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.

Justice Department video

Embedded below (original page here) is a video that Bruce shot for the Department of Justice:

The interviews were shot with the Panasonic HPX2000, Letus Ultimate with B4 Relay lens and our Nikon primes. Much of the b-roll was shot using our Fujinon 13x4.5. We shot AVC-Intra 100 in 1080/30, transferred to a Lacie Rugged drive on location and handed the footage off to the client. They actually cut a few spots out of the two days of shooting:

Hope you enjoyed the pieces -- if you're interested in renting any of the gear mentioned please do click on over to www.visualedge.tv.

Chris Cardno

Production Manager

Visual Edge Productions

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.

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

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...

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...