Entertainment Technology News

Peabody Award-winning Director of Photography Mark Smith traveled with the 70 th Anniversary Amelia Earhart Expedition to the remote South Pacific island of Nikumaroro this summer, armed with AG-HVX200 P2 HD camcorders to document the group’s archeological research.

The 14-member team traveled under the aegis of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), an organization that contends that famed aviator Earhart landed and ultimately died on Gardner Island – now known as Nikumaroro. This small, deserted Pacific island, halfway between New Guinea and Hawaii, is also known for its oppressive equatorial heat and humidity, razor-sharp corral, dense foliage, treacherous landing conditions and relentless lack of drinkable water. Abandoned remains of Nikumaroro Village, “castaway” campsites and various elements from an 800-foot freight shipwreck evidence the difficulties of accessing and sustaining life on the uninhabited island.

American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight in 1937. Earhart was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, which she was awarded as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Intense public fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.

TIGHAR recruited Smith to shoot the 16-day archeological exploration of the Island seeking clues to Earhart’s presence there. “Because of the limited space aboard ship, on this particular trip I was the production team, camera, sound, director – with a little jungle cutting thrown in on the side," the DP said. "The HVX200 was an excellent fit for this production. Since I would be working single-handedly much of the time, choosing a camera that gave the best image quality image in a small, easily transportable package was of prime importance."

Smith had traveled to Nikumaroro with TIGHAR in 2001 on a similar research trip. “I made that trip with a BetaCam, two DV cameras, a very large box of videotape, myriad support gear — and an assistant,” the DP recounted. “Hauling around all that equipment in tropical heat that often exceeds 110°F was no picnic. Luckily, the shifts in camera technology over the last six years greatly facilitated this trip, as my package of two HVX200s was dramatically smaller and lighter.”

“Shooting exclusively on tape during the earlier trip (2001), we’d encountered some problems with condensation causing tape transports to shut down until the moisture cleared out, even after we took extra precautions to prevent this condition from happening,” Smith said. “I wasn’t sure how a P2 camera was going to react in essentially the same conditions. I anticipated that I would be better off with the solid-state camera but I wouldn’t be able to confirm that until I was actually in shooting mode on Niku.”

Smith’s 2007 equipment package comprised the two P2 HD cameras (the second HVX200 as back-up), an AJ-PCS060G P2 Store, a laptop, three hard drives for storage, two wireless microphones, and grip/lighting package for outdoor use.

The DP evocatively described his typical workday on Nikumaroro. “Each day at 7 a.m., a skiff (i.e., small boat) moved the first work crew about a mile down the island to a landing channel blasted in the reef nearly 50 years ago, where we climbed out into thigh-deep water and waded ashore with our gear,” Smith said. “At low tide we got out on to a wet reef which was notoriously slick and slippery.”

“From there, we would either trek about a kilometer down the beach to one of the sites being searched in the old colonial village, or hike through the jungle to the lagoon shore where we stored another skiff used to travel three miles down island to the ‘Seven Site,’ the ‘castaways’ campsite that TIGHAR began excavating in 2001,” Smith said. “There we faced another wade ashore carrying our gear through deep water and lagoon muck.”

“Even though I’m an experienced hand working with P2 media in the field and managing workflow for post purposes, I had some concerns as I was going to be out over the horizon in terms of resources,” he added. “Whatever I took had to work without trouble because once the boat was en route to Nikumaroro, there was no turning back – no skiff rides to the imaginary floating rental house on the other side of the island.”

Smith shot on 16GB P2 cards, off-loaded to the P2 Store as needed, and backed up everything after each day of shooting. His choice of format was 720 30pN, which he considered “the best quality/drive space/shooting time trade off.”

“I off-loaded all footage from each day to one 750GB hard drive as MXF files, and to a second 750GB drive as QuickTime movies exported from Imagine Product’s HD Log Gold,” Smith said. “The MXF files would be my copy for future editorial purposes, and the QuickTimes were made so TIGHAR staff would have access to all footage simply by connecting the drive to a computer, one of the huge advantages of file-based acquisition.”

“The HVX200 and P2 cards worked flawlessly for 16 days straight without issues, which certainly erased any worries I'd had regarding the durability and stability of the camera and the P2 workflow ,” he continued. “The camera sometimes rode inside my pack while traveling via skiff, but more often than not I was shooting on the skiff ride, without a rain cover or splash bag for protection from sun or water, and I had no trouble at all.”

"My concerns had been firstly about sun exposure (at noon, about twice as strong as the most intense day on the U.S. East Coast), and secondly about the camera’s continuous exposure to the salt air and marine environment,” Smith said. “I found that none of these conditions affected the operation of the HVX200 in the least bit. Certainly, the camera was less affected by the heat – which often exceeded 115°F - than I was.”

 “What’s more, the humidity I’d been anxious about had no effect whatsoever on the operation of the HVX200 - even when operating in a salt water mist,” Smith added. “Rain, while rare, still happens, often in the form of a 45-second torrential squall. Neither salty mist nor a good soaking by rain squall caused the camera to malfunction.”

 The cinematographer noted that he made extensive use of the HVX200’s off-speed shooting and pre-record capabilities, both “ very useful in documenting the wildlife we found in and around Niku." Smith said plans are in place to edit the piece on Final Cut Pro 6.

 DP Mark Smith has worked extensively for major broadcast and large cable networks in the U.S. as well as independent production companies. Smith gained recognition with award-winning stories including a Nickelodeon report on the hidden content of children's video games that received a Peabody, an ABC News documentary for 20/20 about AIDS and its effect on the medical profession, an Emmy-nominated profile of a Russian athlete training in the U.S. shown on TNT, and the film Returning Mickey Stern, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Rome Film Festival in 2002.

Ultimately, the 70th Anniversary Earhart Expedition cleared and examined more area than ever before, and collected unprecedented amounts of data and imagery. Research and analysis now underway may provide the answers to such questions as "do personal effects recovered reveal the identity of the castaway whose bones were found in 1940?" and "did aircraft parts found in the island's abandoned village come from Earhart's Lockheed Electra?"

TIGHAR is currently soliciting funding to underwrite the completion of a documentary about solving the mystery of Earhart’s disappearance. For more information about the 70th Anniversary Expedition, visit Smith's website www.o7films.com and TIGHAR’s web site at www.tighar.org.

About the HVX200

The ultra-versatile HVX200 records in 1080i and 720p in production-proven 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD quality, with the ability to capture images in 21 record modes. The DVCPRO HD format offers users cost-effective, intra-frame compression, where each frame stands on its own for editing, and its full 4:2:2 color sampling allows the image to hold up under color correction. The camera records video on a P2 card as IT-friendly MXF files in 1080/60i, 30p and 24p; in 720/60p, 30p and 24p; in 50Mbps DVCPRO50 and in 25Mbps DVCPRO or DV. The HVX200 can capture fast or slow action in 720p at various frame rates--the first time this function is available in a hand-held camera. The shooting frame rate in 720p native mode can be set for any of 11 steps between 12fps and 60fps including 24fps and 30fps. For more information on the AG-HVX200, visit www.panasonic.com/hvx200.

About Panasonic Broadcast

Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast and professional video products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a unit company of Panasonic Corporation of North

America . The company is the North American headquarters of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE: MC) of Japan, and the hub of its U.S. marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, access the company’s web site at www.panasonic.com/broadcast.

Editorial Contacts: Stacy Moore, (201) 392-4458; Pat Lamb(518) 692-8150.