Working with Stephen Colbert again

We usually have fun with the team from the Colbert Report when they come to town. This shoot was no exception. However, in a first for us, Stephen decided that some action sports would be a good idea in the halls of power:
As always, thanks to the production team in New York and Stephen.

But they told me size didn't matter!!!

Is that title professional? Nope, but it's making me chuckle every time I look at it so it's staying.

A few weeks back I wrote a mini-column in a newsletter in which I said that "the ever-shifting technology landscape is going to create a much larger, louder and bitter debate" than the one that occurred at the onset of HD cameras between the film devotees and those who were in the video world. This wasn't difficult to predict, but the speed and volume has been surprising (although maybe it shouldn't be in this world of Twitter, online forums and 24/7 in-your-palm web access.)

Here's a really quick timeline of the past couple of weeks:

Nikon finally announces their new still camera, the D3s, which many had hoped would offer the video functionality of the Canon 5dMkII if not radically improve upon it. It doesn't. Grumblings around the web point out that it's not full frame and doesn't shoot 1080p. It's just a really good stills camera with video capabilities. The horror... This is the first real sense of how petty the arguments are going to become, in my opinion.

Jim Jannard announces that there will be a RED announcement. Reaction not dissimilar to the Beatles landing at JFK occurs. Suggesting that RED is now reacting to Nikon and Canon would not go down well, I'm quite sure.

In a surprise email, Sony says that they will have a BIG announcement on October 20th. The web starts to buzz -- could the giant be stepping into the large sensor video camera world? Could they be adapting their Alpha line for the EX cameras?

The anniversary of the Canon EOS line is October 20th, so people wait to see what they will announce. After the success of the aforementioned 5dMkII there are high hopes.

At the stroke of midnight Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Vincent Laforet posts a film on his site that he shot with the new Canon 1dMkIV. Nocturne (which has since been pulled at the request of...Canon...gotta love those multi-nationals and their bureaucracy...) highlights the insane low-light capabilities of the camera. However, grumblings around the web (yep, again) point out that it's not full frame and costs $4,000. Which is less than the HVX200 costs, but still...

After a day of leaks Sony officially announce...a revised EX1! And a big 2/3" EX3! Reaction is somewhere between pleased and complete and utter apathy.

We're now all waiting for October 30 so we know when RED is going to jump in. Or say they are going to jump in. Or will announce that they plan to jump in at some point but, you know, everything changes...

And that's really where we are: everything is changing. The emergence of V-DSLRs should force the traditional camera powerhouses to stop looking at different ways to repackage what has been done before and start looking at introducing technologies that have never been considered for video. Processing power is only increasing, storage capabilities are no longer a concern and the days of standard definition and heavily compressed codecs are going to go the way of dial-up and cassette tapes. Over the course of the next year we're not going to be talking about 1/3" or 1/2" or 2/3" cameras: we're going to have to learn all new terminology. Thankfully, a very nice chap named Tyler created a web page with some very handy explanations of all the different options that we have to look forward to. The downside of having all these options suddenly opening up to us is that there is going to be some of the loud and bitter debate that I originally mentioned in this post: snide comments regarding sensor sizes, aliasing, compression artifacts and rolling shutters are going to be quite commonplace.

But, given the choice, I'd rather be part of a loud conversation than sitting in silence. This is going to be exciting.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge

Upcoming national commercial

Gonzalo Accame has spent the past few days (with one small break to shoot for CNBC) working on three commercials for the Knights of Columbus that will air during NBC's opening week NFL games on September 10 & 13.
Visual Edge was given the assignment just this past Friday, August 21 -- the spots were submitted for final approval just a couple of hours ago. Gonzo was working with the team at Lumen Catechetical Consultant comprised of John Capobianco, John Landers and Mary Beth Newkumet on creating the spots. Gonzo shot all the original footage with Captain Fuentes on the Panasonic HDX900 and the spots have been edited at our facility in Kensington, MD on Final Cut Pro by Ines Perez and Gonzo.
The ads are meant to evoke a response from the viewers, inspiring them to become involved, or have a greater participation, in charitable service. Featured in the ads are retired New York Fire Department Captain and current Knight of Columbus Al Fuentes -- Captain Fuentes was one of the NYFD responders on September 11, 2001 and was buried in the collapse of the World Trade Center's North Tower. He was rescued from the rubble two hours later and spent weeks in a coma, recovering from numerous near fatal injuries.

