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MillimeterHD Lessons
Sep 1, 2003 12:00 PM, Michael Goldman
Filmmakers behind The Utopian Society, an independent film touring the festival circuit, offer their experience as a prime example of how far high-definition filmmaking has evolved in just one year. They shot the ensemble comedy about a group of college students forced to work together on an assignment using a Sony HDW-F900 24p camera and standard-def Fujinon HA17×7.8 and HA10×5 ERM/ERD lenses during an 11-day shoot in June 2002. Since then, they have evolved their rough cut in Final Cut Pro, while plotting a strategy for building an HD master later this year.
 The crew discusses how to use ambient light at Cal State Fullerton for a key scene in The Utopian Society (top). The indie film had almost no lighting budget and used just a couple of 300W utility lamps in decorative China balls (bottom). |
Director John Aguirre and DP Eric G. Petersen, SOC, say they both have taken several HD seminars in the year since they shot the piece and now know far more about HD filmmaking than when they made the movie.
“[A year ago], precious little information was available from anyone except the manufacturers on how to shoot and post these kinds of movies on a limited budget,” says Petersen. “We asked all over town how to post, how to capture timecode, sound issues, and to my surprise, a lot of people didn't know. Now they have seminars, companies have HD consultants, and everyone has good ideas about HD masters. Better cine-style lenses are now available than what we used, and so on. But when we started this movie, we were still learning this stuff, and so was everyone else.”
Indeed, the first day of the shoot proved disastrous as the audio track was unusable after a limiter switch on the back of the Sony camera was set in the wrong position.
“We had good audio people, but not people who had worked with HD before,” says Aguirre. “Our guy was listening to the audio he was recording, and was not plugged in to hear what the camera was getting, and as a result, that feedback got onto our track, so we lost the first day. It was a good lesson. In our remaining 10 days, we were still able to shoot 24 tapes worth of material, about 17 hours of footage, giving us more than enough to put the movie together.”
Petersen agrees with the value of that mishap. “What that experience reaffirmed for me is that the most expensive part of any feature film production are mistakes, but in the case of HD, they are not quite as costly in real dollars compared to shooting film,” he adds.
The filmmakers say that what they did right, besides having strong material (The Utopian Society has won several festival awards in the last year), was to plot strategies in advance to compensate for their limited budget and HD's weaknesses.
They chose, for instance, a location that offered ambient light to shoot exteriors — Cal State University at Fullerton in Southern California. This proved to be a great choice, according to Aguirre, since the production had several night scenes and no lighting budget.
“Two 300W utility lamps mounted in decorative China Balls, a few shiny boards, a couple of sand bags — that was it in terms of lighting,” Petersen says. “We drove around in a van, and maybe a quarter of it was dedicated to grip and electric.”
Early on, Aguirre worried about his material falling into “black limbo.” At one point, he even had the script re-written to eliminate night exteriors, but eventually decided night scenes were crucial. In the end, outdoor campus lights and a plan to carefully light faces for night shots quelled his fears.
The project, financed by Platinum Edge Media of Aliso Viejo, Calif., acquired the Sony 24p camera by making a deal with a private owner to borrow it for 11 days. “It was an older version of the camera, but he made us a first-payment deal,” says Aguirre. “That means if we sell the film, we owe him money.”
At press time, filmmakers were planning to online an HD master at Dr. RawStock, a Hollywood-based digital video training facility, which has assisted by providing tape dubs in the last year.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
