My background is in narrative film production, which initially lead me to use something I'd use on an indie film. From the beginning Tamara and I have wanted to create a look that gave the audience enough distance from the men to view them objectively, for us that meant shallower depth of field and a generally more cinematic look then you normally see on a doc. Over the last year or so that line of thought took me from a JVC GY-HD110 with a Brevis35 lens adapter all the way to the RED Camera in search of the right balance between look and functionality.
Unfortunately none of the cameras I considered were up to the task; the JVC's HDV footage just doesn't hold up in post if you don't nail the settings in camera, and that doesn't always happen when you are run and gun through a prison with mixed sodium vapor lighting! And the RED, despite being a great studio camera for the money, is still not ready for the mission critical doc environment. Other small-camera-with-adapter solutions like the HVX-200 or EX1 paired with a Letus Ultimate are just not realistic for hand held shooting over long periods of time, which is definitely the reality of shooting inside San Quentin.
I initially stayed away from ENG cameras because the price point was out of our reach and I was married to shooting 24p to help the audience see the men of the trust with a perspective not achievable in 30i. I'd toyed with the idea of an HDX-900 but the cost of tape stock and Deck over the course of a two year production was just too much.
Then Panasonic released their new HPX line and I thought I'd found the answer, but the 3000 is just too far outside our current budget and the 2000 doesn't deliver the full raster 1080p I need to insure we are ready for theatrical distribution. On top of that the cost per gb of the P2 media is still steep for an independent film, at least in the quantity necessary to shoot all day in San Quentin without a data wrangler.
That brings us up to last month. Trying to squeeze an HPX-2000 into our budget and settling for 720p. When I stumbled upon the Thompson Grass Valley Infinity DMC 1000/20. The camera hasn't had a lot of press and had flown completely under my radar. I called Joe Pettit at Snader and Associates in San Rafael to set up a demo; I was surprised how well it handled. The infinity is competitive with the HPX-3000 for about $20k less, and the Rev Pro media is way more affordable, a 35gb disc is only $50!
After spending an hour running through the menus with a chip chart I took the camera outside into some hard sun and torched the JPEG2000 codec. Shooting a dark shadow cut through a patch of bright sun light I was able to hold clean detail across the image. I took the footage home and pushed it around in after effects; the image held up well to color correction and I was able to pull up the mids quite a bit before any grain became apparent. I'll post some screen grabs as soon as I can make them.
The real test will come later this week when I take the Infinity inside San Quentin and see how it holds up during the heat of production. I'll post an update when that happens to let you know my thoughts.
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
After spending an hour running through the menus with a chip chart I took the camera outside into some hard sun and torched the JPEG2000 codec. Shooting a dark shadow cut through a patch of bright sun light I was able to hold clean detail across the image. I took the footage home and pushed it around in after effects; the image held up well to color correction and I was able to pull up the mids quite a bit before any grain became apparent. I'll post some screen grabs as soon as I can make them.
The real test will come later this week when I take the Infinity inside San Quentin and see how it holds up during the heat of production. I'll post an update when that happens to let you know my thoughts.
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
