Affordable HD Focus Page
Multimedia
Blogs
Forum
Affordable HD
Whitepapers
Newsletters
Events
Advertisers
DCP Directory
MillimeterPinlight LLC shoots concert tour with Canon XL H1
May 22, 2006 3:09 PM
For film and video producer Richard Shaw, a crucial first step in starting a new project is choosing the right equipment. An expert in moving-image technology for two decades, Shaw was an early pioneer of nonlinear editing techniques and the founder of production and post facilities in both Atlanta and Hollywood.
With Pinlight LLC, his Los Angeles-based film and video production/post company, Shaw recently undertook an assignment from a major record label to document a top recording artist's Tokyo concert tour. Partnering with director and co-producer Lee Cantelon, Shaw knew they'd need a camera capable of high-quality image capture that would also be unobtrusive enough for them to shoot in the cinéma vérité style they sought.
"Lee and I shopped around and looked at several HDV digital camcorders," Shaw recalled. "We checked out all the available models and found that the Canon XL H1 was head and shoulders above the others, so we went with it."
"The XL H1's HD-SDI output and genlock capabilities impressed me the most as professional features," Shaw noted. "Having all of that on a $10,000 camera is pretty cool. HD-SDI output will come in very handy when it's time to edit our footage. And genlock lets us interface the XL H1 with other systems or mount it on a jib arm and lock it into a switcher. SMPTE timecode input and output is another great feature and something that will also come in handy. If we do a multicamera shoot and want all of our cameras to track with the same timecode, we can do that as well.
"I also like the fact that the XL H1's input gain controls - instead of being stepped, as they are with most cameras - are variable," Shaw continued. "Last but not least, the audio quality of the XL H1 is something we really appreciate. There are separate level controls for each channel behind a flip-open door. And the microphone that comes with the camera is far better than we anticipated it would be. There were times when Lee couldn't snap a lavalier on someone, but he was close enough to use the camera mic and it sounded just great."
After shooting test footage to show the record label that the Canon XL H1 was the right camera for the job, Cantelon traveled to Japan to document the artist's 10-concert tour there. Using the XL H1 ensured that the tour would be captured in pristine HDTV, but in a way that was unobtrusive, in true documentary fashion.
"It was an intimate sort of shoot, not a big concert video with five cameras feeding into a production switcher in a truck in an alley," Shaw noted. "We used just one XL H1 and the visuals are stunning."
In addition to onstage performances, Cantelon also captured behind-the-scenes footage, commentaries by the recording artist, and scenes of Tokyo during Christmas season. He shot in the XL H1's 1080 24F mode to achieve a filmic look for their project.
"Tokyo is so colorful at that time of the year," Shaw explained. "With the XL H1 all the colors just popped out, especially in Tokyo where they use a lot of reds in their clothing, signage, and décor. The colors we captured looked like they were shot on high-quality 35mm film. They are super-saturated, brilliant, with no clipping or distortion. Individual colors - reds, oranges, and other saturated colors - didn't have that typical NTSC clamping many cameras produce, where everything looks drab.
"The light sensitivity of the XL H1 proved to be a lot gentler and nicer than we had anticipated," Shaw continued. "The controls for adjusting gain are very good. But it was the crispness of the image, though, that really knocked us out. And of course, being a Canon camera, the lens is really good.
In addition to its image quality, Shaw enjoyed the versatility of the XL H1's different modes. "In 4:3 DV mode with 24F selected you can shoot something that looks like 16mm for SD projects," he noted. "Or you can go into 16:9 1080i 24F and it begins to resemble 35mm for HD projects. A lot of our international customers want 1080i format video with the look of film, and the XL H1 saves us a ton of time because we can just shoot and start cutting. We don't have to do any processing to it; it already looks like film. We just think the XL H1 is a great camera."
