--- In [email protected], Steve Garfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > How To Shoot a Network TV Pilot With the Panasonic HVX-200 > > http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/tv_pilot_hvx_200_brockett.html > > or > > http://tinyurl.com/ya5b7m > > "P2 Is A Better Workflow > With my brief experience with this sort of workflow and P2 media, I > am sold. I really enjoy working in this way with the instant non- > linear access and not having to capture tape. I think that this sort > of workflow, whether it's with P2 or some sort of newer, as of yet > unthought-of media, it is the best way to streamline the production > process. I am currently planning on going into production on my own > pilot using basically a similar workflow. I know that the end results > will look and sound amazing. " > > > -- > Steve Garfield > http://SteveGarfield.com >
That's a very well done and informative article. The new MacBook Pros don't support P2 cards, although you can buy an external adapter to connect them via USB. The older ones have the correct slot for this application. That particular shoot required a lot of movement and simultaneous cameras rolling, so it should have been called "How to shoot a network TV pilot with SEVERAL HVX-200s". If it had been a one-camera shoot without much movement, "2. Shoot Directly To Laptop" would have been the way to go: "An alternative to shooting to P2 cards is to shoot directly into a computer. Several programs on both PCs and Macs support live capture to HD. Pluses - Shooting times are only limited by the hard drive capacity you have connected to your computer. You can also use your laptop's display as a sort of lower end monitoring system as you shoot and capture. Minuses - Size, weight and hassle. Basically, shooting to a laptop ties the HVX-200 to the computer via a Firewire cable. Extra hassle in lugging, setting up and breaking down a laptop, cables and drives. Reliability is questionable, computers lock-up and crash, P2 cards don't. No time code is recorded to each individual clip so all clips with begin at 00:00:00:00 time code. Shooting handheld or Steadicam while tethered to a laptop is difficult to impossible. Laptop capture does not support native frame rates so storage capacities per GB are lower and variable frame rates are not possible." Also, the reason they needed to shoot this in HD is that they were working with people that already had their deal set up: "The project was to be produced for the studio in conjunction with a huge production company owned by an A-list feature film director who you have definitely heard of. That's all I can tell you. It was definitely big league stuff. The producer for the project and director/writer were already attached as they had a development deal with the studio although they had more feature film experience than television experience." Under "normal" circumstances, the point of a pilot is the content, and it's used to shop the IDEA of the piece, not the look of the piece. This is because A) they're normally done by production companies that don't have the extensive connections available to the writer of this article, and they aren't trying to spend a lot of money taking this "shot in the dark" of trying to sell this idea, and B) once they sell it, they're not going to be responsible for shooting it anyway, so there's no need to demonstrate their technical capabilities. Well-lit DVcam or even MiniDV is all you need to get your point across making a pilot. If you don't have to run around a lot for the shoot, record straight to your laptop... the only downside being, as they mentioned, that you will have the same timecode on every clip... which doesn't matter, because they'll all have separate clip names, and you can modify the timecode in FCP anyway. HDV is popular now also. As far as videoblogging's concerned, the Nokia N93 apparently shoots 640 x 480 resolution and 30 frames a second. MiniDV = 720 x 480 resolution and 29.97 frames a second. For that, just get a camera-phone and several mini-SD cards and make sure you shoot outside in the sunlight and go shop your demo. :D __ Bill C. http://ReelSolid.TV
