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 Feature "Bone Creek" Fires Up High Def Production
Challenge: New Format, New Workflow, and Achieving the 'Film Look'
by Michael Corbett
Left to right, writer-director Emily Edwards looks on as, student Darren Thompson slates the scene featuring actors Juan-Fernandez as Avenel Cannon (behind the slate) and Logie-Meachum as Israel in the Piedmont Community College (PCC) class project production of the feature film “Bone Creek.”
Adjunct faculty member, camera instructor Jonathan Quade, stepped up and offered to loan us his JVC GY-HD100 camera recently purchased for his production company. This would be the camera’s first shoot. Jonathan was anxious to let us work out the kinks in the tapeless HD workflow with his camera.
As the production evolved, we were able to bring in Emmy award-winning director of photography, Flip Minott, to be our guest DP for a week. He agreed to bring his $50K+ Panasonic’s AJ-HDC27H VariCam to use on the shoot as part of his master’s class sessions. The week that Flip was with us, our HVX200 arrived. The outcome was that we were able to work extensively with three different HD cameras during the twelve weeks we were shooting “Bone Creek.”
Jonathan’s JVC records in HD on standard Mini DV tape cassettes. To improve the workflow on his productions, he decided to acquire a Firestore battery operated portable hard disk drive to capture the image media. We recorded both to tape and the Firestore drive while using the JVC GY-HD100. This gave me a bit of comfort having the tape as an archive backup of the media as we started production. Flip’s VariCam also recorded to tape. The HVX200 is designed to record HD to P2 cards as the primary media storage. For budget reasons, we elected to purchase 2 Firestore drives instead of P2 cards for our HVX200.
The first day of shooting changed my view of HD in a profound way. One of my chief concerns about shooting on HD was how well the cameras would process high contrast day exterior lighting. Jonathan had chosen the JVC specifically because of the reviews of the camera on this kind of shoot. We shot outside in the woods with some supplemental lighting from reflectors and 575 HMI’s for hair lights and fill. The images looked okay on Jonathan’s inexpensive monitor. It was when I got home that the paradigm shift occurred.
In only a few minutes, I was able to drag the files from the Firestore drive and open them with Final Cut Pro. The images were stunning. The workflow was simple, straightforward, and effective. In just a few hours, I edited the day’s scene into a rough cut, color corrected using Apple’s Color program and output a QuickTime movie to show the class next day.
I was hooked. When we shoot film, it normally takes 10 days for shipping to the lab, processing, telecine transfer, digitizing to hard disk and return shipping. I will always be biased toward film as my image capture medium of choice, but the almost instant knowledge of results offered by tapeless HD production is powerful.
As good as HD is for the production, it is even better for use in the classroom. The students and I were able to review the media and adapt our workflow and techniques to produce a better project. This provided them with a more powerful learning experience by virtue of the timely feedback.
Nora (Actress Alison Walls) takes photographs in the film, "Bone Creek".
The Film Look
Another area of anxiety for me on my first HD shoot was achieving the so-called “film look.” I called my good friend Filp Minott and picked his brain on how he approached this issue on his first feature length HD project, “Terror Inside.” His advice included getting very familiar with the camera’s operating manual and setting every menu to the “Cine” or film choices.
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