Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: My Show Goes Digital

This is topic My Show Goes Digital in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-02-2002, 10:08 AM:

I don't know if this news is really "official" but a certain network TV show with which I've been associated will be switching to HD "digital" cinematography when they start shooting again in about 6 or 7 weeks. I'll try to report my findings on how the cameras perform and how their use affects what actually happens on the set.

In the history of this program, the formats have been like this:

From July 1994 to December 1996 they used 16mm film.

From January 1997 to May 1999 they used "Super 16" for a wider image area (but I don't think this footage was ever actually post-produced in HDTV).

From July 1999 to April 2002 they used Super 35 (with 3-perf pull down) for HDTV post-production (with the Standard 4:3 image taken from the middle of the HDTV frame).

And, from July 2002 to whenever they're going to shoot digitally. I don't think fans of the series have ever noticed any of these changes (because they care more about how a certain actress' hair changes more than they care about this kind of technical stuff).

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-02-2002, 11:39 AM:

What was the reason for switching to HDTV production? It's interesting that they chose to do this after it has become pretty clear that HDTV is a non-starter among consumers and that it is rather unlikely that there will ever be a significant market for HDTV programming in the forseeable future.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-02-2002, 12:09 PM:

The switch comes with a handful of other cost-cutting measures. (It's an old show with sagging ratings, after all.) I'm assuming that film, film processing, film transfer and similar costs are eliminated, along with (possibly) the job of the guy who used to actually load the film magazines on location. But what I wonder about is how many other headaches might be added to the production side of things. Will the savings in one end of production really be worth it if there are new problems introduced? I will finally get to see the effect and have an educated opinion.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-02-2002, 03:18 PM:

Checking out HDTV broadcasts at the stores I see the networks are still leaving their stupid logos onscreen. What's the point of having HDTV if you're going to ruin the picture like that? When I upgrade my system to HD I probably won't even bother getting a TV tuner.
BTW I've been EXTREMELY disapponted that the people who work on TV shows haven't thrown a fit over this. If I were just a lowly board operator I would walk off the job before putting on a constant logo!

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 06-02-2002, 05:13 PM:

I recently watched a sci fi channel series called "exposure". This series takes up and coming film makers and gives them each 30 grand to produce a 15 minute short feature. Each of them uses the HD Sony cams that lucas used for SW2. The quality was extremely impressive, plus they had the added capability to edit on site without having to wait for dailies, and not having to wait to see if they needed a reshoot for whatever reason. Plus, special effects are readily produced on the same system that is used to do all of the final edits to visual and sound. Each of the film makers had all of six days to complete thier features.

If they had used film in any medium, they would have added enourmous cost to the thirty grand they were allotted. With HD video shot at 24fps, they are able to shoot at the same ratio of about 60:1 as a major funded studio picture would be able to do. This does wonders for content quality as they do not have to worry about if thier film budget will be shot to hell trying to get the right shot.

When you are talking about tv features that will NEVER make it to a theater, HD video 24fps is the definate way to go. IF you are trying to make a feature film meant for the theaters, it only works if you are not going to have a large budget to play with as far as film goes.

IF you are GL, you can do whatever you want, because you are, in your own mind, a film god.

But we know the real story, GL is a hack, got lucky once or twice, and now just collects the money most of us are willing to give him.

Yes, I am a sucker for a light saber. I want one.

Dave

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 06-02-2002, 06:14 PM:

Greg, what kind of camera are they switching to? One of the EFP types? It'll be interesting to see what differences they run into, since they're used to shooting on film. Is this a single-camera shoot? If they were single-camera film going to HD I would guess there will be some slight changes to how the DP does his/her lighting setups but other than that probably not much else will change.

I've gotten to watch first-hand as two different productions switched to HD, but both of those were regular multi-camera SD shoots. Some of things that changed: Framing of shots, since they now must protect a 4:3 safe area within the 16:9 frame. Until most viewers have 16:9, that extra frame area will be used for just fall-off--they assume that viewers won't letterbox unless or until it's forced on them. This led to some slight re-blocking of the cameras, since one-shots in SD became kinda sorta two-shots in HD. Also, the guests (this was a talk show) and the makeup folks became a lot more picky about their work after seeing the new pictures.

