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HDTV Diary
intro
In the spring of 2000 I am
hired by Delphi Productions in Alameda, CA to shoot a
project on the impact of technology, especially
telecommunications, on remote areas and developing
nations. The final product, a 6-minute video, will be
shown at the Semi-Con West trade show in San Francisco by
Delphi's client Novellus. a manufacturer of equipment for
making silicon chips, such as those in computers.
The audience (in groups of
24 at a time) will watch our work on a panoramic screen
in a theatre built especially for the show. It will be
the culminating presentation of a walk-through exhibit
occupying all of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Building in San Francisco. The screen dimensions are 39'
wide by 13' tall, a 3:1 aspect ratio. Standard
television, by comparison, has a ratio of 1.33:1, most
movies are 1.85:1, some very wide-screen movies are 2.33
or occasionally 2.66 :1. The 3:1 format has been chosen
to enhance the panoramic feeling, but it will present
challenges in shot composition. We continually discuss
these challenges during our trip. The production company has
considered filming this project on 35mm, but it proves
too costly. We will shoot on High Definition Television
(HDTV), a high-resolution video format ideal for this
kind of large projection. HD has 1080 scan lines,
compared to 525 for NTSC, the American TV standard --
twice the resolution. HD has an aspect ratio of 1.77:1,
but the top and bottom of our pictures will be sliced off
with a projector mask during the showing to bring it to
3:1. We will use the Sony
HDW-700A camcorder with Sony 9" and 14" monitors. As I
check out our equipment at Videofax in San Francisco, I
marvel at the fact that the camcorder is virtually
identical in size and controls with the Betacam equipment
I am used to using on my other video shoots. On a
previous international Hi Def shoot several years before,
I used the Sony HDC-500 camera, which was larger and
heavier than this one. It fed a video deck which weighed
about 100 pounds and sucked batteries dry in no
time. Various countries have been
discussed during pre-production, including Ghana,
Senegal, China, Bangladesh, and Egypt, but at the time of
our departure, we are planning on visiting Costa Rica,
Alaska, and India. Since none of our destinations is on
the way to any of the others, our plan is to take 3
separate trips, returning each time to our base in the
San Francisco area for 2-3 days. I will be traveling with
Director Randy Field and Producer Larry Lauter. Randy and
I have worked together intensively over the past 17
years, ever since my wife Susan was carrying our daughter
Rebecca in utero. In fact, our first shoot together was
the morning after I had been up all night in the hospital
while Susan had a bout of false labor. We left the
hospital, I dropped Susan at home, went directly to
location and started shooting with Randy and crew.
Rebecca was born a month or two later. She's now 16, and
Randy and I are still working together. In fact, much of
my most interesting and creative work has been with
him. Over the years I have logged
many domestic and overseas miles with Randy and Larry,
including twice around the world, shooting primarily for
high-tech companies seeking to project a global image.
But this Novellus project promises to be different: There
is no direct tie-in with any product or service they
offer, and we are planning to visit and interview
ordinary people, rather than shooting computer companies'
customer success stories in a corporate environment.
Also, no clients will be traveling with us. Our video
engineer is Jon McDonald from Austin, Texas, whom we have
met briefly but have never worked with before. He comes
highly recommended, but he's definitely the New Kid. Some
good-natured teasing is definitely in the
offing.
first uploaded 5 June 2000
