Projects
Shooting with the stars
H
MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM How Michael Wood was impressed by the SRW-9000’s performance shooting idents for Big Brother
Director of photography Michael Wood’s first encounter with the SRW-9000 – Sony’s rugged high-end camcorder on Bray Leino’s Freederm skincare idents for Big Brother – was a positive one. The SRW-9000’s familiar film camera style ergonomics were an instant hit with Wood, who also admits to being impressed with its ability to handle highlights. “I’d never usually put my hand up for beauty stuff on HD as it has traditionally struggled to compete with film. But using Sony’s S-Log Gamma you are handling a genuine 11 stops.” That’s largely down to the camera’s Super 35mm CCD sensor, putting the camera in the same dynamic range as the F35 CineAlta. Originally budgeted by agency Bray Leino for shooting on an HDW-790 or HDW-900R, Wood persuaded producer Theresa Larche and director Elliot Naftalin to step up to the SRW-9000s to cope with the creative challenge of handling contrasting skin tones,
as actors posed as Big Brotherhousemates examining their faces in the bathroom mirror. Wood explains that he and Rushes colourist Adrian Seery were able to exercise a huge amount of creative control in the shooting of the series of 56 idents because there was so much detail at 4:4:4. “I like the images you get because they are the best, most malleable images in telecine, and with an HD camera I want every bit of information I can get,” he adds. “Another thing I like about the camera is it’s fully modular and upgradeable. Although we shot to HDCAM SR tape, the SRW-9000 has solid state recording options, a PL mount and a full sized chip in the pipeline.” Sony’s commitment to upgradeability with the SRW-
9000 is good news, he argues. “It makes rental houses keener to invest in them. Which is reassuring in practical terms because you know they’ll have back up.”
Autumn 2010 theproducer 19
HDCAM
From commercials to high-end documentary and comedy drama Sony has all the bases covered at the top end of HD acquisition
igh-end Sony cameras including the HDW- F900R CineAlta and the SRW-9000 are establishing a firm reputation for quality
across the board from documentary to drama and commercials. Based around Sony’s top of the range 35mm CCD the SRW-9000 offers the highest quality 4:4:4 recording in a rugged one-piece camcorder body with film-camera style ergonomics, giving commercials producers a degree of creative control comparable to HD cinematography cameras such as the F35 CineAlta. In this issue we also feature the F900R, Sony’s flagship HDCAM camcorder which has recently been in action on two films for Nat Geo. Factual comedy The Egyptian Job saw the F900R stand up to blistering conditions in Morocco, while on Indian
Tiger we visited
Rajasthan in North East India to find out how the F900R coped with tough conditions on a two year natural history shoot in the Thar Desert.
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