DP Roy H. Wagner, ASC, shoots Pasadena using 24p technology and an approach similar to his normal film style, using "the same dynamic contrast ratios that I normally use with 35mm.

Roy H. Wagner, ASC, has been a film DP for more than 35 years, and he insists the transition to shooting 24p HD for the Fox television drama, Pasadena, is not that big a deal.

“Artists shouldn't put fences around new technologies,” he says. “Pasadena is a film noir style show in its approach, so in that respect, it's the last show you would expect to see filmed in HD, but we've made it work. It's not all that different from shooting film, even though many things are somewhat different. Our camera operators, for instance, use a high-quality [LCD] video monitor, side-mounted on these [Sony HDW F-900, cine-style 24p cameras, outfitted with Panavision lenses]. In fact, we took the Panavision viewing tubes, the eyepiece, right off the camera. You might think that is a video approach, but truth is, I remember using side-finders on old Mitchell [film] cameras in the '60s. In those days, you looked through the lens to line the shot up, but not for actual photography — you used the side-finder for that. I remember when the newer cameras did away with that idea, I found it difficult to get used to, because you not only had to be an artist, you had to be an athlete too — dancing behind the camera for a dolly shot, for instance. So, it's all relative, and I view this technology as just another option for television production.”

Pasadena is one of a handful of episodic TV programs that have made the transition to 24p. (See “The 24p Wave?” in the November 2001 issue of Millimeter for a look at some of these shows.) Despite never having shot video professionally, Wagner argued on behalf of the new format when he signed on, after learning the budget originally called for the show to be filmed in 16mm.

“I had varying experiences with 16mm in the past, but for an hour series, my experience had been that there are often various dirt fixes needed as you try to massage the negative into something that seems like 35mm,” he says. “I felt like there are always compromises involved with 16mm for this type of show, so I thought about it, and decided I really wanted to try 24p, to see if it really was an option for the future.”

Pasadena is conformed into a 24p master at Burbank's Modern Video & Film using a pipeline that relies on da Vinci 2k color correctors and a standard online bay.

To sell the notion to producers, Wagner had to argue on behalf of 24p not only with individual producers, but also with key executives at (production company) Sony Television and the Fox network. “That's the first time in my career I've ever been asked as a DP to meet with all the key executives to discuss an acquisition format,” he says.

Eventually, executives put the decision to pick between 16mm and 24p “in my lap,” says Wagner, after he insisted he would shoot film style and make sure that HD was not “cruel” to actors, “which was a concern the executives had.” Wagner's team now shoots Pasadena with a single camera, using Panavision's cine-style package with Primo lenses.

“I shot the pilot exactly as I would film [in Vancouver],” he explains. “I used the dynamic contrast ratios that I normally use with 35mm, and we don't paint the images [electronically] on set. We leave all that for post, just like we would with film.”

In the several months since he started on the project, Wagner has developed an approach for dealing with HD's superior depth-of-field qualities.

“We keep the camera as far away from the actors as possible, using the longest lenses and heavier diffusion than I would normally use,” he explains. “HD absorbs so much of the refracted light that normally occurs with optical diffusion in front of a film camera. The electronic HD cameras absorb that information and interpret it back into resolved high-contrast images. So, to compensate for that, we cheat a bit with heavier diffusion.”

Wagner strongly believes that film-trained DPs can excel with the 24p format, particularly once they learn to accept and rely on expensive HD monitors on set. “The monitors give you a high-end image, and great color and resolution,” he says. “We have a 24-inch monitor, and we've been able to do very complicated shots with its help. I strongly recommend insisting that producers invest on a high-end HD monitor if you are going to shoot this way.”

Such comments do not mean that Wagner is giving up on film, but they are indicative of the passion he feels about learning new acquisition technology.

“Either you are a technical person, or you are an artist,” he says. “It's OK to be both, but if you are passionate only about one way of creating images, that's a mistake, in my view. An artist has to be prepared to capture images any way he possibly can. Therefore, film people have to approach HD with a willingness to learn, instead of putting up barricades.

“I also think it's very important that artists become involved in developing future technologies, especially in working with manufacturers and giving them input. Otherwise, they won't have any voice in how new systems develop. That would be a shame, because if there is any problem with HD and other new technologies, it's that the artists are not consulted enough during their development process.”

Post Procedures

Pasadena has also fine-tuned a postproduction approach to finishing the show for both 16×9 and 4×3 broadcasts. Ben Kunde, the show's associate producer in charge of postproduction, has worked with Modern Video & Film, Burbank, to create a pipeline utilizing da Vinci 2k color correctors and a standard online bay to create a 16×9 master from which all broadcast versions are produced.

The approach has “not required a big transition” from how such shows acquired in film are put together, according to Kunde, other than “mercifully relieving” the online editor of the mundane chore of doing dirt fixes. If the production team has done its homework, he says, the post process should be fairly straightforward.

“I agree that producers should invest money in high-quality HD monitors for their set,” Kunde says. “They need those monitors not only for the DP, but also for framing, to understand what the 16×9 and 4×3 versions will look like. They have to be careful on set with lighting and motion effects and other things like that, but the big thing is that the production has to be careful to compose shots for both 16×9 and 4×3, rather than just protecting a 4×3 image for 16×9. If they do that correctly, then by the time we get the episode, we can be confident we are carrying through the DP's and director's vision from when they shot the program.”

Kunde says the production still uses traditional terminology to refer to the many stages involved in the process, including the procedures used to move the digital images from cameras into the postproduction world.

“We still call it a ‘telecine’ phase, but in truth, we do a select session at Rainmaker Digital in Vancouver after we shoot an episode,” he explains. “Rainmaker edits out the select sequences from the original HD-cam tapes and lays them down onto a new HD tape, and they do the same thing with the sound DAT, making a clone of that as well. Our online editors therefore edit from the select tapes, and our original HD-cam tapes and sound DATs are always kept as backups. The offline editors get downconverted BetaSPs for their Avid work. It's the equivalent of telecine, but of course, there is no more color tweaking going on — that's all done later on the da Vinci. It's a direct pathway coming out of the cameras.”

(At press time, Pasadena's renewal status was undetermined.)