The other production was a regular sports telecast. There, focus became an issue. The camera operators were often missing best focus due to their viewfinder monitors being too small. But down in the truck even slight focus errors were very visible on the HD production and match monitors. They ended up running extra video gain (sacrificed some noise performance) in order to get more depth of field and a little more forgiving focus environment. This was a while ago, so I don't know if viewfinder peaking circuits have been improved to help out with this or not. At the time there was discussion about putting focus overrides on the CCUs, thus allowing the VC touch up focus (as if a good VC doesn't have enough to do during a shoot! Oh I forgot, this was sports. Nevermind. ) In the end I don't think they did that.

In the year 2000 the SMPTE Hollywood Section got a tour of the new HD facilities for The Tonight Show. I don't remember seeing remote focus controls on the Sony HD CCUs I saw there. A funny sidenote: Jay Leno crashed our meeting that night, just as Tonight's TD was giving his presentation. Leno mentioned how doing the switchover to HD had been a long (11 months) and arduous process (not interrupting current production on the same stage) for everyone involved, and said some people had questioned whether the effort had been worth it. He then asked how many of us had HD sets at home. Out of the 350+ SMPTE members and guests that were there, not one hand went up! People were looking all around to see the expected show of hands, and seeing none, started to laugh. To which Leno retorted, "Thank you! I rest my case!" as he walked off in disgust (he was kidding ). It was a funny, kind of embarrassing moment, to see all those high-powered engineering types there with no one owning up to having an HD set yet, but as someone said later during the tour, "We're engineers. We can't afford those things!"

Cheers,

Paul
Gimpy Staff Projectionist, Senior Vidiot
Crown Neonopolis 14
Downtown Sin City, NV USA

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-02-2002, 09:33 PM:

The production used Arriflex film cameras in the past. It's interesting to me that the network got them started shooting in a 16:9 frame two-and-a-half seasons before the show was ever presented in 16:9. I guess they wanted to really make sure the cinematographers were used to it before the public ever saw it.

Anyway, I'm told that the digital cameras they'll use will be the same Sony model which George Lucas used but without all the Panavision enhancements. The series is a drama which usually shoots single-camera style. I've heard that the digital camera will be attached to a big cable (which, I suppose, will lead to the monitors where the director usually watches). The sound mixer will also need to be hooked into this system. With the Arriflex cameras, of course, the camera was "cordless" and the director watched on a regular TV receiving a low-power video transmission. The sound equipment was also independent of anyone else's gear.

So... this will require many adjustments on the set. As for post-production, many attractive options are introduced. In the past, the exposed film was shipped from Utah to Los Angeles every night. Its was then processed, transfered to video and beamed back to Salt Lake City... where the off-line editors began their work immediately. Now they have the option of making as many "perfect" dubs of the original tapes right here before shipping anything to Los Angeles. Or will they transmit the raw footage to L.A. and never actually send a tape? I don't know.

I'm guessing they won't want to increase the number of set-ups nor the number of takes they would normally do per set-up. Such things would only kill more time and exhaust the cast members (and crew). So I don't imagine they'll take advantage of cost savings to increase the shooting ratio. I guess I'll find out.

And I'll be really interested to find out if the Steadicam can be used with a thick cable coming out of it.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-02-2002, 09:34 PM:

Jeff:

From your location I assume you are talking about the Utah based Touched By an Angel. To answer Scott's question, I know this show got some torque from network a few years back, after CBS started a regular prime time HD feed, they wanted to include this show and the 16mm origination just didn't cut it in HD. I personaly viewed the Super 16 to HiDef transfer, and honestly, it looked pretty wretched stacked up against the other network prime time pruduction, the vast majority of which was 35mm based. I know that $$$ is a big issue on this show, so you this may be the way to go to keep things up and running.

It's true, the casual viewer won't notice a damn thing, which makes it the logical move, especially financially. Both 100 Centre Street and Pasadena made 24p work with great technical success, as well.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 06-03-2002, 01:07 AM:

Does that show do all its post in Salt Lake? With the film lab out of the loop, that eliminates much of the need for daily sat links to/from LA if the post is done locally. If creative control is all local about the only sat link needed would be to send the final cut for checking before air, along with shipping the physical tape. If post is in LA I suppose all they'd have to sat link is each day's circled takes and/or the off-line cut. Last time I checked, ad hoc transponder time was running about $350 an hour.