HPX2000 and the Letus DoF System

Panasonic HPX2000 with the Letus Ultimate and 2/3" B4 Comact Relay Lens from Chris Cardno on Vimeo.

Here's a link for those of you with mobile devices to watch the above footage.

This is a short film to show the image difference between when using a depth of field system with a 2/3" HD camera. The footage above was shot with a Panasonic HPX2000 P2 camcorder in DVCProHD record mode and shooting at 720/24p. We used the Letus Ultimate and B4 compact relay lens with our Nikon prime lenses and we're comparing that to a Fujinon 16x6.3 HD ENG lens.

No scene files were loaded into the HPX2000 and no color correction has been done. This is the raw footage from the camera transferred to Final Cut Pro, edited and output to a H.264 Quicktime file which was then uploaded and encoded on Vimeo -- to see the file in HD please click on the link in the video window.

For more information please go to www.visualedge.tv.

LIVE BLOG!

Bruce and I are at Camp Fretterd in Maryland today. We've got the HVX200 tricked out with the Letus Ultimate, our Nikon primes, some HMIs, a fogger and, as you can see to the left, our pick of some other cool toys.

I'm going to be updating this throughout the day so check back in when you can -- I'll try and keep it interesting with pics and details from the set.

Here's who we have on the crew. Bruce Liffiton is shooting, David Girard's working the audio, Joey Walker is our Grip today, TelePrompTer is from Telescript DC, make-up is provided by Andrea Hines and our PA is Caroline Devereaux.

We're shooting 720/24PN with the HVX200 and currently have the Nikon 50mm on the Letus Ultimate. The viewfinder and LCD on the camera leave something to be desired, so we're using a Zacuto Zamerican arm and Zicromount III to use a Panasonic 8.4" monitor instead. The DoF system makes this a necessity. We've got the Joker 800W HMI, two 1x1 Litepanels and two KinoFlo Divas burning and a fog machine is making us all feel that we need glow sticks and some rave music.

***UPDATE***

We're currently doing the prompted portion of our shoot, then we're moving on to a two camera interview with SFC Dotson. As I said, we're shooting with the HVX200 so I'm going to be downloading the footage from the P2 cards as the crew sets up for the next shot. We've got the Duel Adapter, our MacBookPro, two Lacie Rugged drives attached by Firewire 400 and 800. I'm using Shotput for the offload and transfer of the P2 cards and the P2CMS for playback and verification.

***UPDATE***

We've switched to the Nikon 85mm, moved the lights accordingly and now we're just choking on the fog that's filling the room. And there are people who don't think this business is all about the glamor...

***UPDATE***

Important lesson learned: always have a can of compressed air with you. After switching set-ups to our 2-camera interview Bruce noticed that the image suddenly had some artifacts in it. A quick playback check confirmed that they hadn't been there during the morning's shoot so they'd somehow been introduced while we moved the cameras and set up the second HVX200. We prepped the Letus for surgery...only to realize that our compressed air was sitting 50 miles away in Bethesda.

Bummer.

Joey, our Grip and now our BFF, ducked out of the room and came back 2 minutes later with the can of air pictured above. A few minutes later (actually, the rest of the crew just took a lunch break while we cleaned and re-rigged the system) and we are good to go.

***UPDATE***

Bruce should have said no to the burritos that were on offer for lunch...

Sorry, boss... :-)

***UPDATE***

We have twin Letus' (Letuses? Leti? Answers on a postcard to Visual Edge...) working for the interview section of the shoot today. Our Ultimate, with the Zacuto rigging and follow focus, is in the foreground and we have a Letus Extreme with the Letus rigging working on the second HVX200 in the background. Both cameras have 85mm lenses on them. The plan was to only have one of the cameras with a DoF system on it and the cutaway camera would just be shooting "as is." The difference in the image was shocking. Just...shocking. So we pulled out the second Letus. And now everyone's happy.

***UPDATE***

Time to download our first card, baby!

***UPDATE***

Two cards down and everything is going smoothly. We've completed the interview, grabbed a couple of jib shots and now we're on to the tabletop shots. Yes, we've broken out the lazy Susan...

