Digital Video - January 2008 - (Page 38) Director of photography Aaron Krummel aims Panasonic HDX900 at a just-inked client and artist Corey Miller. Krummel discusses camera placement with fill-in operator Kevin Wong. video. The walls of the shop are adorned with artwork and guitars, which Krummel helps to stand out with a series of tungsten spotlights to boost certain items just over a stop hotter than the rest of the room. The High Voltage artists — Kat, Hannah Aitchison, Corey Miller and Kim Saigh — also use individual work lights while practicing their craft, which burn out white and add an interesting look to the shots. The tattooing scenes are covered by two or three operators (generally Krummel and operator Brian Kuennen) using Panasonic 2/3” three-CCD AJ-HDX900 camcorders with Canon zooms, recording to DVCPRO tape in the 720 24p for38 mat. This complement is also utilized to create the significant amount of B-roll that the show’s editors use as connective tissue to keep each episode moving. After the High Voltage clients are inked, they proceed to an apartment next door and are interviewed on-camera by a segment producer. They are shot using a 1/3” CMOS sensor Sony HVR-V1U HDV camcorder in the HDV format at 24p. These pieces could look pretty bad given that they are shot inside a cramped 8’x8’ room, but to create the illusion that the interviews transpire inside the shop and to give them a feeling of depth beyond the limitations of the location, the wall behind the subject is painted and decorated like the walls of the shop. Even with the iris wide open on the V1U, the focal length (limited both by its small chip and the scant space between camera and subject) would not allow Krummel to limit his depth of field nearly enough to provide the selective focus he desired. The solution was to stretch a large sheet of Hampshire Frost on a frame and hang that between the subject and the wall, throwing the decorations behind the freshly inked person into soft focus. “The key,” Krummel says of the illusion, “is to hang the Frost as far from the background — or as close to the lens — as possible.” There’s a fine line, he adds, between having a shot that looks like it has depth to it and having the big sheet of Frost become obvious. Stretching it in the frame properly is also a key, as the material will ripple in the slightest breeze. When shooting the tattooing sessions, Krummel likes to PHOTOS BY JON SILBERG
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