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MillimeterDocumenting Wikipedia With AVC-Intra
Jun 24, 2008 11:51 AM, By Craig Erpelding
In today's online social media craze, few sites have garnered as big a following as Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia project started by Jimmy Wales in 2001. Touted as the "encyclopedia written and edited by anyone," the site currently boasts several million pages in hundreds of languages worldwide—all content provided by millions of contributors. But is it truly a site that is created by "anyone" as it states on Wikipedia’s own Wikipedia page? That is a question that documentarians look to examine in the HD film currently in production Truth in Numbers?.
The project—co-directed and co-produced by Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon)—is benefited by insider access to Wales and features storylines revolving around interviews with actual Wikipedia editors and contributors from around the globe, as well as certain topical experts not allowed to participate in the online encyclopedia including Washington Post Editor Len Downie, CBS News Anchor Bob Schiefer, former Encyclopedia Britannica editor Bob McHenry, Slate magazine's Chris Wilson, Author Howard Zinn, and former head of the CIA Jim Woolsley.
To capture all of these interviews, Cinematographer Eric Koretz (Love Limits) is now using the Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 camcorder with the AVC-Intra codec. Having shot much of the project to date with Panasonic's AG-HPX500 camera, which uses the DVCPRO HD codec, as well as matching previously shot footage from a Sony HVR-Z1U, Glendale-based equipment rental company VER recently offered the production the opportunity to switch to the HPX3000. The Z1U footage was shot 1080 at 60i and the HPX500 footage at 1080 interlaced, 24p. So although Koretz would have preferred to shoot one format and frame rate from the beginning, he was excited for the opportunity to use the new AVC-Intra technology, despite his concerns about changing acquisition formats in the middle of a project.
"Some of the earlier footage was Sony Z1U stuff, but we decided to upgrade the scale of the footage as the storyline of the documentary became larger. So originally we went to the HPX500 because I had used the camera on my previous project and it was the only P2-based camera [in our price range] to shoot 1080 at the time," Koretz says. "At first I was worried with the HPX3000. The HPX500 shoots in The HPX500 shoots DVCPRO HD at 24p over 1080i, but with the AVC-Intra codec, you can shoot true 24p. So I was worried about that, of course, because it's a different codec. It's a new codec. It's a different frame rate than I originally shot, but because the original footage was 60i then we switched to DVCPRO HD 24p—that's where I thought it would be alright to shoot with AVC intra codec since we were already mixing formats in the first place."
Before completely settling in with the HPX3000, Koretz had to make sure that it would provide the result he needed in order to fit the new footage with the old.
"So we did some tests on the HPX3000, and we did as much research as possible because no one had ever really shot much with the AVC-Intra codec yet," Koretz says. "We found that using CinemaTools in [Apple] Final Cut Pro, we were able to easily convert the true 24p footage—and the HPX500 footage we were actually able to convert to 24p and it all mixed together pretty well with some bumps along the way."
Those bumps, according to Koretz, involved the realization that all of their workstations were not AVC-Intra compatible at the time of their tests, as well as the fact that converting the 24p 1080i DVCPRO HD footage from its original frame rate takes up nearly twice the space than the original footage—so they had to double their raid hard drive system storage to account for that. Now Koretz packs a G-Technology G-Raid 2 for his shoots.
Koretz noted that using the HPX3000 and its P2 card workflow worked great in the field for their run-and-gun shooting style in which they had minimal setup time—sometimes 20 minutes at most. With such unpredictable setup situations, the AVC-Intra footage can actually help certain aspects of footage shot with poor lighting.
"What you notice right away with the AVC-Intra is what it picks up," Koretz says. "The differences between DVCPRO HD and the AVC-Intra codec—the resolution increase is significant between the [8-bit DVCPRO HD (1280x720) and full 10-bit (1920x1080) recording]. And it gives you a greater [gamma] curve. Because we're run and gun so much and sometimes you don't have the opportunity to adjust things in terms of lighting, it's more lenient in what it picks up so that you don't have stuff that might blow out."
Because AVC-Intra is so new, Koretz' editing team at Glen Echo Entertainment (Hollywood, Calif.) had to upgrade their Mac workstations to an eight-core Intel-based Mac running Final Cut Pro Studio HD.
Distribution is still yet to be determined, but as the crew prepares to follow Wales' attempts to get the Chinese government to approve a Chinese-language-based version of Wikipedia, all sights are on the 2009 Toronto Film Festival.
In the meantime Koretz is enjoying his time with the HPX3000.
"I am extremely happy with the 3000," Koretz says. "Full HD 24p and you don't have to bring a lot more hard drive space. So I loved the HPX3000 and the AVC-Intra just for that fact alone. Then the camera itself—it has got a lot of features and switches right on the camera so you can make a lot of corrections on the fly as in highlight correction or the white balance. It works out really well."
For more information on Koretz, visit www.theimagehunter.com. For more on The Truth In Numbers? visit www.imdb.com/title/tt0960864/.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
