The future is now on the set of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict. The science fiction series shooting at Toronto Film Studios is entering its fourth season with a distinct difference. Having previously originated on 35mm motion picture film, Earth: Final Conflict has become the first episodic tv production to shoot with Sony’s revolutionary 24p high-definition HDW-F900 camcorders.

Earth: Final Conflict, an Alliance Atlantis production in association with Tribune Entertainment Company, follows the adventures of the Taelons, a superior species of aliens who arrive on Earth in the next century and use their technology to help our planet while staving off a growing human resistance against them.

Sony unveiled the HDW-F900 at the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas in April. The manufacturer has received much publicity from its association with producer/director George Lucas, whose tests with prototypes of the camcorder in Fox Studios Australia has convinced him to shoot Star Wars: Episode 2 with the hdcams.

There are two types of hd formats: 1080i (interlace) and 24p (progressive). Interlace is based on interframe motion, which requires two fields to make a frame – odd lines of resolution, 1-3-5-7-etc., appear followed a couple of frames later by even ones, 2-4-6-8-etc. The progressive system sets up line 1, followed by 2-3-4-5-etc., a procedure closer to computer light scanning than traditional tv light scanning.

What makes Sony’s 24p hdcam such a major step forward is that its 24 frames per second capture rate and 180-degree shuttering are similar to those of a motion picture camera. This is particularly useful to a theatrical filmmaker such as Lucas, who can originate on hd and then transfer frame-by-frame to 35mm film for release printing.

1080i hdcams have a capture rate of 30fps. When transferred to film, the six frames per second difference would affect the appearance of motion and slow the overall pace of a project.

Of course, once digital video projectors become the norm in cinemas, film can be removed from the process altogether. Similarly, tv programs are delivered on tape and not film, but 24p nonetheless more closely resembles the film style to which viewers are accustomed.

Not ‘that video look’

‘In the past, everyone’s been shooting 30 frames per second, which is that ‘video look’,’ says aac post-production supervisor/tv production Steve D’Onofrio. ‘I wouldn’t say [24p] is exactly like 35mm. It’s a comparable format. It’s less expensive and it’s a little bit better image quality than 16mm.’

Clearly hd image quality has improved to the point where a major production such as Earth: Final Conflict would embrace it as a viable alternative to 35mm, which is why Sony has dubbed the system ‘CineAlta.’ As with digital cinema, the major savings to a tv series, especially one so reliant on digital visual effects work, is in dispensing with motion picture stock.

‘You don’t have to use film and you don’t have to develop it,’ explains hd engineer/consultant Robert Brunelle. ‘[Your footage] is already on tape – you just digitize it into your animation box, modify it and write it back onto tape.’

Earth: Final Conflict has hired Brunelle to help ease the film-to-24p transition. Brunelle has been on the hd beat for more than 10 years, ever since Dome Productions assigned him to the first hd mobile. His expertise has gotten him involved on a variety of projects, including the award-winning documentary Over Canada and a mini-doc for financial management company Merrill Lynch shot by legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

Brunelle joined Earth: Final Conflict two weeks before shooting and is staying on until the crew is completely up and running on the new format. Most of his time on set is spent in front of an hd monitor with a line running to the camera. A control unit by the monitor allows the camera crew to call up previous shooting information to keep the show’s style consistent.

‘Say they do a scene and then continue with it three days later and it looks slightly different,’ Brunelle says. ‘Most of the [original] scene file data is recorded in a memory card and they can store it there. Once they’ve established a look and stored it on the memory cards, my work’s basically done.’

D’Onofrio credits Tribune for suggesting the format changeover.

‘They had some leverage,’ he recounts. ‘They were able to get us one camera in late March – a camera Lucas was using. We were able to get it for just one day, did a test, and we were all just amazed. There was no way we thought it was going to look good.’

The six hours of testing, involving D’Onofrio and the series’ alternating directors of photography, David Moxness and Thomas Durnan, consisted of shooting the futuristic sets the program had been using for the past three seasons. Everybody was sold on the results, including producer John Calvert.

‘We took [our footage] back, looked at it and said, ‘You know, it’s going to work,’ ‘ Calvert recalls. ‘We put them up – matched film and 24p, and it was lovely. We were convinced right there, and then it was just a matter of refining it. I would never go back to shoot film again, because [24p] looks so good, and there is a substantial savings.’

Calvert says that what made the switch possible was the close collaboration among the production, Sony, Tribune, aac and Sim Video Production, which is supplying the hd equipment.

According to Moxness, who has recently lensed episode five of season four, it was a scramble to see if it would all come together on schedule.