***UPDATE***

By the way...

Best. Load-in. Ever.

Season of change

It's a beautiful 80 degrees here in the nation's capital, with low humidity, blue skies and a gentle breeze out of the NNW at 8mph. There's the smell of fresh cut grass in the air and tonight we'll be dipping down into the 60s for another wonderfully cool evening.

While I'm enjoying this right now, every fiber of my being is screaming that we're going to get absolutely mullered in August with days in the 100s and humidity so thick you could cut it with a spoon.

Oddly enough, that's rather what it's like in the freelance world. (You like that segue? I have a million of them...) Even when you're busy and the week is booked up you're always looking ahead to the next week, the next month and worrying about where the jobs are going to come from. This is the main reason I'm an office wonk, the uncertainty would drive me crazy which would make my family so nuts they'd be, well, gone. However, it's becoming very apparent that the entire industry is suffering from uncertainty at this time and for once it can't solely be blamed on the economy. Or, for you readers in the UK, the credit crunch. That's called international appeal, thankyouverymuch.

This next section will make more sense if you quietly hum some John Williams music while you read it...

FORMAT WARS
IS THERE ANY HOPE?

It is a period of confusion and frustration. No longer content to shoot everything in BetaSP (mercifully) producers and production companies now ask for a multitude of cameras, formats and media. From tape to tapeless, HD to SD, 720 to 1080, the landscape has changed and while the images are now much improved the resulting bafflement has brought some to the bitter edge.

Rebel companies such as RED and Canon (hold up a second...) have struck blows against the Global Empires of Sony and Panasonic by introducing cameras that offer versatility and radically improved image quality. In response, Sony have introduced their XDCAM PDW-F800 while Panasonic have cut the price of their top of the line camcorder, the HPX3700, in half. However, this has done little to settle the growing unrest.

With cameras evolving into computers with lenses and data capture and management becoming the primary concern the people in the field find themselves looking for answers, searching for a magic box that will give them flexibility and reliability for generations to come...

Here's where I'd like to offer up some good solid answers for those of you that made it through that remarkably cheesy Star Wars riff. And I can't do it. There isn't a droid on the way with secret plans for a camera that will give us everything we want, nor is there a recorder out there that will turn all the cameras we already have into next generation acquisition devices. As I said, cameras are becoming computers with lenses and the problem with that is the sheer rate of advancement. Moore's Law begins to come into play at this point -- technology advancing exponentially every two years -- and that presents a new problem as we're not talking about Netbooks here: cameras are many times more expensive than the average computer. The idea of a new camera technology offering better image resolution, improved formats and codecs and faster and more reliable data acquisition and transfer being unleashed every two years is enough to make one shiver. After all, we've all had a phone call from a client who wants the newest piece of gear on their project and the cameras we have just won't cut it. If that's the future then we're going to need the manufacturers to offer trade in/up programs and that has about as much chance of happening as I have growing wings.

So, what to do right now? If we aren't going to win the technology race (let's be honest, most of us aren't going to be able to even get to the semi-finals given the cost of the gear...) then we need to concentrate on what should ALWAYS be the fundamental concern: the image. It doesn't matter if you have the best camera, the newest compression codec and the largest memory cards, if your image looks like it belongs on America's Funniest Home Videos then you're not long for this business. Freelancers and production companies generate work based on the quality of the work produced and if you can make a BVW-D600 the equivalent of DaVinci's brush then you are going to be working for a long time. People were making beautiful moving images before ProRes and 10-bit color and as we move forward the focus should be on working with the people who can deliver quality. My 6-year old daughter can operate the DVR, my iPod Touch and my digital camera -- just because she's technologically adept doesn't mean she has the slightest clue about composition, framing and lighting. So go ahead, give us 200MBpS date rates, wow us with RAW files and 40" sensors (slight exaggeration.) I'm hopeful that steady experience and skill will, like the tortoise, end up the winner versus technology's hare.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions

OMG!!! Jonas Brothers!!!!

So, Bruce is shooting in DC this week, accompanied by Michael Coleman, Todd Burger and David Accame -- they're working for three days on a piece for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. After yesterday at the White House they crew is on Capitol Hill today. It's not normally this kind of a mob scene:
But that's what happens when the dreamy Nick Jonas is in town and is lending his name to a very good cause:
Good on the kid for helping bring some attention to a disease that afflicts 15,000 new kids every year. For more information, go to www.jdrf.org. Thanks as always to Michael for the iPhone pics from location.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions

Shooting...shooting.

