Digital Video - February 2009 - (Page 18)

Q& A THEY LIKE TO ROCK THE PARTY Patrick Stewart: I convinced the producers not to shoot on the [Panasonic] SDX900 for another season and to shoot HD instead. My first choice was to shoot with the RED ONE camera, but they were not comfortable with its media situation — how to store it and how much that would cost. We settled on the HDX900, the high-definition sibling of the AJ-SDX900. Flight of the Conchords is a 1080 show, but the AJ-HDX900 is a 720-native camera. You have two choices for up-rezzing: in camera or in post. My first reaction was not to let the camera do that, because surely a post house could do it at much higher quality. A DP friend of mine, who is much more technical than I am, heard about my decision and convinced me to let the camera do it. If you don’t let the camera do it on its own, you end up with less information, and more information is always better. Besides now being in HD, is your shooting approach the same as before? Stewart: Our lighting budget and the camera department are slightly bigger. That allows us to tackle more complicated scenes and music videos without having to order extra equipment on a daily basis. The style is exactly the same as season one. We approach our style in the same way that Bret and Jemaine approach their lives, which is in a simplistic way. Troy Miller: We don’t use a DIT. All of our camera assistants and camera operators, myself included, are uniquely responsible and aware of the technology and how to work with it. We don’t spend a lot of time in a tent, and there isn’t a guy “coloring” the footage all the time. We’re responsible for our shots as we go, and it all matches up great. Stewart: Troy is a very good Steadicam operator. One of the cool additions we have this year is a Segway that Troy bought, and with Above and below, Miller operates his Segway rig while the cast and crew work in the streets of New York City. that he can do walking or running shots among cars or along sidewalks. Miller: It’s created by a company called Handsfree-Transporter in Germany, and it was originally built for Audi factory workers so they could hold things in their hands as they steer with their legs. As a Steadicam operator, I’m always looking for shots where I can take advantage of the arm, and I had seen this rig at NAB last year. They sell parts for you to convert your own Segway. For our purposes, we do a lot of stuff on the street, car-to-car and dolly. It fits the look that I want Flight of the Conchords to have — a Steadicam on a Segway. Primarily, it is for the music videos, not so much for dialogue scenes because the show is a docu-style in which it is more appropriate to go handheld. What is your shooting schedule like for an episode? Stewart: We shoot a 30- to 40-page script in five 12-hour days. With such a short shooting schedule for each episode, how are the music video segments budgeted time-wise, and what are some influences? Miller: That’s the brilliance of Tracey Baird, our co-EP. She does the budgets. We’re very exacting in how we do our videos and what we allow time-wise and style-wise. Because the songs are already produced, we know what each shot is going to be, unlike in the real music video world where you shoot the whole song in five different locations in five different ways. We’ll go in and shoot one chorus in the one set we need and move on. Dan Butts, our designer, and I will look at style plates of an existing video with Patrick. Each director is responsible for his own videos. James Bobin, for example, did a video on one-inch tape with old tube cameras to get the [streaky,] “trailing comet” effect to pay homage to that era. That’s the way Bret and Jemaine’s music is — they cross so many genres. What has been the most interesting experience while shooting season two? Stewart: We had a guest director this year, Michel Gondry. Working with him was a little more challenging because there is a slight language difference. Even though he speaks English, it is 18 dv February 2009 www.dv.com http://www.dv.com

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Digital Video - February 2009 Contents Stasis Flex Black Diamond Essentials Instant Expert Close-Up: Larry Blamire They Like to Rock the Party Close-Up: Gregg Kita Click to Play DV101 Production Diary

Digital Video - February 2009

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