‘It became a time-line thing whether Sony could get the equipment in time, and if we would have enough time working with it to be able to maintain the look and the standards we’ve achieved over the last few years on the show,’ he comments.

The Earth: Final Conflict crew has thus far used three prototypes of the Sony 24p cameras – two for main unit photography and one for second unit. The production-line models have arrived, but the crew has not had time to incorporate them into production. According to Brunelle, 30 of the cameras are destined for Canada, making it the first country to receive the production models from Japan.

The pressure is mostly on Moxness and fellow dop Durnan to make the 24p results look good. It is clearly a new and different technology, but so as not to distract the show’s fans, the production is trying to keep the look familiar.

‘After what I’ve seen, it’s unfair to compare [film and 24p], because they’re two different media altogether,’ says Moxness. ‘But in the short term I think the wish is to make hd as ‘film-like’ as possible, because that’s what audiences have seen their whole lives. It’s the standard now, but as more and more [24p production] comes online, I think this will become the new standard.’

The hd set experience has been a new one for the cameraman. For one, he is finding himself away from the camera and the actors much of the time and sitting with Brunelle at the monitor.

‘All the [visual] manipulation goes on in the little control unit [by the monitor] – color balance, tweaking, adjusting our white and black levels and crushing the blacks if we need to,’ Moxness explains.

The control box contains detailing software that allows the team to soften some of the classic hard edges of video imagery and maintain somewhat of a film look.

‘We’re changing the gamma curves – the color ratio curves – a little bit to be able to satisfy the previous look,’ Brunelle says.

Although the series’ team is high on the new format, it also acknowledges deficiencies, such as the greater depth of field, which is not always desirable.

‘That’s the magic of film,’ Brunelle points out. ‘You have your subject in focus in the foreground, and you can keep the background out of focus so your imagination fills it in. It hides what’s really there.’

To narrow the depth of field, the dops have had to switch to longer lenses. (The camcorders they have been using are equipped with lenses by Canon.) A new set of accessories, which also includes batteries, filter trays and a matte box, is just one new element to which the crew has had to adjust.

‘It’s a big learning curve,’ Moxness says. ‘We’re the only ones presently using it, so there’s been no one to call and say, ‘How did you get around this? How did you deal with that?’ We’ve been learning and growing as we go, and we’ve been able to manage our way through pretty much everything.’

The dop, who began shooting on season three, has always preferred lighting somewhat soft, and is doing it to an even greater degree with hd.

‘I find it doesn’t take the hard light particularly well,’ he points out. ‘But it’s really quite remarkable – it’s very close to a lot of film stocks we would use in terms of lighting style, how it reacts to contrast issues and whatnot. This camera rates anywhere from 500 asa to 325 asa, depending on whether you’re inside or outside. It’s the same as shooting with 500 stock, so, as far as that, it hasn’t changed much.’

The camera crew has always shot with lens filtration to blend the image – especially where the prosthetics the alien characters wear are concerned – and to add fill to dark areas and high contrast situations. The crew continues to use diffusion and contrast filters with the hdcam, just in different combinations.

Same old delivery – for now

With little hd broadcasting currently underway, the show will continue to be delivered in the downconverted ntsc 601 format at the 4:3 aspect ratio, as opposed to hd’s wide-screen 16:9. But in the interest of archiving episodes of Earth: Final Conflict for the day when most consumers have 16:9 hd sets, the program has always been shot with both ratios in mind.

‘Our theory has been to compose for the 16:9 frame, as long as we’re telling the story in 4:3,’ Moxness explains. ‘The important story bits are there so that they’re not lost on those who don’t have [wide-screen] at home, which is most. So that was never a change for us.’

The cinematographer says he is satisfied with the results he has seen from the new system.

‘I’ve been very happy with our ntsc signal downconverted in rushes. It’s very acceptable. I don’t feel any different than where we ended up on ntsc from film.’

Producer Calvert adds: ‘I think the real compliment will be when somebody looks at it and says, ‘Looks great – looks like it always did.’ ‘

Not only is the production future-proofing itself by shooting for 16:9, it is also ensuring global compatibility with the digital origination. The hd footage can be easily converted upwards or downwards to satisfy the world’s various delivery formats, including film, ntsc, pal, or its original hd.

Moxness sees Earth: Final Conflict at the forefront of a 24p tidal wave.

‘I was talking to Sony the other day – there have been many of these cameras sold in Toronto alone,’ he says. ‘The rental houses aren’t going to fork out the kind of money to buy this equipment if they don’t think they’re going to be rented. I think a lot of that is based on the success we’ve had in a relatively short period of time.’ *

– Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict: www.efc.com

– www.allianceatlantis.com

– Tribute Entertainment: www.tribtv.com

– www.sony.com

– www.simvideo.ca