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