Shooting for Sundance

As we go to press, cinematographer D.W. Leitner’s film,The Technical Writer, has been accepted into Sundance. It becomesthe first-ever feature shot with Sony’s IMX camera, thus thefirst of its kind to screen at Sundance. In the following pages Leitnerdetails his pioneering experiences in production (he also shot with thenew Zeiss DigiPrimes), as well as postproduction adventures on thedesktop, on Sony’s Xprí, and at indie lab DuArt.(Photo byChris Freilich)

Production
Timing can be everything. My partner Michael Yanko and I were in theprocess of forming our production company, Damage Control, to produce aslate of New York indie features when I encountered Sony's MSW-900P“Digital Super 16” at NAB 2002. We decided this newcamcorder and its MPEG IMX format were an ideal match for our firstfilm, The Technical Writer.

It's a wry Gotham tale of an agoraphobic computer manual writer(Michael Harris) teased from the squalor of his basement apartment bythe racy couple in the penthouse upstairs (Tatum O'Neal and WilliamForsythe). Indie auteur Scott Saunders directed and co-wrote it withHarris. One of our goals for The Technical Writer was a 35mmfilm finish. So why would we choose a Betacam-like 1/2in. tape formatover S-16, 35mm, or either flavor of HD, all of which I've hadfavorable experiences with in the past?

The “P” in MSW-900P is for PAL — to me, a moreremarkable development than the “Super 16” handle. For thefirst time, PAL-only equipment was promoted into the U.S. broadcastmarket, which Sony did to facilitate blow-up to 35mm. Digital PALyields 576 active lines over NTSC's 483, a 20% increase in verticaldefinition, and PAL's frame rate, 25 frames per second, almost matchesfilm's 24fps. For these reasons, PAL is popular in the U.S. withlow-budget digital filmmakers, despite their having to slow down thepicture to 24fps and pitch-correct production audio in post.

Whether PAL or not, digital origination until now has mostlyconfined itself to MiniDV at the impecunious end and 24p HDCAM at thegilded end. What if there were a middle ground, a poor man's 24p?(“24” stands for video recorded at 24fps like film, and thesmall “p” for progressive scanning, which yields noticeablysharper results than the interlaced scanning typical of broadcast TV.)Sony's answer, for the moment, is the 25p MSW-900P camcorder, recentlyintroduced in Europe as a replacement for the Betacam line, andswitchable between 50i and 25p.

So not only would the MSW-900P be expected to provide an extrahundred lines of PAL vertical definition, but its progressively scannedimages ought to be sharper and less marred by artifacts thanconventional interlaced images.

But even we at Damage Control weren't prepared for the leap in imagequality demonstrated by the $40K MSW-900P. With its new megapixel 16:92/3 Power HAD EX CCDs and high-performance Digital Signal ProcessingLSI (large-scale integrated) circuitry, which Sony says, “buildson the sophisticated DSP technology developed for digital Betacamcamcorders,” we came to think of the MSW-900P as quasi-HD. Infact, based on our experience, we suspect there's a little DNA from theHDCAM F900 in there too.

For instance, before we began principal photography, our DIT(digital imaging technician) and audio recordist Steven Robinson and Ihad a long phone conversation with Jeff Cree, Sony's ace HD acquisitionsystem specialist, concerning camera setup for 35mm blow-up. Jeffguided us through a custom setup that included ITU 709 color matrixsettings. Isn't ITU 709 the HD production standard? At first I thoughtJeff had confused the MSW-900P with the F900, both tagged “thenine hundred.” Not to worry, he knew the difference allright.

As far as compression and bit-stream recording goes, Sony's IMXformat is 50Mbps, 4:2:2, I-frame (intra-frame) MPEG-2 withnear-lossless 3.3:1 compression — double the bit rate and colorresolution of 25Mbps, 4:2:0 PAL MiniDV. (Intriguing math: 720 lines areonly a 25% increase over 576.)

