Jemima Harrison
Forum Replies Created
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Obviously Panasonic is supporting the Firestore, but I’m surprised you have not tried the Citidisk given that loads of people will be looking at them because they’re cheaper.
Of course, neither option is anything like perfect yet. What we really need with the 200 is to dump the tape drive and replace it with a swappable dual HDD (i.e. so it records to two drives at once, negating the need for the tedious backing-up) and for the internal drives to be cheap-enough to treat and archive as tape.
I’m a documentary-maker who can shoot 3-4 hours of footage a day, so P2 cards totally not an option. The Firestore is great, but expensive, meaning we can only afford a few and we have to lay off and back-up footage as we go. The 200 is going to appeal to small documentary teams like us (indeed, we’ve bought one and chose it over the 900 for it’s nimbleness). But the backing-up process, which will have to be done in the evening after a long day shooting on location, is a big chore at the very time I’d rather be in the bar with a large drink. Given the need to back-up, for safety, to two sources, it’s not even much quicker than digitising from tape – and almost certainly necessitates an assistant which adds extra cost (particularly if we’re moving from location to location) and a big nervousness factor. (Can I really trust original rushes to hired help?)
At the moment, the decision is to back-up each Firestore to two 100Gb mobile drives (Lacie/G-Tech) which can be split up into two different cases for air travel. Taking in hand luggage – something we could do with tape rushes – is unlikely to be an option, especially with the current security issues.
Jemima
http://www.passionateproductions.co.uk -
And how reliable would either option be..?
Both sound deeply scary to me!
Jemima
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I think the pictures work well but, narratively, it’s wierd to present it as a “done deal” conspiracy-wise. In reality, you’d need to present it as a question, not a fact.
It also highlights the big difference between US and UK documentaries. As a UK film-maker, I could never use such wall-to-wall commentary and pictures as wallpaper. This side of the pond, we use much less narration and instead make the pictures – and sync interview – do the job where possible. We use much less “signposting” and try not to tell the audience what they should be thinking, but rather trust them to get the message from images and testimony.
Jemima