24p Pioneers Get That Spot-On Look

By Bryant Frazer
Executive Editor, Film & Video Magazine

Shooting to tape made improvisation a less-expensive proposition.

Panasonic's new cell phone spot, “Phone Flirt,” was shot using Panasonic's AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera. When Hollywood’s TOMBOFILM was hired to create a spot introducing a new Panasonic cell phone sporting a built-in digital camera, they weren’t required to shoot using a Panasonic HD camera as part of the deal — but it seemed appropriate. “It was the perfect marriage of technology,” says TOMBO’s executive producer, Fred Porter. “Here we are, doing a commercial about the latest technology in cell-phone imagery and messaging — and using the same client’s camera to achieve that.”

So Porter and director/cinematographer/camera operator J. Brown dove into uncharted waters, grabbing an AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera and experimenting with it for about a day in preparation for the actual two-day shoot. “For me, the biggest surprise was how good it ended up looking,” says Brown. “Combine that with the ease of using it — and the fact that you can always be rolling and the talent doesn’t hear the wheels turning — I found it to be a liberating experience.”

The commercial depicts a man’s receipt of a wrong-number cell-phone call from a fetching young lass that turns increasingly steamy as she pushes images of herself to his display. The call is cut short by the sudden arrival of the fellow’s significant other, which is timed for maximum comic effect. The playfully sexy subject matter was suited to Brown’s directorial strategy, which is to shoot lots of footage and seek out spontaneity. “My style of filmmaking in general, especially when it comes to kids and anything that’s fashionable and beautiful, is to try and really integrate the camera into the filmmaking process instead of making it a totally detached observer,” he says.

Did Brown’s penchant for improv, along with the freedom of shooting directly to tape instead of burning up 35mm film, lead to a higher shooting ratio? No, says Porter. “It allowed him to just roll and experiment with the actors, and that was pretty cool. But he does that in film, too. It’s just more expensive.”

“The other thing that’s kind of frustrating when you’re trying to do improv,” adds Brown, “is you roll out when something great is happening and it stops the flow of what’s going on. With HD, you just keep shooting.”

Brown said this particular shoot was blessed with ideal natural light conditions. His job as cinematographer was merely to touch up the environment with fill lighting — and not much was needed, since he used the camera with the iris wide open but wanted to minimize depth of field for a film look. Under harsher light, he wonders how well the HD image would hold up. But in general, he figures HD is easier to light. “You don’t have to guess about how your light ratios are actually working,” he explains. “In a sense, you don’t even have to get the meter out. You look at it on the HD monitor, and what looks pleasing and what you’re after is what you light for.”

Brown plans to use HD in the future, but says he’s also happy to keep working with film. “There’s no substitute for the craft of film, and in that regard I hope that it never goes away, because I love the more tactile experience of film,” he says. “But I’m telling you, when what you see is what you get, it takes a lot of guesswork out of it, that’s for sure. It’s a much more certain process.”

Alpha Dogs edited a series of Stater Bros. spots in 24p.

As TOMBO learned, HD is a handy acquisition format even when HDTV isn’t part of the distribution plan. Burbank-based Alpha Dogs recently finished editing a series of spots for Colton, CA-based grocery-store chain Stater Bros. Markets. When Alpha Dogs founder Terence Curren learned the project was shot in 24p, he planned an offline/online edit to deliver in both SD and HD. “But when I found out delivery was SD and they didn’t need HD, we had them downconvert five tapes [to NTSC resolution], and I digitized them all into [Avid] Symphony,” Curren explained. “So we worked on 24p SD, which takes up 20 percent less media, and we worked in progressive frames so it was a lot cleaner.”

The real advantage is that the footage, shot with Sony's HDC-F900, is almost indistinguishable from film. “I’m kind of a film snob, but I was really blown away by how good this stuff looked,” Curren says. “Because it’s a grocery store, it’s all bright and cheery with pretty flat lighting, so that hides the areas where you’d normally see problems.” Also making Curren’s life easier was in-camera white balancing, which eliminated the need for elaborate color-correction during the finishing process. “The standard grocery-store lighting overall, being fluorescent, should be green — but because they were using white balance, very little color correction was needed.”

If HD footage requires less care and feeding in the finishing process than lesser formats, Curren doesn’t necessarily expect that to remain true for long. “The people who are shooting HD right now are the kind of people that will take more time when they’re shooting,” he explains. “Once HD gets down to the level of standard Betacam or DV, you’ll get all kinds of crap — and it’ll be the same amount of work.”

Alpha Dogs started doing true HD editing at the beginning of 2003, but Curren rents, rather than buying equipment for the HD jobs that come along. “We’re right on the cusp of the explosion” in HD content, he figures. “I probably see more, because all of the TV stations and networks are demanding HD delivery, so the clients we deal with are being forced to go HD. But smaller clients aren’t really concerned with it, and nobody wants to get into the expense of it. But the expense is about to come down and be in the same realm as what we’re shooting now.”

Original article online at: http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=18520