In other words, this ain't no MiniDV. Yet there are MiniDV-likeaspects to MPEG IMX production that any low-budget producer rubbing twonickels together will appreciate: While the MSW-900P creates near-HDimages, its output is PAL, which can be edited on common nonlinearediting systems such as Final Cut Pro; and an IMX tape lists for $18and records 71 minutes, which compares favorably to a $60 HDCAM tape,identical in size, which records 50 minutes at 24p.

Leitner prepares to shoot principals Tatum O’Neal and WilliamForsythe (photo by David Gross).

Scott Saunders wanted a camcorder that wouldn't get in the way andwould provide a MiniDV experience on the set, yet surpass MiniDV inquality. Without lens and battery, the MSW-900P weighs less than 8lbs.,which factored into our choosing this camera. The MSW-900P's formfactor is also stubby, almost snub-nosed, and somehow shorter thanother recent Sony ENG-style camcorders with sideways cassette loading.That's one reason I decided to shoot with prime lenses, to keep thecamera as compact as possible.

We were able to obtain an early set of Zeiss DigiPrimes from BandPro Film/Video in Burbank — 7mm, 14mm, and 40mm — withwhich we shot the entire film (minus a few exceptions such as exteriortime-lapse — more below). Once again, timing is everything. Iwould need to write another article altogether to express my praise forthese peerless lenses, which were integral to the look of TheTechnical Writer. Suffice to say that they extended thecapabilities of the MSW-900P, and in turn the MSW-900P showcased theirextraordinary qualities. A brief example: I like to shoot directly intolight sources. That's OK in film, not OK in video. Well, the rules havechanged. No veiling glare, no flaring, and, for that matter, novertical streaking from the MSW-900P's CCDs. Simply none.

On occasion we utilized a Porta-Jib or Long Valley Equipment dolly,but most of The Technical Writer was handheld. Since primelenses don't have handgrips, I added a wooden Aaton handgrip adapted byAbel Cine Tech to a base plate that snapped directly into the Sonytripod quick-release. The baseplate also held short rods for followingfocus gears and a left-hand grip for added stability. Abel Cine Techsupplied our lightweight clip-on the Chrosziel matte box as well, whichwith a donut, fit the Zeiss primes perfectly and kept the weight of therig to a minimum.

Others who came to our aid: Plus 8 Video Rentals supplied the largePAL CRT monitor we used on-set, as well as the handheld, batteryoperated, hi-res Panasonic 16:9 LCD display. The display was fed by theMSW-900P's auxiliary SDI output with results sharp enough to judgefocus. Liman Video Rental helped with an Arri handgrip for our B-camera(another MSW-900P) when a second Aaton grip was unavailable. HD zoomsfor time-lapse and a nighttime Central Park scene that demanded a lenslonger than 40mm came from Broadcast Video Rentals and Abel Cine Tech.Fujinon also jumped in, supplying us with its new HAe5×6 (6mm to30mm) cine-style HD zoom for a pick-up long after principalphotography. (For supporting indie production, New York rental housesrock — they're second-to-none in generosity and open spirit.)

I've mentioned time-lapse. The MSW-900P introduces a built-inintervalometer function, the first true single-frame time-lapsecapability in a video camcorder. It's not a gimmick — our openingcredits are built around time-lapse, including spectacular shots ofManhattan at night from the top of the Empire State Building. In theMSW-900P's auto interval recording mode, an internal RAM cache collectssingle frames at specified intervals, up to eight second's worth atplayback speed, then lays them off to tape while continuing to collectthe next eight seconds. Turning the tape transport on and off forrecording eight seconds at a time, as needed, eliminates head wear overlong shooting durations typical of time-lapse.

Director Scott Saunders (left), shares writing credits with starMichael Harris (photo by Richard Sylvarnes).

I was also able to review my time-lapse results instantly, which hasnever before been possible with film. This is a boon to the art oftime-lapse, which necessarily involves guesswork and experimentation.Instant playback informed all my decisions, aesthetic and technical,including the juggle of auto and manual iris control (I had to rely onHD zooms with auto-iris, which prime lenses lack, when shootingexteriors with changing light conditions) and the use of NDs and Polas(polarizers).