That camera can be configured for standalone recording (ENG style) with a dockable D5HD transport on the back. Or it can be configured with a cable feed (usually just triax, not very thick or heavy) to a separate recording area, which sounds like what your production is going to do. Cable-wise it's not much different from feeding a video tap to a director's monitor. Also, some productions continue to do double-system sound with a separate sound cart, but send a feed from that cart to the HD recorder as an additional backup (D5HD supports four audio tracks). Timecode is probably still the same--no more crystal sync. Are they going to shoot 24P?

Triax cable (if that's what they'll be using) should present no problems for a Steadicam. Most operators simply tie the cable off to their battery belt, allowing enough slack to move the arm freely. An AC or camera utility can page the cable for the operator if need be.

I agree that the shooting ratio probably won't change. No need to if the director is confident and knows what he or she wants.

Posted by Nick Catalano (Member # 1296) on 06-03-2002, 01:37 AM:

Most shows moved over to HDTV because it was cheaper than Filmstock and fast in the post... Why NBC switched "The Tonight Show" to HDTV as early as they did is anybody's guess...

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-03-2002, 07:35 AM:

Y'all are talking about the Sony HDWF-900 'CineAlta', which has a built in VTR Sony HD Cam format, which records uncompressed audio (4 tracks at 48 khz./20 bits). There's no triax (triax is for the most part dead in current camera production), the camera outputs to a fiber-optic cable for monitoring and video control, if they are going to have a VC with a traditional set-up unit (which, if the DP knows his stuff, is not strictly required). The fiber cable is very thin and handles eaisly, but the connectors must be kept perfectly clean internally and the cable has a limit for bending loop-wise. Most lens makers apart from Panavision have put together sets of beautiful and sharp primes for this camera.

I don't know what your role is in production, but if you want to get a leg up on this camera there is a great pocket size operations manual available for it from the Sony Parts Depot on Kansas City, it's part #3-203-941-02.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-03-2002, 08:10 AM:

Strictly speaking, my job over there is non-technical. I'm simply interested in the techinical issues and keep myself informed about them. Plus, the camera guys are all friends of mine and have been very good to me. As far as post production goes, the editors live and work in Utah. All the music and sound effects work is done in Los Angeles... along with any final tweaking in the editing. (There can be countless variables in that process, I'm sure.)

So... I probably won't know what's really going on nor the nitty-gritty details until production begins again.

And, why did The Tonight Show switch to HDTV so early? I wonder. I remember when The Late Show with David Letterman was one of the first shows broadcast in stereo back in the mid-1980s. Seems like NBC likes to use gimmicks like this on late night programming. But... who's watching it that way? Personally, my 7 year-old big screen TV still works fine and I'm not about to dump it just for an HDTV monitor of approximately the same size. Who really has that kind of money (or wants to go into dept for such nonsense)? However, I'm tempted to get an HDTV receiver which would output a letterboxed picture to my NTSC monitor and give me Dolby Digital audio. It'd be somewhat less costly and give me some significant advantages right now... so it's tempting (but I'm guessing the price would be a lot lower if I waited a year).

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-03-2002, 11:36 AM:

Jay Leno is a big fan of HDTV and used his clout to convert the entire show to HDTV.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-03-2002, 12:13 PM:

Have the producers of the shows which have switched from film to HDTV given consideration to the archival issues with video? Throughout the '90s, this was one of the major reasons for shooting TV programs on film.

