New ESPN film - Terrell Suggs: Unmasked

Well, after the beatdown put on the New England Patriots yesterday I suppose I should throw up a piece we shot for ESPN a couple of months ago:

Terrell Suggs Unmasked from Chris Cardno on Vimeo.

The piece was shot with two Panasonic Varicams, with one outfitted with the Letus Ultimate and B4 Relay Lens. WE also had with us our Matthews Doorway Dolly and Long Valley Seven jib. The background was painstakingly built by Bruce by cutting out the squares from large piece of foamcore and then attaching sheets of Opal. Finally, we had a flicker generator and a smoke machine for effect.

Big thanks to ESPN for having us be part of a really fun shoot and thanks also to the folks at the Baltimore Ravens for being so generous with their time, especially Terrell Suggs who was a blast to work with.

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.

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:

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.

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.