The New HD Kid in Town - Director of Photography Victor Goss, ASC sets his sights on a different type of 24P, the Panasonic Varicam.

The ten-year old boy refuses to be ignored. His teacher has asked for volunteers to audition for the school talent show and, well, our hero knows that he's got the goods. The teacher, having seen the goods before, desperately searches for another volunteer. There are no other volunteers. Just Oliver Beene. Defeated by Oliver's enthusiasm and the lack there-of from the other students, the teacher reluctantly gives him center stage in front of the class. Oliver breaks into an acerbic, uncensored Lenny Bruce impersonation. Faster than a suit from Standards and Practices, the teacher shuts it down. The scene ends, but not the crew's laughter. It's the sixth take and the entire crew is still cracking up.

Oliver Beene is a pilot for Dreamworks Television in association with 20th Century Fox. Directed by Jeff Melman and shot by Victor Goss, ASC, the comedy maintains a quick pace, following Grant Rosenmeyer who plays 11-year-old Oliver and his wacky family in 1962. Use of flashbacks and flash-forwards lends vivid depiction to the Kennedy-influenced atmosphere. Like many pilots, Oliver Beene was shot in High Definition 24P. Unlike the others, this program was shot with the Panasonic 27V, otherwise known as the "Varicam" due to its ability to shoot from 4 to 60FPS.

A month prior to the shoot, I was contacted by Panasonic to demonstrate the Varicam's capabilities to Victor Goss and his son, Camera Operator Chris Goss. Victor is a television veteran with Director of Photography credits that include The Wonder Years, Nash Bridges and Gabriel's Fire for which he received an ASC Award Nomination.

Victor, Chris and I spent a day auditioning the camera on the set of Power Rangers. After going over the preliminary camera controls, I walked the two composers through all forty-five of my camera set-ups. The set-ups were designed to optimize images for post, mimic attributes of various film stocks, simulate developing techniques (bleach bypass), and to demonstrate radical colorization techniques created within the camera. By the end of the day, Victor rated the camera at 500 ASA at -6db gain. Any gain setting other then -6db visibly introduced image noise. The following day we met at the Panasonic High Definition Lab, reviewed the footage and Victor gave a green light to use the Varicam on Oliver Beene. The Varicam records at 720 Progressive Lines per image. The image is approximately 25% less information than 1080 Progressive. A positive attribute in some eyes as some perceive a 1080 Progressive Image as too sharp, too clear or to much like video. By the time an image is processed and arrives into a viewers home, it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the difference between 1080 and 720 Progressive on an NTSC television. Furthermore, many a critical eye have had difficulty distinguishing the difference between the two HD formats on an HD monitor.

During camera prep, Victor designed an overall look for the program. The ultra crisp, ultra vivid color palette so common to HD was not the aesthetic he wanted for Oliver Beene. He wanted to know if the Varicam could mimic a 1960s film stock. The typical HD approach has been "hands off" to color correction within camera, leaving it to be done in post. Goss had a different idea: "The first show I shot in HD, I just shot straight across and did color de-saturating in post. I think I would have been wiser to do it in camera. The de-saturation one gets with the camera has a different look to it than the de-saturation that happens in post. My approach to "Beene" was to create a general look for the show but still do quite a bit of correction on the post end to create an ideal and unique look."

Per Goss's specifications, I de-saturated the overall picture by 30% through manipulation of the Camera's Matrix Menu. The Gamma, or over all tonal reproduction of an HD signal, remained at .45 and the Pedestal Level, or black level, moved to +10. The Knee Function consists of three points of manipulation. The "Knee Point," or level in which the highlights begin, was lowered to 85%. The "Knee Curve," rounded to 85% for a more "film like" response and the "Knee Saturation" or point in which the all white detail disappears, was expanded to 109%. All settings were set within camera and recorded on a "Camera Memory Card" as a back up. Victor also decided that the program would be shot with the equivilant of a 180 degree shutter.