It's interesting to hear that super-16 didn't look very good on HDTV. I haven't seen much HDTV material myself, but the demos that I've seen have been fairly unimpressive. The resolution wasn't a huge improvement over good-quality NTSC and I found the digital compression artifacts and lack of shadow detail to be problematic. Was the super-16 footage that looked bad shot on 500T stock or something? Super-16 holds up very nicely on moderately large screens (look at the blowup of Monsoon Wedding, which is beautiful), so I'd be surprised if well-shot super-16 looked really bad on HDTV if the telecine work was decent.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-03-2002, 01:38 PM:

Well, since someone who works on a show is reading this, I'll ask again- why HASN'T there been a big uproar in the creative community over this onscreen logo nonsense? I would not even allow anything I shot to be shown on "America's Funniest Home Videos" if a network logo was plastered on it!
HDTV is a joke with this going on- it's just like if radio went to uncompressed digital and multichannel sound and inserted background noise into all the music.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-03-2002, 09:01 PM:

Well as Brad can attest to, you shouldn't allow anything you shot to appear on America's Funniest Home Videos whether or not they have a logo onscreen. They will take your video and re-edit it to make it patheticly lame.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 06-04-2002, 12:59 AM:

I've never brought up the subject but, quite simply, I can't remember anyone on the set (including actors, writers, producers, cinematographers, etc.) talk about logos during the broadcasts. On the other hand, I've heard gaffers and cinematographers griping all the time about how the picture they saw in dailies was much better than what they received on the TV in their living rooms. I don't know who drops the ball but somewhere between the initial transfer and what the local station is showing, colors, contrast and other details come out differently. So... I would say that the little logo in the corner of the screen is nothing compared to the overall disappointment with the picture.

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 06-04-2002, 03:21 AM:

Greg said: I've heard gaffers and cinematographers griping all the time about how the picture they saw in dailies was much better than what they received on the TV in their living rooms.

Do shows/miniseries/etc. produced on film for television ever get any show-prints made? For instance, It would be amazing to see HBO's "Band of Brothers" on the theater screen. I don't know anything about television production, but it seems to me that somewhere between broadcast and DVD release would be a market for something like that. I'd be interested in booking it at least.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-04-2002, 08:43 AM:

Super-16 "done right" can look superb on HD television:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/news/16mmHDTV.shtml
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/story/start.shtml
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/forum/tv/

I frankly have NOT been impressed with the image quality of some shows originated on 24P HD video. IMHO, HD video just doesn't have the same ability as color negative film to hold highlight detail and subtle nuances in colors and fleshtones. I'll miss the "film look" on "Touched By an Angel", just as I did on "Diagnosis Murder" (which was not "saved" by their switch to 24P video production).

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-04-2002, 11:24 AM:

It's not that a Super 16 to HD transfer looks bad of and by itself, but compared to a 35mm source element, it does not stack up nearly as well (an opinion, John, shared by your own Mr. Sparraza in a link above). The CBS philosophy was, "We're building a HiDef network feed, we're not going to do this half-assed, and if your show wants in, we want the best source element we can get". I saw both regular 16 and Super 16 footage of Touched By An Angel in an HD transfer performed by the Sony High Defination Center in Culver City. Compared to the 35mm footage, while not "night and day", it was certinly enough of a difference to take a stand over, which is what happened.

I make no illusions about the continued viability of Touched By An Angel as a going entertainment concern, and I do not insinuate that switching to HDCam will "save" the show if viewer interest wanes (which is what happened to Diagnosis Murder). That is strictly a cost saving ploy on the part of the producers, while still providing the network with an acceptable HD source.

Adam: 35mm theatrical prints of made-for-television material is a common occurence. HBO likes to present a lot of their stuff in cinemas during season premiere parites. They had a blow out at the Zeigfeld last year for Sex And The City, and they have run quite a few of their made-for-cable movies in theatres in the same fashion.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-04-2002, 11:59 AM:

That CBS work is fairly old, and led to quite a bit of discussion, with many feeling that Super-16 IS a viable production medium for HD television when a lower cost alternative to 35mm production is needed.

_____________________________________________________________________

"HDTV/Film Investigation

By Henry W. Mahler
CBS will be employing the 1125-line, 60-field HDTV format for the FCC-approved advanced television transmission system. Although a great deal of source material for this programming already exists on 35mm film, some episodic television series are currently filmed using 16mm. In addition, Super 16, with its wider aspect ratio and increased image area, has been advanced as a suitable acquisition format for HDTV. To determine the capability of 16mm film for HDTV transfer, CBS analyzed, measured, and performed tests to compare the performance of both 16mm formats to 35mm and an HDTV television camera. Objective measurement data and subjective observations are presented in this paper.

