. we have gotten to use it pretty much to the max of its abilities, and there are very few weaknesses. Yes you can see a little noise, sometimes ( just like every other camera ). And the menu rocker panel location to me is just totally odd.. but I think I have just gotten so used to the DVX's side rocker.
All and all the workflow is pretty fantastic. The skipping of digitizing is great. It works at home for me in FCP, and it works in the mega effects house post lab with the super avid machines.. once Avid ingests it all the other clients can use those files (fusion etc.) P2 is good for me.. 2 4gb cards are all you really need in 720p mode. 8gb cards is good for 1080i. 16gb cards will just be gravy.
As others have mentioned, the extra focal lengths is an asset as well, that little extra bit sure helps.. makes a fixed lens less of a liability.
The weight of the camera is also very nice.. its not too heavy, but not too light. Steadicam guys are gonna love this thing. Pans and Tilts are much smoother, just from mass. A 501 head though might be a little underpowered for the HVX with accessories though.