Welcome to Indiana! Now get off my lawn...

Bruce and Michael were in 'The Crossroads of America' this week, using the Panasonic HPX2000 with a variety of goodies -- Bruce had the portable jib with him, the Letus Ultimate and B4 Relay Lens with the Nikon prime lenses and, well...this isn't a usual part of the kit:
There's a reason why I spend so much time making sure the website is up to date, keeping active on Twitter and learning all about the latest production gizmos: Bruce looks too damned comfortable holding a gun:
The shoot was a corporate piece on muzzle loading guns. As an Englishman I have no idea what that means, which probably explains why we have no claim on the US these days. We're more of a truncheon and sarcasm based society. Not so much with the BFGs...

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions

Hands up if this has happened to you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

Busy day yesterday

For those of you who are following us on Twitter (if not, why not? Follow us here) you would have seen the image below posted yesterday:
Bruce was working at the National Spelling Bee for the past four days, shooting coverage of the kids going out and doing activities and also was with Erin Andrews during the prime time broadcast last night.

While Bruce was learning how to spell 'omphaloskepsis' (which is the contemplation of one's navel as part of a mystical exercise, don't you know...) Gonzo was over at NIH with a pair of HDX900s finishing up a multi-day shoot.
The lad in the flat cap behind our favorite Peruvian is Don Aros, local DC gaffer and curry aficionado. We had the HDX900 tricked out with the Letus Ultimate and B4 relay lens, our Nikon prime lenses modified by RP Lenses, and a lots of fun Zacuto toys.
The shoot went well, although I was disappointed to learn that I would have to be on camera for some of the shoot. Worse, the client wanted some footage of someone getting a shot. I'd post pictures or footage but I'd hidden the Flip camera by that point to make sure my astounding acting abilities never see the light of day. Having said that, when confronted with a needle the look of pure panic and green tint on my face rivals the best work DeNiro, Pacino and Brando have ever done. COMBINED.

Chris Cardno
Visual Edge Productions

RED...

I feel that the Jaws theme music should be playing with a title like that. Still, on with the update!

Last week we worked on a project with producer Dave Ogden of Metamedia Inc. The shoot was distinguished by it being our first time working with the RED One camera.

The RED package is owned by Nate Clapp of Nomad Productions in DC and Nate came out for the shoot as well. For those of you not keeping up with all these fun cameras and formats, the RED is a camera that gives you 35mm depth of field and records at 4K resolution. What does this mean? It makes purdy pictures real good.
The package is not what you'd call inconsequential -- Nate had to take the unit apart to make it comfortable for the hanfheld work that Dave was looking to do and even stripped down the weight is still north of 30lbs. As Bruce said after the shoot was done: "It's like...a yacht. There's always another piece to get, something else to add on."

Still, the shoot was a success and the experience was worthwhile. Is it a camera for all projects? No, it's a lot of image and a workflow for those with the correct resources. However, it does give you the best image possible in a digital world before you get into the motion picture Sony and Panasonic cameras. Here's an example of how the image stands up:

Shooting with The Colbert Report

We do get some really fun jobs here every so often...

:-)

We'll post a location report early next week and let everyone know when the piece is going to air.

Learning something new every day

I don't think it's a newsflash to anyone that works in production that there's always something new to learn. Formats keep changing, there are dozens of cameras to keep straight and the menus...good grief, the menus.

But quite apart from the technical aspects of this industry there are always other things that one can learn. Having been out on location for the past couple of days (yes, I was set free from the office) I now know the following:

Big buildings are not as close as they appear.
Case in point: the distance between the Capitol and Union Station in DC. Looks like it should be a quick walk. Here's a map. Should be a piece of cake. 15 minutes of slogging to get to the New Jersey entrance of the Capitol turns that notion on it's head. And brings us to our next lesson of the day...

