Fiber on Family Affair

It wasn't particularly notable when the new WB drama, Family Affair, debuted this fall as yet another episodic TV program to originate in 24p high-definition, rather than on film. But Family Affair is technically notable as one of the first 24p-shot shows to overcome the problems of traditional copper cable.

The show's digital imaging technician, Ken Roy, asked Burbank's Wexler Video to add the new CopperHead Cine system from Telecast Fiber Systems to its two-camera Sony HDW-F900 package. At that point, the CopperHead Cine system was new to the world of episodic television. The company evolved the product — which essentially consists of a camera-mounted signal transceiver box and 500ft. spools of flexible fiber-optic cable — out of its existing fiber products to address the issue of cable crowding on busy sets.

A handful of programs are now using the system, with Family Affair being the first earlier this year — taking delivery just three days before beginning production on the second episode of the series. (The pilot was shot before acquisition of the system.)

“I was a bit skeptical at first,” says DP Mark Doering-Powell, who took over the show after Victor Nelli Jr. shot the pilot. “I wasn't sure if it would work, but Ken Roy lobbied us for it after Wexler told him they could make it happen. I was only worried in the sense that we were doing our own test for the system — it hadn't been fully explored yet in our production environment at the time we committed to it. Since then, we have driven dollies over the cables, with no signal interference whatsoever. You would need to bend the cable tight at 180 degrees to interrupt the signal, and that's extremely difficult to do.”

At press time, Family Affair had finished 12 episodes using the system, with another 10 to come in the first-season order. Roy says the two-camera production routinely uses the system, including “for 90% of our Steadicam shots.”

“Compared to using heavy bundles of copper cables all over your set, this is a superior approach,” he says. “We had a couple of hiccups at the beginning, but we have never had a problem that caused any signal loss or delayed production. We have fewer cables on set, we can move faster, and we can send all HD, SD, composite, audio, and time-code signals up and down a single fiber line. Also, the connectors are unisex, so we can connect two 500ft. bundles together and get 1,000ft., which is quite a run, and it's a lightweight system. Our camera utility guy [Adan Torres] manages all the bundles by himself.”

Those initial “hiccups” included problems with connectors on the transceiver box, where it connects to the camera. That, says Roy, was a manufacturing problem with that batch of connectors, and Telecast technicians came to the set and replaced them.

Doering-Powell says there is only one refinement he would like to see: a size reduction for the transceiver box. “The box makes the camera about 4in. to 5in. longer — not much heavier, because it is very lightweight, but longer,” says the DP. “It's that size because it has some capabilities that we don't really need. I'd like to see a more compact version eventually.”

Both men think fiber is superior to traditional video cabling for television production. They concede the big issue for producers is that the fiber system is more expensive, although Doering-Powell emphasizes that “this fiber system might not be more expensive when you count up all the copper cabling you are saving, and the time it takes to wrangle all that cable.” According to Roy, the system “improves speed and efficiency, and keeps our set safer. Until they perfect wireless someday, I really think this is the best option if you are shooting HD.”