Timing is everything? Here's proof: We are the first MPEGIMX-originated feature film to be invited to the Dramatic Competitionat Sundance Film Festival, where The Technical Writer willpremiere this month; the first feature film shot with the MSW-900P; thefirst shot with Zeiss DigiPrimes; the first edited in native MPEG-2with Sony's Xprí nonlinear editing system (no offline!); and thefirst MPEG IMX blow-up to 35mm at New York's renowned DuArt Film andVideo, which collaborated with us from the outset to optimize the 35mmoutcome. My A.C., Amy Bostwick, is the first to pull focus withDigiPrimes for an entire feature, and to her credit, I don't think asingle shot was unusable due to soft focus.

These days, choosing your origination format, whether film ordigital, is only half the fun. Choosing the best postproduction path isequally perplexing, given recent outpourings of new,do-it-yourself-on-a-PC solutions. But there's a natural law of digitalpost that says that complexity expands exponentially in relationship tothe number of low-cost choices. Call it the costs of opportunity law.The more alternatives, the more potential for brain-lock.

In producing The Technical Writer, our goal was a 35mm print— this much was certain. And our decision last May, a month afterthe MSW-900P's debut at NAB, to shoot our feature on Sony's PAL versionof the MPEG IMX format was simple too, especially upon viewing an MPEGIMX blow-up test produced by DuArt. In DuArt's test, an out-of-boxMSW-900P using progressive scanning and an ENG-style HD zoom capturedeveryday scenes in Manhattan — bustling downtown sidewalks, abright Times Square at night, New York's harbor sparkling at dusk— and closeups of faces under unflattering indoor fluorescentlight. The results, blown-up to 35mm using DuArt's Arrilaser Recorder,were way better than they had any right to be. They rivaled a blow-upfrom HD.

We were also drawn by the notion we could edit our results asconventional PAL on a low-cost nonlinear editing system. No hidden HDdubbing costs for us!

But we soon woke up to a central drawback of shooting PAL for 35mmblow-up: audio. Perversely, while playing back 25fps digital video at24fps is a breeze for nonlinear systems, playing back digital audiowith a comparable 4% slow-down and digital pitch-correction proved avery slippery slope.

Unlike analog audio, which lowers in pitch when tape speed isretarded but remains clearly audible, a digital audio stream slowedduring playback drops in bit rate, which disrupts the timing necessaryto reconstruct an audio waveform from the original sampling rate andquantization levels. However you approach it, slowing down digitalaudio to match “slow PAL” at 24fps is a complex task ofsample-rate interpolation, with sometimes unwelcome side effects (morebelow).

A.C. Amy Bostwick helps set up a Zeiss prime on the smallest,handheld configuration of the Sony MSW-900P (photo by DavidGross).

During production of The Technical Writer, we recordedsingle-system, 16 bits, taking full advantage of the MSW-900P's fouraudio tracks. (Audio recordist Steven Robinson, to his credit, was notideologically opposed to recording production audio with a camcorder.He wirelessly transmitted audio to the MSW-900P, typically threetracks, and always made DAT backups, which were seldom needed butreassuring nonetheless.) The resulting audio was first-rate inrecording quality, and single-system saved significant time in post,with no synching necessary.

So, we had a basic editing choice to make: Do we cut PAL as PAL at25fps, including production audio, then mix our audio at the PAL rate,then slow the final mix by 4% to match the 24fps of the 35mm blow-up?But what about music or effects? In order to retain original pitch andtempo while editing in PAL, music or effects tracks would have to besped up 4% and pitched lower to correspond to the faster PAL framerate. Only when the final mix was slowed 4% and the music or effectstracks were pitch-corrected up again would they assume their originalregister and tempo.

A downside to this approach is that during PAL playback, musictempos would always be fast. Another disadvantage is that whenpitch-corrected back down, any sustained high-frequency tones (thinkviolins) would have a tendency to reproduce unevenly, depending on theinterpolation technology used. (Like mic design, digitalpitch-correction remains part art, part science.)