Always take a handcart to lug gear around.
So I was showing up this morning with a Panasonic HDX900 with a 16x6.3 HD lens on it and then a bag of assorted audio, video and power cables. Being an office wonk it never even crossed my mind that carrying that amount of gear a short distance (wrong...see above) might get really uncomfortable. When you're mentally working out the weight as you're walking, pretending that the shoulder strap isn't cutting your blood supply off to your arm and taking a real long look at crosswalks to catch your breath, er, make sure the road is clear you know that wheels are an essential item. Which segues nicely into...

Don't ever assume someone else will have the bits and pieces you'll need.
I'm never showing up anywhere ever again without the following pieces of kit:

• 25' Stinger
• Triple tap
• Ground lifter
  
• Set of screwdrivers
• Gaffer tape
• (2) XLRs
• (2) BNCs
• BNC coupler, splitter and BNC:RCA adapter
• Wheels

By the way, "anywhere ever again" includes ball games, house parties and baptisms. You just never know when you'll need to run power and make sure the cable's safe for pedestrian traffic.

Finally...

The hours suck in this business.
I had a 7am call time this morning. It's around 20 miles from my house to Union Station, so that's roughly 40 minutes of driving. I figured I needed to be wheels up at 6am, so that meant a 5:20am wake-up to make myself presentable. When you take into account that I'm more comfortable seeing 5:20 in the morning from the other side...well, let's just say that Starbucks was my friend a few times during the course of the day today. And I was off-set and done by 11am! Gonzo and the crew with him on the shoot for a WebMD on Monday had a 7am call in Baltimore and they didn't leave location until gone 10pm. And then he got up Tuesday and pulled another 11 hour day.

All in all, I think it would be good for anyone who wants to go into production to go out and have a couple of days like I've had this week. You'll realize that the problems you don't run into on location are because the crew has done it's homework, prepped accordingly and anticipated issues. You'll have a little more sympathy for the guys getting into the building five minutes late after having to haul carts of gear from the loading dock, through security and then go and park their vehicles. And you'll know not to wonder why they aren't jumping up and down with excitement at your project -- it's nothing personal, it's because the pre-dawn call time you gave them is their third that week.

Chris Cardno
Production Manager
Visual Edge Productions

Footage from the HPX2000 using the Letus depth of field system

Letus depth of field system with the HPX2000 from Chris Cardno on Vimeo.

Here's a quick glimpse of footage captured using the Letus depth of field system on the Panasonic HPX2000.  We've got the 2000 is 720/24p and we're encoding to DVCProHD on the P2 card.  The Letus B4 relay lens is attached to the Letus Ultimate and we've got our modified 85mm Nikon prime on the front.  The rigging and follow focus (seen in the stills in our last post) are from Zacuto, who gave us a very nice shout out on Twitter today -- thanks, guys!

The Coke Zero can is 3' from the film plane, the Dust Off is 5' away and the Christmas lights are 6'+ from the film plane.

This is going to be a LOT of fun!

Letus relay lens is here

Above you can see the new Letus relay lens working with the Panasonic HPX2000.
Above you'll see a closer shot.
And another close up from a different angle.

Isn't it exciting? :-)

We've got our modified Nikon 50mm lens on the front of the Ultimate and, of course, the good folks at Zacuto make the best custom gear on the planet so we have that in play as well.

You're probably wondering where the footage is showing the gear in action -- we're working on it, I think we'll have some tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a shot of a monitor!
Moving images coming soon...

All the "marvelous nonsense"

Dealing with video cameras today reminds me of watching Ghostbusters with my Gran. As Dan Ackroyd's Ray Stantz instructs Ernie Hudson's Winston Zeddmore on the correct way to clean a trap after a catching a ghost my Gran laughingly said, "That is some marvelous nonsense they're talking in this film."

23.98, 24p, 30p, 60i, 720o, 1080i, DVCPro, HDCAM, Red, HDV, down-converting, 4x3, 16x9, P2, XDCAM, 4:2:2, long GOP, intra-frame...

Marvelous nonsense for most people. And it's only going to get worse as formats adapt and we move into newer technologies. For those in the field it's becoming increasingly difficult to get to the root of what a client wants. For those who rent cameras it's a series of phone calls and last minute double checks that the camera that is going out will shoot the format, frame rate and frequency that the client needs.

