Docu-drama shoots on HDW-790P

Last year, the discovery of the preserved carcass of a 10,000-year-old female mammoth calf in the remote Yamal region of Western Siberia hit the headlines. It was also the starting point for Belgian film-maker Pierre Stine’s latest HD documentary.

In May 2007, a reindeer herder from the ancient Siberian Nenets tribe stumbled across the carcass near the Yuribei River in Russia's Yamal-Nenets region, which had been preserved for 10,000 years in the permafrost. Now, National Geographic has commissioned Stine to make a 90-minute docu-drama about the discovery in HD.

It’ll be one of the biggest projects for Stine in 2008, who will be using his Sony HDW-790P HD camcorder on the project, shooting in HDCAM at 1080 25P.

Stine has spent the past two years renting the other two camcorders from the Sony range, the HDW-750P and HDW-F900. For Stine, the HDW-790P provided the ideal blend of the lightness of the HDW-750P and the picture quality of the HDW-F900, which includes three 2.2 million-pixel CCDs and four HyperGamma settings which allow film-makers more flexibility over their look.

“I particularly liked the Gamma feature of the HDW-F900, but it’s too heavy to shoulder mount and shoot in places such as the tropical rainforest, where I was making a recent film about chimpanzees.”

“So when I heard that there was a new camera, but which was very solid and light, I thought ‘OK, this is the camera I need’. I’m very happy with the HDW-790P — it’s a good mix of technology and practicality.”

Quality of the image

For Stine, the quality of the image is everything. “For the kind of large format HD docu-drama that I specialise in, I am looking for pictures of the kind you see in the movies — something that is less cold and clinical than regular video.”

His film is both cultural and scientific, combining material on the Nenets tribe’s herding lifestyle, dramatic CGI reconstruction of what the mammoth was like when it was alive, plus coverage of the scientific research that its discovery has prompted.

One big advantage of shooting on the HDW-790P is the camcorder’s capacity for enhanced natural reproduction in very low light, declares Stine. “I prefer to keep my levels low when I shoot,” he reveals. “If I have the information I can push it up again at the colour correction stage of the edit if needed.”

The low light capability of the HDW-790P was particularly good for scenes at the Japanese laboratory where the baby mammoth has been sent for detailed examination. “It’s a very modern lab with big screens, and we needed to keep light levels low in order to see what was going on. Using the softer HyperGamma allows me to keep details in the highlights.

“Sometimes the look of the picture is more important than its technical quality. If the film has a good atmosphere I’m happy,” he adds.

This year, Stine is also shooting another project on the HDW-790P, a road movie about a trip to the North Pole in a Blimp, a prime-time road movie for French channels France2 and France5.

9 June 2008