The Producer Report: Drama
of Channel 4’s Skins on the HDW-F900R. “DoPs which Anne Frank and her family hid. “It was tool that allows you to make the lens choices you
have to work harder to achieve a softer look in HD,” incredibly cramped and we had to shoot up and need for the story,” explains Gray. “Often when
he observes. “I tend not to use hard light on faces down very steep stairs, but the 750 was superlative,” shooting with a video depth of field you tend to
that will pick up blemishes although ironically HD says Moss, who used a combination of Pro35 shoot longer lenses because you want to create a
was perfect for Skins because we didn’t want to hide adapters and film lenses to exert more control over sense of depth of field but this can also create an
what teenagers naturally have – acne.” the format’s depth of field. “The lighting was emotional distance between characters and
necessarily limited too, but the Sony’s menu audience. Selecting to work with 35mm primes
HD WORKHORSE structure gave great creative control and freedom. means you can get closer to the actors, with 35mm
Selected as the primary acquisition format for The I know what I shoot on set and what I view on the depth of field.”
Secret Diary of a Call Girl (series two), Wild at Heart, HD monitor is 99.9% the same image as will be BBC1’s supernatural thriller Apparitions was shot
Hotel Babylon (series one), Lark Rise to Candleford (series transmitted. That means I can do so much by Lime Pictures on a HDW-F900R fitted with
one), Skins, The Devil’s Whore, Shameless and creatively in-camera rather than rely on a grade. I Cooke S4 lenses. “This was a dark tale deliberately
Apparitions among many others, Sony’s HDCAM trust Sony’s imagery to do the job.” depicted in low light and the F900R was perfect
range has become the workhorse of quality HD for picking out contrast and detail,” says Hall.
drama. “There are other formats we could use but LIFE THROUGH A LENS “I wanted to maximise the tonal range the Sony
Sony always comes out on top,” affirms Ian Moss, The use of a Pro35 can overcome the depth of field offers by investigating the gamma control,”
the DoP who shot BBC dramas Maxwell and The limitations of a 2/3” sensor. DoP Matt Gray lensed explains Adam Suschitzky, who lensed four of the
Secret Life of Mrs Beeton and Greenlit Productions’ Nick Love’s new British feature The Firm on the six episodes of Apparitions. “Using the PL Mount
Caught in a Trap on the HDW-750. F900R without a Pro35 but opted for the adapter and 35mm lenses means you can introduce the
For Darlow Smithson’s wartime docu-drama and camera combination for Carnival Films’ artistic merits of shallower depth-of-field and
The Diary of Anne Frank, director Jon Jones wanted forthcoming BBC4 biopic of Enid Blyton starring capture the same emotive images at the same
the fluidity of movement that handheld Helena Bonham Carter and Hartswood Films’ dynamic range as film.”
camerawork would provide on a set designed to the Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch as the detective Adding another layer of glass to the HDCAM’s
same claustrophobic limitations as the annexe in for BBC1. “The Pro35 is a very important creative optics, however, subtracts up to two stops from the
Spring 2009 theproducer 31
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