Help us with an MTV pitch

[Matt Vatcher]

Hey People:

 

Long time reader, first time poster, haha.

 

So here?s the down low, I have started a production company and a project has come down the pipe for me to pitch on. The show is for MTV Canada and they want me to bring them a way to shoot ?affordable? HD for the series. Basically they want to shoot HD on a SD budget. I have all the equipment, including an HVX200, and could do the show no problem. But the only hiccup is the producer isn?t convinced with the whole P2 card workflow. His concerns are, one, archiving the footage, which really isn?t hard, my answer is through DVD burn or burn onto Blue Ray. Two, the wait time of downloading footage off the P2 card onto some other format, be it a P2 Store, or a lap, or both. My answer for this being, more P2 cards, and maybe two P2 stores.

 

My workflow would be P2 card to P2 Store to Laptop to external hard drive to DVD or Blue Ray for archiving. Keeping backups of the footage along the way.

 

So I am putting it to you guys to help me out. I am trying to attack this from all angles, so anything that you may know that you think is a valid argument post it and let?s discuss.

 

Some notable things are that this camera, to my knowledge, is the only way to shoot true 1080p not a compressed version of it as what 1080HDV would give you. With enough P2 cards (let?s say 4, 4 gigs) you will never be waiting for a card to be downloading because you have enough to cover the time.

 

Also, if you know of other ways that work better for you, such as, other cameras (ie. Canon HDV XL series, what he recommended) post it, because I?d like to hear it. My Business partner and I have been toiling over this for a while now so any help you could offer would be great!

 

Cheers, Happy posting

[Brant Collins]

Hey People:

 

Long time reader, first time poster, haha.

 

So here?s the down low, I have started a production company and a project has come down the pipe for me to pitch on. The show is for MTV Canada and they want me to bring them a way to shoot ?affordable? HD for the series. Basically they want to shoot HD on a SD budget. I have all the equipment, including an HVX200, and could do the show no problem. But the only hiccup is the producer isn?t convinced with the whole P2 card workflow. His concerns are, one, archiving the footage, which really isn?t hard, my answer is through DVD burn or burn onto Blue Ray. Two, the wait time of downloading footage off the P2 card onto some other format, be it a P2 Store, or a lap, or both. My answer for this being, more P2 cards, and maybe two P2 stores.

 

My workflow would be P2 card to P2 Store to Laptop to external hard drive to DVD or Blue Ray for archiving. Keeping backups of the footage along the way.

 

So I am putting it to you guys to help me out. I am trying to attack this from all angles, so anything that you may know that you think is a valid argument post it and let?s discuss.

 

Some notable things are that this camera, to my knowledge, is the only way to shoot true 1080p not a compressed version of it as what 1080HDV would give you. With enough P2 cards (let?s say 4, 4 gigs) you will never be waiting for a card to be downloading because you have enough to cover the time.

 

Also, if you know of other ways that work better for you, such as, other cameras (ie. Canon HDV XL series, what he recommended) post it, because I?d like to hear it. My Business partner and I have been toiling over this for a while now so any help you could offer would be great!

 

Cheers, Happy posting

 

 

What kind of show. What is the turn around time from shoot to air? Are you or they doing the editing. I used a HVX200 for a doc shoot with a Firestore which worked great. I also shot The World Swat Challenge for the VS. cable network. We used Sony Fx1 or Z1 I cannot remember.But that was tape since there were 4 of us cam ops running around for 3days chasing SWAT guys, so no time for file downloads.

 

Brant Collins

[Greg Johnson]

Well they now have 16 GB and 32 GB P2 cards! ( I used them for the first time last week, it was awesome to not worry about time). If you can get your hands on 2 32GB cards that's over 2.5 hours at 720 24PN!!!

 

But you are right,..backing up is always the trick problem. Good thing Firewire drives are starting to come down in price, but they still crash. I backed up my TV Pilot to a second TB drive, my original crashed last week, so I'd always keep a double back up.

 

I shot and produced a 30 min reality / paintball show (out in the woods for 2 days) on 4 HVX-200's, and some DV helmet cams. We had a tent with a laptop and a 1TB G-Raid running off a small Honda generator. We also had a 2 P2 Stores in case we got bogged down. I staffed one guy in the tent all day who did nothing but log and transfer footage. Yes there is a down time for that, but if rent or buy enough P2 cards, it's not that big of a deal. If you look on the bright side, everything is ready to edit, already organized, the minute the shoot wraps. (I was stoked) Tell your producer that this will save you X amount of time in post, and it will increase your turn around time.

