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Camera and Lighting suggestions for shooting advn. show
Hi,
I am directing a adventure travel show for television. The show takes us to different places of high altitude to sea fronts. At times treks would be of 4 days with no electric power supplies. I want to show case the beautiful landscapes, people and culture and maintain the color and quality. I am submitting a shoot budget and before I did that I wanted suggestions regarding camera and other equipment.
Normally in India the TV shoots are done on PD150/PD170 because of cost effective reasoning. But the footage is very bland. Hence I wanted to explore possibilities.
1. Camera – I have to shoot in DV/HDV. I want to understand the cost difference and camera suggestions for both. I had in mind the CanonXL1/JVC D700. Also planning to use the P+S Technik mount to use film lenses.
Also alternately incase there are any suggestions in HDV cameras to enhance quality.
The telecast format is Beta so conversion will happen.
The camera should be lightweight and handy as it will be treks and the camera will mostly have to shoot strapped on, max will have a tripod.
If there are any other better suggestions please let me know also do mention the costings with your suggestions.2. Lighting – What kind of lighting should we be carrying on the shoot?. It can’t be too much and should not be too heavy.
3. How to charge by batt.? Are there any kinds of solar chargers?
4. Any other equipment/lens suggestions to help accomplice the shoot is welcome.
Thanks and Regards
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7 Replies
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[anandabrata ghosh] “Also planning to use the P+S Technik mount to use film lenses.”
Well, I can hardly believe I’m saying this since I’m a huge fan of the P+S Technik converters and use one every day… but be completely sure this is what you want to do if you are trying to to lightweight, fast, run-and-gun type shooting.
Just from a physical size/weight standpoint it will add quite a bit. Depending on the camera you choose, the P+S Technik converter is probably going to be bigger and heavier than the camera body itself. The film lenses will add more, even a small case of cine primes (say, four primes minimum) will be larger and heavier than than the camera.
There is also the speed factor, if you are trying to shoot quickly remember that even though it’s a relatively quick and easy process, changing primes does take a little bit of time, and if you are doing it hundreds of times a day that does add up.
If you really want 35mm DoF convertered footage… personally, even though I only ever use the P+S Technik, in this particular case it might be worth exploring one of the smaller/lighter (and cheaper) converters, such as the Brevis35 (about $10,000 cheaper than the P+S Technik)… and maybe even consider using a good cine zoom (the fastest one that you can afford) rather than the primes, just for ease of use and to avoid changing lenses every few minutes.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Can you rent in India?
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Yes, we can rent cameras in India and that is what we intend to do for my production. But all cameras are not readily available. Nevertheless your suggestions are most welcome.
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I would use:
— Panasonic AG-HVX200 (2 32 GB p2 cards)
— a macbook pro with FCS2 on it.
— 2 TB RAID firewire 800
— 4 TB Drobo
— Arri kit (3 lights: 2 650s and 1K)
— My lightmeter
— some silks, flags, foam core, CTB
— 3 c-stands
— polarizer
— a dozen or so miniDV tapes
— a reasonable insurance policyWith this, I would feel prepared to shoot, edit, and catalog pretty much anything that was thrown at me.
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As to power needs on remote trips. I once suggested this to someone in Central America, it may or may not work, but it might stimulate some thinking.
Solar works, but is slow unless you have a massive panel, and those are heavy, awkward and expensive, plus, you’re counting on sunlight… you’re probably needing to USE your camera batteries mostly in daylight, and recharge while you sleep at night, and solar panels are not too good at working overnight.
Gasoline powered generators are always possible, but are heavy and make noise. On the positive side, they don’t care what time of day or night they run, but you might, if you like to get some sleep…
A windmill generator, like those used on sailing yachts, can work at any hour as long as there is wind. There is the issue of taking time to set up a tower. If you’re travelling by jeep, the jeep can anchor a tower in several novel and efficient ways. If you’re backpacking, not so much.
So, what I came up with was:
Buy one or more deep-cycle marine or truck lead-acid or gel cel batteries in town, have them charged up for you.They are a little heavy for a man to backpack. Instead, haul them along behind you in a one-wheeled cart made from scrap metal tubing or bicycle parts, like a travois mixed with a unicycle, or perhaps a backwards wheel barrow. The big bike wheel will roll well on most terrain and take much of the weight off the person towing it. (it could probably haul the tripods at the same time.)
Use the car batteries with an inverter and the regular charger that came with your camcorder, or for better efficiency and more duration, charge using a dc to dc charger. Bring along the right cables and you could just run the camera direct off the car battery for those shoots where you are stationary. We used to run an old Ikegami HL-79 camera like this in the field on occasion, when the weak “portable” batteries of the day gave out.
Completely silent and works in any weather or hour of the day. When done with the project, sell them used, locally, or donate them to someone local who can hook up to charge it and use it however they want, for powering a radio, laptop, home lighting, whatever. They won’t get wasted. And obviously any time your group can use a car or truck for parts of the trip, you can recharge them yourself off the car’s alternator as well. Those modern camcorders have such reduced power draw, check the math, see if the capacity of the car batteries is enough for your needs and if this is workable from an engineering standpoint.
Crazy? Or genius? You tell me. But if you say crazy, you have to propose a better alternative:-)
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I’ll say crazy 🙂
My better idea: a bunch of film and wind up Bolex 🙂
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Hi Mark,
Highly appreciate for detailing out ways to shoot under minimum power supply conditions. I have already explored a few which you initially ran out.
I shall consider the implementation that you have suggested as a demo and then w’ll be in a better state to comment if it’s a genius or crazy :).
Thanks
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