The Producer Report: Drama
and drop of the rushes into the system,” says Clifford. 10,000 times,” he notes. “In an ideal world I would
“You can immediately edit out at 1:1 resolution and push all our material toward XDCAM HD.”
you don’t need to do a conform out of house. Some
producers are nervous about storing all the media THE WISH LIST
onto Lacie drives without a tape backup, but as long Film retains a certain caché among members of the
as you prepare your workflow thoroughly in advance, creative community, although this is disappearing
there should be no problems.” as more and more crew have successful experiences
Lime Pictures utilised the EX1 for colourful with HD as a craft tool. If a director feels strongly
location shots on Apparitions, much of which was about film or wants to use a particular DoP, their
shot in and around the Vatican where filming views may still hold sway, particularly for single
restrictions are extremely tight: “You can’t take dramas. There are also technical considerations,
cameras or a large crew inside the Vatican but we which producers and DoPs would like to see
wanted to get as close as possible, as unobtrusively addressed at the top-end of digital cinematography.
as possible, and obtain footage we could slot right Ian Moss would appreciate the ability to select
alongside the HDCAM in the edit,” recalls Hall, between frame rates up to 100fps or beyond to
who shot covert footage of the Pope’s bedroom speed up and slow down motion as is common with
window, statues and street scenes. 35mm film. Sony has gone some way to address this
on the F35 by introducing 50P.
LONG RUNNING SERIES
Long running episodic series are most likely to I know what I shoot on set and what I view
transition to file-based HD since they have the scale
on the HD monitor is 99.9% the same image
to absorb new production costs. Over the past year
Lime Pictures has converted its facility into a server-
as will be transmitted
based HD environment largely for production of Ian Moss, DoP
Hollyoaks, which is simulcast on C4 HD. “We record
everything on Sony HDC-1500s because we Company Pictures’ post supervisor Phil Brown
wanted the flexibility of interchangeable lenses, but suggests HD is still problematic in certain shots,
when the cameras can’t be physically plugged into “Where you cannot easily resolve detail from very
the server we hook them to portable trolleys fitted
“
bright areas nor resolve detail in darker areas
”
with XDCAM HD decks, an HD monitor and within the same shot,” he says. “Film has always
waveform monitor so the DoP has as much control had a latitude to do this, as it is chemistry, and
as they would in the gallery,” explains Hall. reacts to exposure of actual light. This presents the
The producer tested the XDCAM HD format special look that everyone is used to seeing with
on the final series of Grange Hill and was pleased film. HD is getting there, but there is still more
with the result. “We shoot a lot of material on development to come.”
Hollyoaks so the bonus is that we can ingest material Flint, also at Company Pictures, has overseen
into the server a lot quicker than from a tape four years of Sony HD dramas and believes a
format,” he reports. “The discs are also a very permanent move away from film is inevitable: “It’s
resilient media and recyclable so that cost wise it’s already happening. The expertise of DPs and
a tremendous saving.” colourists now needs to evolve with improvements
Each day’s rushes are ingested into the server in acquisition and post equipment – those skills are
and the discs recycled. “They can be reused up to fundamental to producing high quality HD drama.”
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Spring 2009 theproducer 33
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