 

We credited the P2 log and transferrer the "P2 Master" in the end credits, I don't know if there's an industry term yet.

 

Any way check out what we came up with, it's a stupid paintball show but I think it "looks" really good - Armchair Commandos (if you look at photo 24 in the photos section you'll see our little ghetto set up)

 

I'm a big fan of the HVX-200, and I actually dig the workflow. Also, Panasonic just came out with a bunch of new gear for their P2 systems too, I'd look into that for more options.

 

- Greg

Edited August 4, 2007 by Greg Johnson

[Brant Collins]

A IT friend of mine just got a Lacie drive that is Serial ATA and an Express card adapter. It has hardware mirroring on the fly and the hard drives are swappable. Going to test the data rates on my MacBook Pro. If all works like I expect it would be great to use in the field.

[Brant Collins]

Well they now have 16 GB and 32 GB P2 cards! ( I used them for the first time last week, it was awesome to not worry about time). If you can get your hands on 2 32GB cards that's over 2.5 hours at 720 24PN!!!

 

But you are right,..backing up is always the trick problem. Good thing Firewire drives are starting to come down in price, but they still crash. I backed up my TV Pilot to a second TB drive, my original crashed last week, so I'd always keep a double back up.

 

I shot and produced a 30 min reality / paintball show (out in the woods for 2 days) on 4 HVX-200's, and some DV helmet cams. We had a tent with a laptop and a 1TB G-Raid running off a small Honda generator. We also had a 2 P2 Stores in case we got bogged down. I staffed one guy in the tent all day who did nothing but log and transfer footage. Yes there is a down time for that, but if rent or buy enough P2 cards, it's not that big of a deal. If you look on the bright side, everything is ready to edit, already organized, the minute the shoot wraps. (I was stoked) Tell your producer that this will save you X amount of time in post, and it will increase your turn around time.

 

We credited the P2 log and transferrer the "P2 Master" in the end credits, I don't know if there's an industry term yet.

 

Any way check out what we came up with, it's a stupid paintball show but I think it "looks" really good - Armchair Commandos (if you look at photo 24 in the photos section you'll see our little ghetto set up)

 

I'm a big fan of the HVX-200, and I actually dig the workflow. Also, Panasonic just came out with a bunch of new gear for their P2 systems too, I'd look into that for more options.

 

- Greg

 

Love the trailer, great concept for a show, the graphics were great too. How did you do the aerial shots..helicopter(good budget)? Is it airing on TV?

[Brant Collins]

Greg, what was the set up for the helmet cams?

[Greg Johnson]

We never sold the show, we came close many many times. Aerials were actually re-shot. We had local paintball teams re-enact what happened. (that's why you don't see any cameramen from the air). We just rented a helicopter and I hung out the side, no stabilizer or anything,.. ghetto but fun! (there's some pics in the photo section).et

 

The helmet cams were actually a nightmare. We bought some $400 canon DV cams and wired lipstick cams to them. We custom make tactical vests, so we just created a pocket to house the camera. Then we used rifle scope mounts to hard mount the camera's to the helmets. A lot of the wires either busted off, or came undone in all the comotion. If I were to do it over again I'd use those 2 GB SD card cameras from Oregon scientific. They don't look quite as good, but they're a fraction of the size.

 

Thanks for checking it out.

 

- Greg

[Brant Collins]

We never sold the show, we came close many many times. Aerials were actually re-shot. We had local paintball teams re-enact what happened. (that's why you don't see any cameramen from the air). We just rented a helicopter and I hung out the side, no stabilizer or anything,.. ghetto but fun! (there's some pics in the photo section).et

 

The helmet cams were actually a nightmare. We bought some $400 canon DV cams and wired lipstick cams to them. We custom make tactical vests, so we just created a pocket to house the camera. Then we used rifle scope mounts to hard mount the camera's to the helmets. A lot of the wires either busted off, or came undone in all the comotion. If I were to do it over again I'd use those 2 GB SD card cameras from Oregon scientific. They don't look quite as good, but they're a fraction of the size.

 

Thanks for checking it out.

 

- Greg

 

Well shot show, surprised you could not sell it to Spike or VS network.