Here's a popular scenario. A producer calls and says they have an upcoming shoot. They want to shoot with a 900. First question: which 900? SDX900, HDX900, F-900? It should be simple to narrow it down to high definition or standard definition, but that leaves you having to explain the differences between Sony's F-900 and Panasonic's HDX900. Which, in turn, leads to a discussion of the post capabilities: can your edit facility deal with HDCAM or DVCProHD? Once that's done the frame rate will come up. And that's yet another round of discussions.

I knew a professor in college who, at the beginning of an exam, would write four letters on the chalkboard: RTFQ. Read The Fricking Question. Or words to that effect. In production today, with a constantly shifting set of acquisition formats and broadcast standards, the letters need to be updated: ATFQ. Ask The Fricking Questions. Yeah, it gets old but dragging out a phone conversation before the shoot is a heck of a lot better than a phone call after the shoot from a producer or editor freaking out that they can't play back or ingest what you shot for them.

As tapeless begins to get a foothold in the industry (and that's a whole other topic...) the questions are going to become more labyrinthine. Which codec are we shooting in, can your post house deal with a Mac formatted hard drive, are you BRINGING a hard drive, all of these issues are going to rear their head and all of them need to be addressed before the shoot begins.

So, what to make of all of this? In my opinion it is now imperative that the entire production process become a fluid whole as opposed to a simple breakdown between pre-production, production and post-production. The DP for a project needs to be aware of the post-production capabilities, the editor needs to understand the creative reason for a particular format or frame rate, and the production company needs to make sure that everyone is on the same page. This then makes life a lot easier when the project needs to pick up gear in other markets or when a different operator has to sub in for the lead DP -- everyone is educated, informed and able to clearly state what the production needs are. That's how to cut through all the tech speak and "marvelous nonsense."

At least until the next format arrives.

Review: Panasonic AG-HPG20 'P2 Portable'

We've had the new P2 Portable in-house for just over a week now and, while we're still running some tests to see exactly what it can do, it appears that it's going to be a very useful addition to the Visual Edge inventory.
For the camera owner, the P2 Portable offers the ability to make your production a P2 based experience, and improve the quality of the captured image, while using the camera you already own. Connecting via HD/SD-SDI the HPG20 can be mounted to the back of a 2/3" camera or can sit independently. The P2 Portable will then take your 1080 or 720 signal and can encode it to AVC-Intra 100, AVC-Intra 50 or DVCProHD. If you're outputting an SD-SDI signal from your camera (NTSC or PAL) you can choose to encode to DVCPro50, DVCPro25 or DV.

The 3.5" LCD monitor gives you or your producer a live view of what's being shot and also enable clip viewing for playback. An external HD or SD monitor can be connected via the built in HD/SD-SDI or composite video outputs and the P2 Portable has both a built in speaker and RCA audio outputs. Waveform and Vectorscope are included and can be used with both the incoming signal and the recorded ones.At the end of the shoot the HPG20 can directly connect to a hard drive and transfer your footage with verification. A large improvement over the previous model is the P2 Portable's ability to play back the files DIRECTLY from the hard drive and display them on either the onboard monitor or an external HD monitor. In addition, it's easy to name each card, or even shot, that you transfer to the drive which makes for a more streamlined post-production process. Finally, the HPG20 gives you the ability to edit and load metadata and text notes, enabling the post-house to identify the camera, shooter, location, etc.

The HPG20 offers other features, although they appear to be of limited use in the field. The HD/SD-SDI output is a welcome addition for monitoring but the down/up/cross-conversion functions are only accessible through that port -- as such, it is not possible to to shoot in 720p and then output 1080i to your client's hard drive without the use of a "black box." The included Firewire 400 port does not allow transfer of AVC-Intra encoded footage and cannot be used for data transfer to a hard drive. You can, however, stream directly for recording through Firewire which, in essence, makes the HPG20 a more stable and versatile version of the Firestore.
The biggest problem with the HPG20 is the time it takes to transfer directly to a hard drive: it's abysmally slow. Switching verification off results in a nearly 60% improvement in transfer time although it is still slower then using the Duel Adapter with a Mac Book Pro and a hard drive attached through Firewire 800. Using the HPG20, with verification on, to transfer a 16GB card via USB 2.0 to a LaCie 250GB Rugged drive took 30 minutes and 47 seconds. That's nearly twice as long as the total recorded time on the card and you can bet I'm glad I didn't test this with a 32GB card. Without verification the transfer time was 12 minutes and 38 seconds. Using a Duel Adapter, Shotput P2, a Mac Book Pro and the LaCie on Firewire 800? 8 minutes and 10 seconds.

