Dan Brockett's awesome article: Network TV Pilot with HVX

[Eric Peltier]

workflow.http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage..._brockett.html

Some of you may already have read it.
this is an article by Dan Brockett, lot's of interesting info.
A must read for people thinking to shoot large scale project with the HVX200.

[Sam Jankis]

Very cool.

[Chris Hurd]

Yeah, this is a heck of a great read, and I've renamed the title of this thread to hopefully describe it a little better. It's like a step by step how-to guide and it's incredibly informative. Excellent stuff here for anybody interested in the HVX200.

"How To Shoot a Network TV Pilot With the Panasonic HVX-200" by our own Dan Brockett.

[David Saraceno]

Read this as well, and bookmarked it.

Remarkable detailed stuff.

[Andy Nickless]

Very good indeed !

I particularly like the way Dan's been so honest - included the mistakes as well as the triumphs.

I printed out all 37 pages and will keep them to read again.

Thanks to Dan for all the hard work - and excellent photos that went into the article.

Andy

[Niels Neeskens]

Very, very nice...

[Nate Weaver]

Good lord. Great article, but what a mess.

It's fun to be on top of technology, but the decision to shoot P2/2-camera, and only have TWO people be runners/P2 techs/camera assistants/video assist was a recipe for disaster.

It's a testament to Dan that he walked away relatively unscathed.

It wouldn't have been such a big deal if they had just been shooting tape, because having just two people would only likely just slow them down. But then with P2 the entire safety of the post component is now tied up with your overworked camera assistants.

Dan, I wouldn't under-emphasise how lucky they were that they had you on the job. There were so many places it could have gone horribly wrong that I can't even begin.

[Eric Peltier]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Yeah, this is a heck of a great read, and I've renamed the title of this thread to hopefully describe it a little better. It's like a step by step how-to guide and it's incredibly informative. Excellent stuff here for anybody interested in the HVX200.

"How To Shoot a Network TV Pilot With the Panasonic HVX-200" by our own Dan Brockett.

Glad you did this Chris!! English being second language, I wish you could do this on all my thread :)
e.

[Dan Brockett]

Originally Posted by Nate Weaver

Good lord. Great article, but what a mess.

It's fun to be on top of technology, but the decision to shoot P2/2-camera, and only have TWO people be runners/P2 techs/camera assistants/video assist was a recipe for disaster.

Hi Nate:

Yes, I know. Welcome to the world of low budget pilots. We were lucky that everything went okay. It's just a fact of life that sometimes we do not have the budget for the proper crew and we all have to double-up and triple-up with doing multiple jobs at once. Sometimes it can compromise the end product and then it's something we can share with the executives and clients so that the next time, we can sometimes have enough budget to do it right.

I won't tell you that since then I have been DPing, doing audio and being an interviewer on my own projects, by myself, when shooting P2. I educate the interviewees about how P2 works and to keep their eyeline with me as I bend down to pick up the P2 Store to dump the cards to dump them. I have done 8 card interviews in this way a lot lately. All of the other producers here think I am crazy but so far, I have not failed.

Once you have shot a few hundred or even thousand P2 cards, it really does become second nature. I have some shortcuts that do help me keep the cards organized.

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback, it was a fun article to write.

All my best,

Dan

[Nate Weaver]

Originally Posted by Dan Brockett

Yes, I know. Welcome to the world of low budget pilots. We were lucky that everything went okay. It's just a fact of life that sometimes we do not have the budget for the proper crew and we all have to double-up and triple-up with doing multiple jobs at once. Sometimes it can compromise the end product and then it's something we can share with the executives and clients so that the next time, we can sometimes have enough budget to do it right.

I know how it goes. I'm guilty of pushing my crew(s) a bit much myself at times. My distanced view of your job is quite different of my own jobs where I want the world and have X to do it with. Ask the last two ACs on my 9(!) camera shoot, they could wring my neck I'm sure.

I just wish your execs would have realized just how important it was to insure your data housekeeping duties were not compromised.

Originally Posted by Dan Brockett

I won't tell you that since then I have been DPing, doing audio and being an interviewer on my own projects, by myself, when shooting P2.

I don't think that's so extreme. You do it, you know how it works, and you alone could make the choice to do it with another camera (if I'm reading you right).

I do roll my eyes a little at Panasonic's marketing, however, where any of the shortcomings of having to do the P2 hokey pokey are ignored. A year ago, as the HVX was coming to light I had visions in my head of what working with P2 would be like. What scares me is that the reality of P2 is even more complicated than I ever imagined. Why doesn't the camera let you set clip name prefixes? MXF housekeeping is no joke, and I have the XDCAM discs to prove it.

I'm no one to throw stones though. I made my baby-HD choice over a year ago and put up with that camera's/format own set of idiosyncrasies. Often I had to defend it because I thought it was the best option available for what I needed.

Eventually I just said screw it and threw money at the problem. So far that philosophy has worked!