The shutter on the Varicam is enabled directly from the "Syncro Scan," a function initially used on video cameras to eliminate "screen roll" on computer monitors and televisions. The equivilant of a 180 degree shutter on the Varicam is 50%, a 270 degree shutter 75%, 90 degree shutter equals 25% and a 360 degree shutter is obtained by actually turning the "Syncro Scan" off. Other shutter speeds between 1/100 to 1/2000 can also be obtained through shutter presets located on the same menu.

The camera department spent two days at Birns & Sawyer in Hollywood wrestling with a number of HD add-on components:

Video Village also consisted of a 24" Sony High Definition Monitor and a Tectronic Waveform Monitor.

Since there is not yet an HD wireless transmitter/receiver on-set system, Steadicam shots would be connected with a "hard wire" cable for the rehearsals/playback but disconnected for the actual take.

Like most video camera viewfinders, the Varicam viewfinder can be customized for the operator. Kelvin temperature, gain, frame rate, shudder speed, filter, ND and 4x3 safe title were all visible.

The lens package consisted of cine-style zooms and primes that worked well with Goss's shooting philosophy, "I like to use the fastest lens possible so that I can shoot a maximum aperture." The Canon Telephoto Lens was a 7.5 - 158mm with a T-Stop of 2.1. The Canon Wide Angle Zoom was a 4.7 - 52mm and also had a T-Stop of 2.1. The Canon prime set included 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 24mm and a 35mm all with a T-Stop of 1.5. In 35mm (Academy) measurements, the primes would be the approximate equivalent of a 14mm, 22mm, 32mm, 51mm and 73mm.

High Definition Zoom Lenses have evolved dramatically since their introduction but back focus remains an issue. If one is going to mount any kind of zoom or is on a location with very hot or cool temperatures, checking back focus is imperative. Goss recalls, "Every time we would go to a new set-up, the camera crew would check back focus as soon as they set up the camera and check it frequently to ensure that it was accurate." Assistant Camera Dave Negrin concurs, "In the beginning of the shoot we checked frequently, but as time went on we found a system at setting the back focus that eliminated any drift."

Filtration consisted of Tiffen Classic Soft and Black Diffusion/FX (BDFX). The Classic Soft 1/4 was utilized for the close-ups and a 1/2 for the wider shots. A BDFX 5 worked on the wide shots and was eliminated for the tighter ones. No color correction filters were utilized. The Varicam has built in Neutral Density filters in increments of 1/4 (2 stops), 1/8 (6 stops) and 1/16 (8 stops). Goss found the Varicam's internal NDs to be adequate but since he, like many cinematographers, work "one stop at a time," a full compliment of ND Filters was added to the package.

Goss suggests that cinematographers prep HD cameras like any new film camera, "I remember integrating the Aaton XTR and prepping it for its first television show. It required lots of work and my camera crew made a lot of mechanical changes to get it suitable to use on the studio floor. High definition cameras need that same sort of preparation."

Although the variable frame rate was an enticing attribute, Goss was most intrigued by the camera's handling of highlights: "What really struck me about the Varicam was the ability to handle overexposure. It looked like film to me most of the time." This was critical to Goss because of his approach to lighting. "I wanted to do a lot of fully lit portrait lighting instead of back lighting and dark shadows on the faces. I wanted to see the glow of the expectation of the youth. I cranked up the levels on the highlights in the faces, really did get into those the 100% range. There was nothing in the scene brighter than the highlights on these beautiful cherubic faces. It worked beautifully. And then the more that we did it, the more it worked!" Victor was able to ensure consistency with the highlights through use of a Waveform Monitor, essentially an ideal light meter for HD. On it one can see where the blacks (0%), whites (109%) and mid-tone levels (40 to 75%) are. Victor became quite astute at utilizing it. He would take note at what level skin tones registered so on the reverse shot, could light so that the level identically matched the preceding set-up.