Overall, the P2 Portable is going to be excellent for tape-based Panasonic camera owners who want to extend the life of their camera and expand the services they can offer their clients. The awful data transfer time is a real problem that needs to be addressed by Panasonic going forward, but just having the ability to transfer footage in the field and play back that footage without needing a laptop is a very welcome feature.

A busy Thursday

Bruce is out shooting at the Veteran's Administration, Gonzo's shooting at the Bolger Center in Bethesda for the IRS, Carolyn is making steady progress through all the paperwork and invoicing and Chris is digitizing the HD footage Gonzo shot over the weekend and making DVD clones.

Working on a job that came through the lovely ladies at Maslow Media, Bruce is shooting with the Panasonic SDX900 at the VA and, as always, is being ably assisted by Michael Coleman.
Well, he would be ably assisting if he weren't taking photos with the iPhone and sending them here to Visual Edge HQ...

Gonzo has the Sony DXC-D50 with him and is shooting DVCAM on a job that came through the equally lovely ladies at Crews Control. I'd post some photos, but he and audio tech Rob Shire got there at 6:30am this morning and have somewhere in the region of 15 interviews to complete today. As you might imagine, they don't have a lot of time for blogging right now.

We'll be posting some footage in the next couple of days showing off the new prime lenses we have in-house. Using them with the Letus Ultimate we'll have some footage from both the Sony EX3 and the Panasonic HVX200. Stay tuned...

Gonzo at Ground Zero

Gonzo was up in New York this past weekend, shooting for the Knights of Columbus. The subject was Al Fuentes, a retired New York firefighter who was one of the first responders on September 11, 2001. When the North Tower collapsed, Captain Fuentes was buried and trapped until rescued by his fellow firefighters.
The shoot came through Lumen Catechetical Consultants here in DC area and the producer on the shoot was John Landers. The shoot is another PSA in a series that we're working on for the Knights and we'll post it at www.visualedge.tv when we're done editing it. Gonzo shot with the Panasonic HDX900 and used a second HDX900 during the interviews. In the meantime, you can check out the two previous spots at the Multimedia page of www.visualedge.tv

Live Blog! Kinda...

So, Bruce is out shooting right now with the Panasonic Varicam for ESPN. The job came through Jill Woo at EyeMagic (who is enjoying the sights, sounds and, more than likely, the wine in Florence...) and Bruce is shooting b-roll for the upcoming NCAA hockey finals.
They are currently at the Air and Space Museum, as you might be able to tell from the pictures above and below. The other fellow in the shot is ESPN producer Jim Reed. We'll be updating throughout the shoot with photos, courtesy of our roving photographer, Michael Coleman. It's really quite amazing what he can do with an iPhone...

Well, they've moved on to the Capitol now. The green screen is to matte in elements when they throw to commercial breaks or sponsorships. Bruce has the portable jib working in the shot below.
We do have to thank the National Park Service and the DC Film Office for their help with permitting for this shoot. So...thanks!

The crew's at dinner right now but then they're heading to the White House. Can you feel the excitement?

It's Bruce Liffiton at the White House!
As you can see, they're still shooting -- it's currently 8:52pm EST. I'm not sure what's worse: the fact that I think this is cool or the fact that I have nothing better to do right now. Either way, I think it probably speaks to a sad and empty life.
Due to the Secret Service's very understandable refusal to allow generators on Pennsylvania Avenue, and our reluctance to wander down that particular street with a bulky belt on, Bruce is using the 1x1 Litepanel to light the green screen. The unit is powered by an Anton Bauer Dionic battery on the back -- it's really quite a fantastic piece of kit.
And that's a wrap, ladies and gentlemen.
10:36pm and the crew is done for the night. Thanks for staying with us, BIG thanks to Michael Coleman for the shots from location and I hope y'all enjoyed the updates. Come back soon and check out www.visualedge.tv for all the gear mentioned here tonight.

Friday round-up

It's been a busy week for Visual Edge. We've had a fair few rentals, quite a few shoots, received some new gear in-house and celebrated a holiday created solely by the brew-making industry. Job done.

