Despite an ocean between rental house and client, the production of 22 episodes of a new sci-fi TV series, Flatland, in Shanghai, China, has proceeded smoothly using 24p high-definition technology. Producers of the show — the Ruddy Morgan Organization — credit a partnership with Burbank-based rental house, Plus 8 Video, with helping them function efficiently overseas.

Getting four 24p cameras, a Fujinon lens package, extension eye pieces, matte boxes, follow-focus units, waveform/vector scopes, HD monitors, down-converting equipment, and a variety of other technology to Shanghai and keeping it operational, however, was a complex matter. According to Michael Toay, Plus 8's rental agent on the project, the unsung job of monitoring customs' documents was, itself, “massive.”

Plus 8 initially sent an engineering consultant with the production to set up cameras and monitors, but Toay says Flatland's crew no longer requires that help. Still, he communicates with production officials — particularly DP Mark Wareham — almost daily, via email and phone, running down solutions to technical problems.

One solution Plus 8 devised early on was a method for running the 24p cameras in a Steadicam configuration.

“We rigged things so they could run the cameras off a standard Anton/Bauer HyTron battery pack in combination with a lightweight, 6×6 matte box and lightweight Steadicam plate we designed at Plus 8,” says Toay. “We also hooked it to a Miranda downconverter, which converts the HD analog signal to standard def, feeding the green channel into the Steadicam monitor.”