_____________________________________________________________________

If Super-16 can be used for successful feature films on a big theatre screen (e.g., "Monsoon Wedding"), it certainly should be able to provide excellent image quality on a much smaller HD monitor in the home.

Irregardless, I personally find the tonality and color rendering of color negative film to be preferable, even when viewed on television.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 06-04-2002, 12:27 PM:

This is to Scott Norwoods comment about certain shows in the nineties using film because of worries of the archival problems of videos.

This reminds me of the I Love Lucy show way way back. The studio wanted to shoot on video, as were most of the shows back there shot. However, Dezi Arnez demanded film and the studio said no way. So he paid for the film out of his own pocket in exchange for the rights for re-broadcast after original airing. The studio saw no harm in this, and alas... a new medium was born... syndication!

Dave

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 06-04-2002, 01:03 PM:

Greg mentioned the crew comments about the differences between what they see in dailies and what they see at home. I used to hear comments like that all the time, and the stuff I did was just NTSC video origination--not even Super16. Visitors to the truck would look at the pictures on my match monitor and wonder outloud why it didn't look like that at home.

Of course they forgot they were looking at live first-generation NTSC pictures at 700 lines resolution (Ikegami cameras with Fujinon lenses). And they were looking at those pictures on an $8500 Sony match monitor that used Conrac-standard phosphors in its CRT and was flat to 10MHz even in the corners. By the time those pictures get home, they've been rolled off in the transmitter to a max of 330 lines or so. And probably viewed on an uncalibrated, relatively cheap display that uses who knows what for color decoding and phosphors, with black levels that are anything but retained. So I can understand how folks who work so hard to make film images for TV would feel a bit cheated when they see their work at home. One left-handed benefit of HD production is that there will be less of a difference between what is seen in dailies and what is seen at home.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-04-2002, 02:15 PM:

I recall a recent SMPTE conference where Kodak showed a HD (Spirit Telecine) transfer of an old B&W Fred Astaire movie. IMHO, except for being B&W, that 60+ year old film had image quality that surpassed the best of live HD cameras being shown on the exhibit floor. Remember that when you enjoy a DVD of "Casablanca" or "Gone With the Wind", or better yet, see them again in a theatre.

Many of the early video shows (unless they were kinescoped onto film)are lost:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/story/fact2.shtml

I haven't seen one yet, but I would venture to say that HD transfers of "I Love Lucy" are going to look darn good.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-04-2002, 07:39 PM:

I find it VERY depressing that at least on this show there haven't been many objections to the onscreen logo nonsense. I did receive a letter from The Simpsons production office when I wrote Fox when they started doing this, letting them know I would no longer watch their network as long as that kept up, and the letter said they did not like seeing their show ruined and thanked me for helping the effort to get rid of it. Sadly that was years ago and Fox is still doing it (at least when I check, I've never watched an entire show on any network that does this) and Matt Groening even decided to do a new show for Fox as well.
TV as a medium is dead as far as I'm concerned. Onscreen logos reduce the dramatic impact of any show to that of a test pattern.
BTW the oldest videotaped recording I've seen is the final Howdy Doody episode from 1960, which is available on DVD and shown just about exactly as it was broadcast. The picture is a bit fuzzy but is still remarkably clear enough to mistake for a live broadcast. The disc has 3 other episodes, including one with a "living color" intro but are all black-and-white kinescopes, the final show may be the only one they saved on tape.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-05-2002, 08:04 PM:

Adam,

Many years ago my theater ran a print in our big house of a new TV show. I can't remember what it was called, but it had Lance Henrickson (sp?) who was "Bishop" in Aliens. It was a Fox show. The print was 1.33 (I think, I have a hard time remembering), but we had 1.33 masking in the big house available to us and we definitely used that. The show didn't last long, but it was very dark. Details you could only see on film! We showed the pilot episode one night before it aired on the boob tube.

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 06-06-2002, 03:32 AM:

Joe: That'd be Millenium. I loved that show while it was on, but would have to watch it in the dark in order to see everything. Or at least what I thought was everything. Thats it, damnit, i'm moving!

BTW: I love it when your imitation picture follows the person being spoofed. Why don't you have a weenie-man pic?!