The Producer Report: Location shoots
F
ulfilling the demands of the television viewer type of production we had a very high shoot ratio
is far from easy. Documentary crews are so the media has to be cost effective,” says Junkie’s
tasked with photographing the most executive producer Ed Stobart. “XDCAM HD
extreme environments on the planet and, in sport, enabled us to look at all the footage then selectively
it’s the quest for the ultimate camera angle that tag and ingest just what we needed to edit, still
drives innovation. The technology used has to be retaining first generation quality.”
robust enough to survive fire, ice, jungle and water.
It has to be light enough to wield in planes, cars, FREEZING CONDITIONS
trucks and boats. And it has to provide high quality Late last year Two Four Digital tracked presenters
imagery otherwise the effort is simply wasted. It Ben Fogle and James Cracknell attempting the 450
also can’t cost the earth. mile Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole Race across
When Sony’s XDCAM HD format was the Antarctic for BBC2 5x60’ ob-doc On Thin Ice.
introduced four years ago, producers keen to swap Minus 50C temperatures and a need to reduce
their bulky tape systems for a disc-based technology weight were the starting point for series
that would let them work more fleet of foot in any producer/director Alexis Giradet’s decision to
climate quickly adopted it. BHP TV first put the ditch tape. “Various people suggested that tape
camera through its paces during the Land Rover G4 would freeze or snap below -40C,” says Giradet.
Challenge, which rode roughshod across South “Besides the impracticality of lugging 300 tapes,
America, while Ginger Productions took it into the we knew we’d be in the middle of nowhere with
Borneo jungle and Mongolian outback following no backup for two months, so we’d be running a
Jack Osbourne Adrenalin Junkie. In both cases, the media big risk if we took tape.”
was protected from the humidity and dust that can Like Giradet, Spiderlight Films’ producer/
cause havoc with tape mechanisms, but there were director Martin Kemp selected the PDW-700
equally important workflow benefits, too. “With this XDCAM (HD422) when preparing to shoot Ice
30 theproducer Summer 2009
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