HD CAMERA RENTALS
The HD cameras have ruled the week, with the Panasonic HDX900, Sony HDW730 and the Sony Z1U being the most popular. That's not to say the SD cameras didn't represent themselves well -- the D600 Betacam just won't stop working. In addition, the Panasonic HD1400 decks have been out extensively.

SHOOTS
In addition to the jobs already mentioned, Bruce worked on an Animal Planet show, Dogs 101, with the wonderful team from Powderhouse Productions -- that was shot using the HDX900. He also shot for EFX Media, based out of Arlington, VA, using the Panasonic SDX900 and then today he was shooting for The Colbert Report's Better Know a District segment on Capitol Hill. Running camera alongside Bruce was Bill Donald, audio tech was Michael Coleman and our intrepid Production Assistant was Kristen "Nepotism" Liffiton. As you can see below, Stephen was thrilled to be working alongside her:
Finally, Gonzo's up in New York on a two-day, two-camera shoot for the Knights of Columbus. We'll post the details when he gets back.

All in all, a good week with a fun shoot at the end. We'll post or link to the Colbert segments when they air, which will probably be in a few weeks. As for next week, we start with a bang: Bruce is shooting DC b-roll for ESPN and Gonzo's going to be running around the National Shrine/Catholic University area on a multi-part shoot with the USCCB. Stay tuned and please pop over to www.visualedge.tv for more information about all the gear mentioned above.

UPDATED: New gear and meeting the new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania

First of all, Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all. Visual Edge had a couple of interesting things happen today -- we received our new set of 35mm prime lenses and Bruce got to meet President Barack Obama. Any objections if we start with the meeting of the 44th President of the USA?

Bruce was booked through Eyemagic to work on an ESPN shoot at the White House. Shooting with Ken Woo, Bruce took along our Panasonic Varicam and they proceeded to shoot a piece with President Obama as he filled out his bracket for the 2009 NCAA men's basketball tournament. Yes, the madness has reached the White House. Please, no obvious jokes...
The segment is due to air March 18 at noon on SportsCenter on ESPN and we'll either embed or throw a link to the piece once it goes live on ESPN.com. By the way, Bruce says the President was very nice, shook everybody's hand and there is a photo with him and the crew -- if they send it to us we'll put it up.

The other good news today was receiving our 35mm prime lens set. The four lenses (24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm) are modified 35mm still lenses with 32 pitch gears added, an 80mm front pressed on for use with matteboxes and the click-stops removed. They can be used with any DoF adapter, such as the Letus Ultimate we already own, and will also work when we get the B4 relay lens in-house. Peter at RP Lenses - www.rplens.com - put the package together for us and we're looking forward to putting them through their paces over the next couple of days. We'll post a review and some images in the near future.

UPDATE: As promised, here's the shoot with President Obama as he picks his bracket for the NCAA tourney...

What's 32 degrees, damp and dark?

The scene outside the Treasury Department last night, that's what. While most sensible people were catching up on their DVR shows or knocking back a few in their favorite bar, we were out shooting host segments, wraps and bumps for a Fox News documentary.

We were joined by an excellent crew and two very nice people from Fox, producer Rachel Feldman and host Bret Baier. Despite the cold, the light rain that lasted until 8pm, every plane ever made taking off from National Airport, a horse and carriage with jingling bells (seriously, who's taking a carriage ride in DC in March?!) and a fair few people who thought it was funny to yell "Woo-hoo!" as we were rolling...we got the job done.We shot with our Panasonic HDX900 and the camera was mounted on a Jimmy Jib provided by Cocklin Film & Video. Light and grip was provided by Annapolis Mobile Power, Potomac Light and Grip and the Washington Source and the teleprompter system came from Telescript DC. As for the crew, we had Don Aros, Kenny Harris and Patrick McAllister in lighting; Steve and Anne Cocklin with the jib; Ethan Spencer running the 'prompter; Michael Coleman providing audio and iPhone trivia; Chris Cardno as on-site Production Manager and foot traffic wrangler; and Bruce Liffiton as Director of Photography.

The show airs tonight (March 14, 2009) at 6pm on Fox News Channel so if you have a chance to check it out please do so. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go and warm up.