Dennis Bishop, Goss's long time collaborator, was the gaffer handling the lighting duties. The lighting package included several 18k's, a couple of 12k pars and a half dozen 1200 HMI pars. Goss reflects, "For the interiors, I've always liked the idea of having a natural feel of lighting from natural sources like windows or doors as opposed to dragging lights all over the set. That's not to say that I don't bring lighting on the set because I have to do that, but I tend to do that last to subsidize my other lighting." The eye lights for Victor are a constant consideration, "I have become sort of fanatical about making sure that I have really good sparkle, really good catch lights in the eyes. So whether I am doing a steady-cam, hand-held, or dolly-I almost always have a single kino flo on hand. Often times on a gobo arm so that, as the camera moves around, we always have a catch light position, so when an actor does turn his face away from key light out, you always have lighting in the eyes so that you can see who they are and what they're thinking."

Since HD does not yet have the latitude of 35mm film, a rule of HD has been to protect the highlights. Again, Victor deviated from the standard fare. "Initially, the Operations Manager handling our dailies was concerned about the highlights and the lack of detail in them. I had to assure him that I'm very carefully watching those highlights and very carefully watching what goes on in those highlights. It's all intentional. I blow out highlights in film, why wouldn't I do the same in High Definition?"

Victor monitored his images from a 24" Sony High Definition Monitor and a Tectronic's Waveform/Vectorscope. An advantage of High Definition is that one can see exactly what he or she is getting, but Goss's experience takes that statement a bit further. "My experiences with HD have taught me that you can actually lift up the blacks and get more details than were on the monitor. In a reverse situation, sometimes you can pull highlight down to see little details in the highlights that didn't show up in the monitor."

The Varicam requires an additional postproduction component referred to as the FRC which is short for "Variable Frame Rate Converter." The FRC interprets the recorded frame rate and processes the active frames while discarding or ignoring the redundant frames. The result of this "pull down" is flawless slow or fast motion. In Oliver Beene the standard fare was 24 FPS but a 60 FPS sequence was integrated for a dream sequence in which Oliver's love interest walks down a school hallway. With an inviting smile and her blond hair blowing, the program cuts abruptly back to 24 FPS as the damsel passes Oliver, oblivious to his existence. Goss described the overcranking on the camera as "perfect."

Editing was performed by Hollywood Digital utilizing the DVCPRO HD 150 VTR. Color correction was conducted by Joe Cook who through Goss's in-camera de-saturated set-up combined with the power of a DiVinci 4.0, rendered what Goss describes as, "a beautiful hand tinted black and white look."

Of Fox's many pilots for the fall season, Oliver Beene was the only one to be picked up. While Goss would not take credit for the positive reception, he remains quite pleased with the look of the program and interprets the final aesthetic as a combination of several elements: First, a broad-lit face that gives an attractive portrait-like representation. Second, brilliant highlights on the face exposed at 100% of the maximum white in the electronic signal. Third, a kicker on the same side as the key-light side for a heightened backlight sparkle on the edge of the face. Finally, a diffusion package that helped create a luminous glow to the character's face and created a great portrait.

The next generation Varicam features the exact same camera body but includes an additional circuit board and software enhancements for improved latitude in the highlights, multiple Gamma Curves to better represent film looks and full ramping capabilities with aperture control. Those software enhancements, called "Cine Gamma", will be available by the time this article goes to press. Any type of green screen work or film-out should be thoroughly tested prior to actual production.

Goss is optimistic about the potential of HD technology: "I think it's really smart for a cinematographer to understand that they can create their own film stocks. Once you manipulate color and the gamma, HD has a beautiful cinematic look to it and I actually think that more so of the Panasonic camera because of the nature in which it treats color." "There are a lot of cinematographers in Hollywood who are really worried that their next project will be shot on HD, and they're wondering if they will be able to achieve the same standards that they have set with their film work. With this camera, the answer is a resounding Yes."