HDW-750P popular with prestige TV producers across Europe

The HDW-750P is continuing its reputation as the high-end TV HDCAM camcorder, with producers using it across Europe for everything from drama to movies. Italian broadcaster RAI has now chosen HDCAM as a high definition recording option for its prime time drama serials.

The broadcaster has invested in HDCAM camcorders and recorders for its Naples Production Centre for Fiction Production, which is the main centre for prime time serial productions. RAI, which has chosen HDCAM to further enhance its content quality, has bought four HDW-750P HDCAM camcorders and two HDCAM recorders, along with three LMD-232 LCD high definition monitors.

In Belgium, meanwhile, a new digital cinematography production company, HoverlorD, has set up as a keen supporter of the HDW-750P. The company has bought its own high definition movie-making kit – which CEO and respected cinematographer Louis-Philippe Capelle calls “a 750 with all the options …everything we need for feature film production and for high-end documentaries”. Capelle continues: “We were also very selective in the choice of accessories and lenses: we wanted the best including Zeiss Digiprime and Fujinon Cinestyle lenses.”

The kit will be used by HoverlorD and is available to hire by other aspiring producers in the region, plus the rest of Belgium and France. The company is based in Liège, which is also the headquarters of Les Films du Fleuve, producers of L’Enfant, the Belgian winner of this year’s Cannes Palme D’Or. “Liège is becoming the centre of digital cinema, and of cinema for the Walloon region,” comments Capelle.

HoverlorD is supported by public funds from the Walloon region (the French-speaking part of Belgium) and private companies including XDC, the digital cinema branch of EVS and Brussels-based Advanced Technology.



HDW-750P's versatility enables it to be used across a wide spectrum of jobs
The equipment so far has been used to shoot a corporate production for a famous Swiss watch manufacturer, for the last episode of the Quai no.1 series, Ne réveillez pas les morts qui dorment, produced by France 2, RTL-TVI, JLA and AT for Belgium, and for The Three Lives of François-Joseph Fournier, a 52-minute documentary shot in Mexico, the French Riviera, Paris and Belgium. This is a co-production between JPF, France 3 and RTBF.

“We hope that this documentary will be seen on the big screen,” says Capelle. “It’s a fascinating tale of a man who left Belgium at the end of the 19th Century and ended up owning gold mines in Mexico and becoming one of the world’s richest men, so rich that in his later days he bought the French island of Porquerolles as a wedding gift for his third spouse.

“Three of his seven children are surviving and the documentary is a portrait of his family through interviews. This is a very scenic film, with beautiful landscapes and scenery. I gave it a cinematic look, shooting in progressive. I took all the accessories with me, it was a test to see how everything would work, and it did, even in places with very tough conditions of high heat and humidity.”

It was a small crew, Capelle as cinematographer, the director Michel Mees, sound operator, producer, and one production assistant. The majority of the shoot was completed using one HDW-750P although a second camera was hired for some later shots.

Capelle feels HoverlorD will buy at least one other HD camera in the near future. “There is a lot of interest in the kit, especially for commercials, as we have all the accessories to create many styles,” he adds.

Why a digital outfit? “This is the right time to do it. Mostly, all telefilms are likely to be shot in HD now as European broadcasters are talking about switching to HD in the next few years. We offer everything from the cameras to high-level post production including compositing and grading and that is what makes us distinctive,” says Capelle.

German broadcaster eyes up the future
In Germany, public broadcaster ZDF is also keen to keep a close watch on all high definition workflows and to develop scenarios for future productions. In this spirit, the broadcaster has produced a 15-minute travel documentary in HDCAM using the HDW-750P and the XPRI non-linear editing system.

Across the North Face of the Eiger by Rail is the first in-house production by ZDF using HDCAM and the results were so positively received that, with this programme, ZDF was able to go beyond its original plans. After shooting with the HDW-750P, ZDF created two workflows, one for standard definition post production, the other for high definition.

In the first instance, the HDCAM rushes were downconverted in the HDW-M2000P HDCAM recorder and edited on Avid Media Composer, with a broadcast copy made in Digital Betacam.

In the second scenario, ZDF completed all the post production in HD, using XPRI. The easy transfer of the EDL onto XPRI after the Avid off-line edit, the good audio routing and the problem free handling due to the ergonomic control panel, were just some of the factors which ZDF says made the experience feel so positive.

The conditions for shooting were tough, and it was a matter of overcoming both great differences in altitude as well as extreme changes in temperature. The HDW-750P performed flawlessly and the two cameramen found the viewfinder easy and reliable to use in poor light conditions.

The seven kilometre rail journey on the Jungfrau in Switzerland was built a hundred years ago and travels 3,454m up the mountain. Rugged glaciers, breath-taking mountains and rock formations – it is not surprising that this amazing landscape not only attracts thousands of tourists, but was also declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 2001.