An alternative choice: Edit at 25fps, then slow all final editedtracks 4%, then replace music edits only with fresh realtime tracks,then mix everything at 24fps. This would work because production audiotracks contain mostly human voices, which unlike music, aren't rich insustained high frequencies. They readily survive the process of slowingdown and pitching up.

Another choice: Use a nonlinear editing system to capture and editPAL images at 24fps while simultaneously slowing down and pitching upproduction audio using a specialized A/V capture board, audio softwareplug-in, or outboard Lexicon-type hardware device. Using this approach,editing would commence at 24fps and remain at 24fps. Sounds simple.Doesn't exist.

At least we couldn't figure it out. We looked long and hard at avariety of Final Cut Pro configurations, mixing and matching captureboards, realtime technologies, and storage options. Final Cut Pro 3 andCinema Tools had just debuted, and we had hoped to uncover advantagesin FCP's newfound 24fps capabilities. Weeks of investigation bydirector Scott Saunders, a veteran video editor and digital pioneer inhis own right, and I, aided by the technical staff at DuArt, producedno ideal solution. We were flummoxed.

Might such a solution someday exist? Did America once put a man onthe moon? In the meantime, we had some hard choices to make. Instead ofa lowest-cost solution, we chose to edit on Sony's own MPEG-2Xprí, which held an intriguing advantage: It alone permitteddirect editing in MPEG-2, the compression we recorded in. The edge?Think of it as super-MiniDV. Using an MSW-2000 IMX deck with SDTI(serial data transport interface), a sort of super-FireWire, wecaptured our data to disk directly from our MPEG IMX tapes, with nofurther uncompression or recompression. At two times realtime speed, Imight add. Which adds up, when you have 50 tapes of up to 71 minuteseach to capture.

By capturing, editing, and outputting in native MPEG-2 compression,we overcame the offline/online hurdle, exactly as MiniDV editing has.Our direct output was our “online master.” Our editor DavidLeonard (Nadja, Palookaville, Julie Johnson) probably wouldn'thave chosen to become an MPEG-2 Xprí pioneer, since in the severalmonths we edited, he cut a swath through several beta and releaseversions of the Windows-based Xprí software. But the pleasures ofwatching edit choices instantly on a hi-res 16:9 video monitor in fullresolution, and better yet, on a big 42in. 16:9 plasma display perchedon a nearby table cannot be denied.

And the audio conundrum? We cut audio in PAL at 25fps. Music waslaid in as temp only. As we neared the mix, we made astandards-converted NTSC master of the locked final edit with which tomix at 24fps (this is a standard practice, since 30fps NTSC —29.97 precisely — converts readily to 24fps — 23.98precisely). Composer Stephen Cullo then created original music forThe Technical Writer against the NTSC master. Sound designerDamian Volpe used the NTSC master to build aural urban landscapes tomatch the shifting emotional states of the central character of TheTechnical Writer. In the end, only the production audio was slowedand pitch-corrected by Volpe, using Pro Tools plug-ins. The productiontracks were transferred to Pro Tools as OMFI files, output from theXprí to a portable FireWire drive. (Strictly roll-your-own,however: Saunders, my nine-year-old daughter Simone, and I spent aSunday afternoon installing a FireWire card in the Xprí.)

The true secret to our success: We cast as technology co-partnersthe willing tech staffs of DuArt, including Lloyd Forcellini, MauriceSchechter, Roman Rossell, Marcus Janner, Carmen Borgia, and Irwin Younghimself, and the Sony Xprí team, including Andre Floyd, ChrisMarchitelli, Lliver José, Leigh Herman, and Rob Willox. On theMSW-900P side, Jon Reiner, Larry Thorpe, and Jeff Cree. All of whom weat Damage Control approached from the very outset. As a result, weachieved a number of unusual synergies: The MPEG-2 Xprí wasinstalled on premises at DuArt on West 55th Street in the same buildingwhere our looping, Pro Tools dialogue editing, and Digital Dolby audiomix took place, as well as DaVinci color correction, digital titlesoutput, Arrilaser Recording of reels one through five, processing,negative cutting, printing, and telecine transfer. Talk about verticalintegration!