|
Acquisition
Our new primary cameras are the Sony HDV-Z1U and HDV-A1U. They are
the first professional hand held high definition cameras. These
highly mobile systems can record great sound and stunningly beautiful
images. They record in the HDV format and can output over firewire
directly to HDV or DV in ether 4X3 or 16X9. They can also
record in the DV and DVCAM formats.
The use of high quality
fluid head tripods gives a solid quality to the video not normally
associated with these small cameras. A favorite VPS shooting technique
involves the use of a monopod which provides the mobility of a hand
held camera and the stability of a tripod. Fluid moving camera shots
are instantly available as well as unique elevated shots with the
camera fifteen feet above the subject.
Lighting is facilitated
with an array of Lowel instruments including Rifa-lite soft lights
plus some cool running lights like the Westcott Spiderlite.
We also have some unique battery powered lights to keep up with
our highly mobile shooting style. Both AC and DC lights are
equipped with gels and dimmers to match any ambient light situation.
Cameras
Sony HDV-Z1U
Sony HDV-A1U
Field
Monitor
Marshall V-R70P-HDA 7"
High Definition portable monitor.
Camera
Support
Cartoni Focus tripod
Cartoni HiDV tripod
Cartoni ActionPro tripod
Cartoni mini jib
Bogen 3060/3126 tripod
and dolly wheels
Glidecam jib arm (additional crew required)
Steadicam Jr.
VariZoom
monopods (4)
Lens
Century Optics HD .7X
conversion lens for Z1
Century Optics .65X and 2X conversion lens
Sony .7X wide angle conversion lens
Kenko .5X wide angle conversion lens
Audio
Sound Devices 3ch mixer
Sony Headphones - MDR-7509HD
Marantz PMD660 solid state
recorder
PSC Millimic (2) black
and (1) white
Tram lav (2) black and gray
RE50 hand held omni
Sennheiser MD46 cardioid
(the ultimate in hand held mic)
Sennheiser ME65 (2) super cardioid (great stereo)
Sennheiser ME67 long shotgun
with Rycote softie & mount
Sennheiser ME66 short shotgun
with Lightwave softie
Shure Beta 98 cardioid
Audio-Technica
AT815 shotgun with Lightwave wind screen
Lectrosonics CR187VHF Wireless system with body pack and handheld
transmitter
Lectrosonics UM100 UHF Wireless system
Samson MR-1 wireless system
Rycotte wind screen for
Z1 stereo mic
DC Lighting
LitePanal LED (the ultimate battery powered light)
ID 3X-Lite LED on camera light
Cool-Lux SL3000 battery powered soft light
Sony HVL-20dw2 video light
AC
Lighting
Westcott Spiderlite (cool
running 750W equivalent) Lowel
CaseLite2 cool running soft light
Lowel Rifa-lites - soft lights with blue gels, dimmers and egg grates. 1000 watt 32"
750 watt 25"
250 watt 16"
Focusing Fresnel 650/300
watt with barndoors
Tota light (2) with barndoors and umbrella
Pro light (2) with snoot, barn doors and umbrella
Omni light (1) with barndoors
and umbrella
Editing
System
We can edit any HD content including uncompressed HD on our Final Cut Pro system. We have Studio 2 on a dual quad Mac Pro. It gives us eight processors running a 3GB/s with 13GB of ram and RAID-5 storage with 1.3TB available for media. The system supports realtime HD viewing on a 46" Sony Bravia monitor.
We also have our vintage Pinnacle Liquid Silver (now Avid) uncompressed & MPEG2 non-linear
editing system. It has long set the standard for the highest quality standard definition
D1 (601) digital video. Picture quality is quite simply
stunning and with sub-pixel processing in a 4:2:2 color space. This system far surpasses JPEG systems
and the popular DV edit systems that use only half the bandwidth. This system can do MPEG2 I-frame at 5, 15, 25, 33 or
50 MB/sec. The computer has dual 2Ghz Zeon processors (rendering
in the background) 1.24GB of RAM, 1TB of fully redundant RAID5 media
storage, dual 21" computer monitors and 32 " Sony Bravia video monitor.
We specialize in DV and DVCAM with digital purity maintained through
I/O's. There is IEEE1394 (Firewire) for DV and DVCAM and a serial digital interface
(SDI), which accommodates formats like Sony's Digital Betacam, IMX
and Panasonic's D9. Analog format quality is maintained with uncompressed
digitizing through component analog I/Os as will as NTSC and Y/C.
The liquid also has one of the best secondary color correction systems.
We also use Pinnacle's Impression Pro for DVD authoring and Adobe
Audition for audio sweetening.
The interfaces are intuitive and efficient. We will devise a production
strategy suited to your budget. Options include:
- VPS can do all of the editing from your script and provide
VHS dubs, with time code, for your approval at predetermined
stages.
- VPS can edit a rough cut and you can supervise the final stages.
- With a basic two hour training course you or your editor can
do the rough cut and supervise finishing with more complex titling,
effects and multi-layering that might be needed.
System
Long sessions pass in comfort on a leather sofa and AERON CHAIRS
with fully adjustable ergonomic controls.
|
