(Secaucus, New Jersey--September 30, 2009) Driven by Life (DBL) Productions (Norfolk, VA), providing a broad range of creative and professional services for film, television, documentary, and commercial production, recently upgraded to HD acquisition with the purchase of Panasonic’s AJ-HPX3000 native 1080p one-piece P2 HD camcorder.
DBL has utilized the HPX3000 to shoot commercial spots for the largest Ford dealership in Virginia, a television pilot, and a video presentation for the annual meeting of NISH, a nonprofit that creates job opportunities for the severely disabled.
DBL partner/Director of Photography Phil Wright has been awarded seven Emmys and many other industry awards throughout a career spanning more than 25 years. He has been working with Panasonic cameras off and on since the mid-1980s, including, most recently the AG-DVX100A mini-DV and AJ-HDX900 DVCPRO HD camcorders.
“When we started up DBL last year, we wanted to get into HD, and I’d had such a positive experience with my purchase of the DVX100A, its filmic look and how it handled, that I was essentially sold on Panasonic,” Wright said. “I was dealing with so many different formats that I was eager to get away from tape and loved the idea of solid state. I took a look at the HPX3000, and was impressed with its ease of use and natural image rendition.”
Wright purchased the HPX3000, along with an AJ-PCD20P five-slot P2 memory drive and BT-LH176017” LCD production monitor, from Digital Video Group (Richmond, VA).
Wright has outfitted the HPX3000 with 32GB P2 cards and a Fujinon XA17x7.6BERM HD zoom lens, and typically shots off a tripod. He shoots almost exclusively in AVC-Intra 100 at 1080p, the camcorder’s highest quality setting, and typically engages one of the HPX3000’s six advanced gamma settings, such as the Film-Rec and Film Like 3 modes.
“On the Ford shoot, we shot a series of spots in a practical location full of windows,” the DP said. “We had plenty of lighting challenges and the HPX3000’s Dynamic Range Stretch (DRS) function capably handled the blown-out look, emulating the performance of a film camera.”
For the Ford spots, Wright used the AJ-PCD20 five-slot P2 drive to offload footage to a hard drive that was delivered to the advertising agency for post-production. When DBL handles post, the company edits on two Final Cut Pro 6 NLE stations. The typical deliverable to a client is either a DVD or hard drive.
DBL shot 11 three-minute segments all across the country for the NISH large-screen presentation. “We made extensive use of the HPX3000’s optional proxy encoder,” Wright said. “Being able to work from an SD card in low-res to off-line and review footage was a tremendous efficiency.”
Wright has also taken the HPX3000 on the road to Pennsylvania and Florida to shoot a 30-minute pilot for a prospective series profiling the owners of classic cars. DBL’s BT-LH1760 sees dual use as a client monitor on location and for color correction in the company’s edit suites.
Most recently, Wright has shot content for Discovery’s Military Channel with the HPX3000. “We used the camcorder’s host mode to transfer the footage straight to the producer’s hard drive while he and I sat at the local Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said. “Loved that.”
“The HPX3000 affords the best-quality HD acquisition for the money,” Wright added. “The camcorder is easy to operate, the look is beautiful and it performs like film. Working in solid-state is so quiet that you can hear yourself breathing. And the AVC-Intra codec, affording so much more bandwidth, is amazing.”
For more information about DBL Productions, visit http://www.dblproductions.com.
About the AJ-HPX3000
With three 2/3” high-density 2.2-megapixel CCDs, the HPX3000 captures cinema-quality images in full-raster 1920 x 1080 resolution with 4:2:2 10-bit sampling, utilizing the powerful, new AVC-Intra codec. The HPX3000 offers intuitive film camera-like operation with advanced gamma settings, including Film-Rec mode (made popular by the VariCam). Designed for episodic television, filmmaking and commercial production where mastering quality is essential, the HPX3000 records in industry-standard DVCPRO HD at 1080 in 24p, 25p, 30p, 50i and 60i, and in AVC-Intra. AVC-Intra, the industry’s most advanced compression technology, provides high-quality 10-bit intra-frame encoding utilizing the Hi-10 and Hi-422 profiles of H.264 in two modes: AVC-Intra 100 for full-raster mastering video quality and AVC-Intra 50 Mbps for DVCPRO HD quality at half the bit rate, thereby doubling the record time on a P2 card. For added flexibility, the HPX3000 can also produce standard definition recordings in DVCPRO50, and is 60/50-Hz switchable for worldwide use. For more information on the HPX3000, visit http://www.panasonic.com/P2HD.
About Panasonic Broadcast
Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast and professional video products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a Unit of Panasonic Corporation of North America. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) and the hub of Panasonic’s U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, visit http://www.panasonic.com/broadcast.
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