With the growing curiosity surrounding new and emerging film and digital production tools, camera rental houses are expanding both their offerings and their job involvement, ensuring that clients find not just the proper camera, but also the proper workflow, for their job. Film remains the dominant medium for commercial production, although experimentation in the digital realm is underway. And some of that experimentation may be driven, in part, by efforts to identify new ways to manage shrinking production budgets.
One of the most anticipated developments, unveiled last month at the CineGear Expo, was Genesis, the first digital cinematography camera from Woodland Hills, Calif.-headquartered Panavision. The system is designed for use with all existing spherical 35mm lenses, including Primo primes and zooms, and support gear. It contains a Super 35mm-sized sensor, and its size, weight and ergonomics were designed to closely replicate existing Panavision 35mm cameras. The Genesis camera is based on Sony’s CCD technology and is designed jointly by Sony and Panavision. (Sony has a minority investment in Panavision.)
Genesis is designed so that a cinematographer can work untethered using a dockable Sony SRW-1 portable VTR to record Sony’s HDCAM SR format (4:4:4 RGB, "lightly" compressed). Tethered, Genesis can be used to record to any Sony HDCAM deck and certain third-party recording devices, including a hard drive for uncompressed data, a company spokesperson reports. The camera will be available for rental exclusively by Panavision at the end of the year, the company said.
"Providing the best tools possible to cinematographers is our main goal, whether it is film or digital cameras," says Panavision president/CEO Bob Beitcher. And in providing those new tools, re-training the rental team is part of the effort. "The skill sets needed to maintain, service and prep [Genesis] is very different [from traditional film cameras]," Beitcher notes.
Slowly, a growing comfort level with digital cameras is beginning to take hold of certain parts of the industry. "HD is considered up front now because so many people have shot it successfully; there’s a good installed base of users," relates Marker Karahadian, president of Burbank, Calif.-headquartered Plus8digital. "We see a more rational approach to filmmaking from our customers. They do more planning and they are now more comfortable with [digital technology]."
Karahadian observes, "In general, the latest trend in HD is that the lines are blurring between production and post. And the job descriptions are more blurred, especially with [Thomson’s Grass Valley] Viper in the FilmStream mode [4:4:4 RGB uncompressed and unprocessed]; and to a lesser degree, the F-950 [Sony’s Cine Alta camera for HDCAM SR recording]. … We are working more closely than ever with the postproduction community. Now we are making decisions that [a production company’s] other vendors need to be informed of.
"And pre-vis is more accepted today," he continues, "especially in the commercial world, where they are more used to creating the whole product from a vast array of resources. Commercialmakers were the first to really explore stock footage in a big way—big compositing systems and heavy color correction. The commercial world has been the laboratory for the motion picture industry, and we are seeing good exploitation of the technology."
For commercials, Karahadian remains sold on his Vipers, which were already used by the 2004 Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award winner for commercials, director David Fincher of bicoastal Anonymous Content, for the live-action portion of Hewlett-Packard’s "Constant Change" via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; Nike Gridiron’s "Gamebreakers" via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.; and Xelibri’s "Beauty for Sale," out of Mother, London.
"Viper and the commercial world were made for each other," Karahadian enthuses. "It’s about flexibility and the manipulation of images at a very intensive level."
He sees fewer commercial applications for his Sony offering—the Cine Alta F-900 HDCAM camera and F-950 HDCAM SR system. "[The F-900] doesn’t seem to be a huge commercial camera," Karahadian says, "except when there is a need to shoot a high-ratio footage and a need to be portable. HD seems to be at a disadvantage in the commercial world if you are just comparing costs, unless [for example] you are shooting animals or kids because you can afford to roll until you get the magic moment. But [for other applications], HD equipment is so expensive that it doesn’t offset the expense of using film."
The Camera House, North Hollywood, is a boutique-style rental house that opened five years ago specifically to service the commercialmaking industry. It currently offers primarily ARRI film camera packages. Last month, The Camera House acquired its first digital camera, a Viper FilmStream, as well as the S.two digital field recording system for uncompressed data recording. Head of marketing Mel Mathis relates that the company strategy was to hold off on obtaining digital tools until it made sense for its core clientele. She explained that The Camera House selected the Viper when it did because it is a camera that "David Fincher loves" and is "the most film-like of the digital options."
Noting that the company works closely with its clients, Mathis adds, "Budgets are getting worse, and I think that’s because [producers] know they can get [different camera options] for less."
For commercials, film cameras remain by far the most sought after systems. A leading rental house that remains strictly film based is Otto Nemenz International, Hollywood, which maintains more than 175 film cameras and accessories. Otto Nemenz’s general manager Alex Wengert believes that the commercial production industry is "still hard-core film" due to the image quality offered by the medium. "As much as they try to make HD look like film, it still doesn’t have the texture that film gives you," he remarks.
"But we’re on the [verge] of change," Wengert adds, noting that camera makers are now developing digital systems with larger chips, such as the ARRI D-20, Panavision Genesis and Dalsa Origin cameras. "As technology gets better," he predicts, "maybe in the next two years, more commercialmakers will [start to experiment with digital cameras]."
