American Cinematographer - August 2008 - (Page 74) Filmmakers’ Forum Creating IQ-145 for the Web by Billy Dickson, ASC enlisted my good friend Chad Cooperman to co-produce and co-direct; I felt more comfortable with him at my side because the show we were attempting was unique, unconventional and ambitious. Essentially, we were planning to shoot an entire show in front of a greenscreen and upload it to the Internet for broadcast, but we didn’t want it to look like anything yet produced for the Web or YouTube-type programs. This had to have a network look and feel, and, as the cinematographer, I couldn’t spread myself too thin. The initial shoot would be 12 days onstage and two days out. We set up production at UE Screen Gems studio in Wilmington, N.C. We took over the largest stage and set up a 100'x40' greenscreen with a painted floor. My crew, consisting of key grip Dascious Thomas and gaffer Jim Tamara, hung a large box truss with more than 100 Image 80s. We used four 4K umbrella balls made by Steve Thompson, three 20Ks (mainly used in Condors for backlight), and a small assortment of Kino Flos. My camera package was from Panavision in Dallas. We chose to shoot with the Sony HDW-F900 instead of using a smaller, more portable HDVCam. I had tested my Sony HVR-Z1U, but pulling mattes from the HDV format wasn’t good enough for what I wanted to do: deliver a 1920x1080 image that looked as good as anything seen on TV. We accomplished this with two fully Panavised camera packages with Primo zooms, shooting in 24p with an aspect ratio of 16x9. My support package was simple. One camera stayed on my HotGears supported by a 30' crane, and the other remained on the Fisher 10 dolly. We had no motion-control unit or any previz capa- 74 August 2008 Frame grabs courtesy of Billy Dickson. Greenscreen photo on p. 75 by Fred Norris. Above: Jake (Brad Rowe) and Beth (Lindsey McKeon) discover that Nate has been arrested. Below: Jake sits in the control room of Mobile Operations Menage. hen I first started to dream about making movies, I was filled with stories and ideas I wanted to see on the screen. I spent my formative years writing these stories down on paper, looking forward to the day when I could produce and direct them for an audience. Cinematography eventually became my passion and my career, but I never gave up that dream of being a creator and producer. Now that the Internet has W matured, the need for media content is evident, and I’ve been able to start my second journey into storytelling. IQ-145 is the story of a young man searching for answers while investigating his father’s death. The main character, Nate Palmer, is played by Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sara Connor Chronicles, Heroes). As the show’s writer, producer, cinematographer, director and visualeffects artist, I wear many hats, so I
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