Video on "The Shield"

[John Lee]

I've been watching the FX show "The Shield" for awhile now. I've read that they use 16mm film to shoot the show, but I swear recently they've had several scenes that looked like they were shot on video. I'm not talking about when they are showing someone in the interrogation room, I mean actual scenes which have been shot in video and then saturated and overexposed to match the color scheme of the regular shots.

Anyone know what cameras they are using to shoot this series? I know they do most of their editing on Avid.

[Keith Loh]

I really love the cinematography on that show. It is nearly always handheld but the shot choices are fluid. Extremely well done.

[Yohann Kouam]

nah i don' think they use video at all in that show. i love the photography too though it looks too much like traffic's

[John Lee]

Could it be some sort of funky transfer process then? I've noticed it on only a few scenes. The motion just seems too fluid to be film. I'm not talking about high shutter speed either, I mean it looks like it's interlaced.

Could they be shooting at 60fps on film and converting it to video? I'll have to try to tape an episode and get it on my computer I guess.

[Charles Papert]

One giveaway that intrepid sleuths like yourselves may want to look for is TV's/monitors in the shots. The "proper" way to shoot monitors on film is to use 24 fps converted video on modified monitors or TV's, which involves a certain amount of cost (the video is usually color corrected to play on the TV's at 3200K rather than the 5600K than is the case natively).

The cheap way is to shoot those scenes on 30 fps with regular video playing on regular TV's and then simply phase out the roll bar. The side effect is that the motion characteristics change subtly and give a more "video" feel. I haven't seen this in recent years but it used to be more common, to the point where I'd think to myself, when does the TV show up in the shot? Oh there it is!