The Producer Report: Multi-camera
One, Take One, it goes into record and all of the cameras are recorded as separate devices.” All of the recordings are stored in an SQL
database, which is searchable by keyword and so ideal for tasks like continuity checking. “All of the rushes for each show are going into one folder, so it’s all in one place when you hit search,” Watson says. “It’s a lot quicker than scrolling through looking for the right one with the human eye.”
THE SETUP AT THE X FACTOR Rental and crewing company HotCam facilitates anything from a single camera unit to a multi- camera setup and offers a unique location studio set-up. A recent example of the latter was The X Factor, for which HotCam provided all video equipment and crewing. “The X Factor featured up to 15 Sony PDW- F800s shooting in a studio environment,” explains HotCam technical manager, Dan Studley. “Rather than shooting with the conventional OB truck, we raised the bar by using camcorders that could easily be used in a PSC style or hooked into our custom studio rig.” “This gave the production the flexibility of a
classic multi-camera rig with the benefit of ISO recording [the continuous recording of a camera’s footage on a separate recorder] on each machine. Fibre optic distribution and data return gives the producers and director the benefit of broadcast HD pictures to all galleries with the added benefit of camera tweaks from vision control at the speed of light,” adds Studley. “All the Sony equipment used on our shoots interface seamlessly with the CCUs, sync generators and fibre distribution,” he continues. “This is one of the main reasons why we go back to Sony time and time again - we know it will work. The cameras are all ISO recorded then edited in post production,” adds Studley. “Our new system
deals with this very easily but also has the flexibility of including a vision mixer, decks and so on if required.” “The reason for this style of set-up is to help editorially with the cut of the show. It gives the edit complete flexibility in terms of which camera to use in the edit so they can benefit from any angle, all of which are ISO recorded.” Although multi-camera productions are increasingly moving to a file-based workflow, it doesn’t remove all technical planning issues. “Because of the many outputs and files available in the solid state world, the easiest way of dealing with them all is to convert and deliver them all in the same format,” says Studley. “We have elected for Sony’s XDCAM as our format of choice for the larger high definition
“
This is one of the main reasons why we go back to Sony time and time again - we know it will work Dan Studley, technical manager, HotCam
productions,” adds Studley. “We introduced a ‘media manager’ into the mix, who ensures that all the formats are transferred safely onto XDCAM, which checks the files being written to it to make sure that none are damaged.” Studley points out that another benefit is “the transfer times are much quicker than a ‘real time’ tape transfer on location. XDCAM proves very popular with the production team too as the digitising times and file transfers are very quick.”
” Autumn 2010 theproducer 33
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