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Reader SurveyBeta Sight: Iconix HD-RH1
Nov 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Bert Dunk, ASC, CSC
Versatile shooting with compact POV camera.
First Assistant Camera Operator Michael Endler sets up the Iconix HD-RH1 on the set of The Kill Point (Photos courtesy of The Kill Point).
I've been working in Hollywood as a cinematographer since the early 1990s, serving as DP on such films as Rich Men, Single Women (1990), Flashfire (1993), and The Inspectors (1998), as well as numerous other projects for television. In 2000, I worked with Director Robert Wise on A Storm in Summer, based on Rod Serling's 1970 teleplay, and in 2002, I shot the crime drama Street Time, for which I was nominated for Best Cinematography in a TV Series by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. Most recently, I completed shooting for Dr. Doolittle Goin' Hollywood, a DVD project with distribution from Twentieth Century Fox.
Typically, I'll work on several projects per year, each one with its own demands and challenges. The Kill Point was no exception. The 8-hour Spike TV miniseries, directed by Steve Shill (Rome, Law & Order) for Lions Gate Television, stars Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo. The story, a take on the 1975 thriller Dog Day Afternoon, follows a group of American Iraq war veterans who stage a bank heist in downtown Pittsburgh. The robbery turns into a hostage negotiation between Leguizamo as the heist leader and Wahlberg as the hostage negotiator.
Shot on location in downtown Pittsburgh, most of the action in The Kill Point takes place in historic Market Square and the Three Rivers Trust building located just off the square. With an 8-hour show that's basically either inside the bank or out in the square, the challenge was to keep things moving and keep it interesting.
From my earliest discussions with Director Steve Shill and the producers of The Kill Point, I knew I had found the right project for the Iconix HD-RH1 point-of-view camera. The Iconix initially sparked my interest because it struck me as a high-def version of an Eyemo, only better because of its size. I'd been following the camera for about a year, and I was just waiting to get my hands on it.
Roughly the size of an egg, the Iconix HD-RH1's camera head measures 1.32"×1.5"×1.92" and weighs just 2.5oz. The small size is made possible by a separate HDTV controller unit — itself a fairly compact package measuring 8.4"×1.8"×12" and weighing 3.5lbs. — that connects to the head via a proprietary cable available in 10ft., 20ft., and 33ft. lengths.
At 2.5oz, the lightweight Iconix HD-RH1 POV camera allowed Cinematographer Bert Dunk to capture unusual angles and keep the action moving during filming on the set of The Kill Point.
We used the Iconix HD-RH1 throughout filming of The Kill Point, and it allowed us to acquire a wide range of shots that would not have been possible with a standard-size HD camera. Because of the small size of the camera head, we were able to rig it to the end of a 20ft. boom pole and use that setup in a variety of ways. We had a lot of fun just coming up with new places to use the camera. Over the course of the shoot, the Iconix was dragged on the ground, mounted on a train, used extensively inside an air vent, and even attached — by means of a paper clip — to the end of a sniper rifle.
There were times when we were up on a balcony overlooking Market Square, and we'd run the camera 20ft. up in the air on a boom pole to get a nice shot looking down at the square. We also had some shots of the SWAT team looking down on the square from what was called the observation deck on top of a nearby building. By using the boom pole, we were able to stick the camera out over the ledge of the building and get a shot looking back at the actors. These shots took seconds to do. Without the Iconix, we would have been building scaffolding or bringing in a scissor lift — neither of which would have been ideal given our budget and time constraints.
The Iconix allowed me to plan shots for The Kill Point that ordinarily I would never have touched. For a scene inside the air ducts of the bank building, we rigged the camera head to the end of a boom pole with nothing more than gaffer tape and manipulated the pole inside the air ducts to capture the footage we needed.
Working in 4:2:2, we recorded mostly to a Sony SRW1 deck, using a Sony HDW-S280 HDCAM field recorder whenever portability became an issue. The Iconix offers 35 format and frame-rate combinations, but for The Kill Point, we stayed with 24fps. Whenever there was gunfire, I would turn the shutter off in order to maintain the entire flash of the gun, which worked really well.
The Iconix is engineered to work with C-mount lenses, so for The Kill Point, I employed a set of Fujinon primes. Panavision's Plus 8 division provided the miniseries' camera package — which, besides the Iconix, also included two Sony HDC-F950s. When we first compared the Iconix footage with that from the 950s, I was amazed at just how good the picture really was.
I definitely consider the Iconix to be part of my arsenal. It would be wonderful for car shots — because there's no mass, there would be no real vibration issues. There's no limit to how it performs and what it can do. Really, I think the only limiting factor for the use of the camera is one's imagination.
