A seasoned 16mm film shooter, director of photography Darren Leis shot the independent feature Carts with a single JVC GY-HD100U HDV camera in 720p 24 fps mode on a tripod, dolly and jib mounts. Working exclusively outdoors, he used the camera's standard 10:1 zoom lens and minimal lighting, shooting about 25 one-hour HDV cassettes over 15 days in Los Angeles (averaging seven script pages a day). Carts, the feature debut of writer-director-producer Chris Cashman, is being edited on Adobe Premiere HD 2.0 for release in 2007. Audio was recorded on a DAT recorder and in the camera, using a boom mic.
Q: What was the look you were after?
A: Carts is a dark comedy. We had a lot of dream sequences, so I tried different effects, both inside and out of the camera. There was a war sequence in particular, where I reduced the shutter speed to create a more jittery, grainy image. For other takes we made it choppier, but overall it came out nice. The director was pleased.
Q: Shooting outside in the sun, was brightness an issue?
A: Not really. The GY-HD100U has two built-in neutral density [ND] filters, which were invaluable to us on this set. I had to white balance throughout. We mostly started before the sun came up and tried to steal some shots before the light was really there. I had to open it up and white balance for the first couple of hours; maybe every half hour or so to compensate for the light change. But having those ND filters was great and saved many of our shots. As the end of the day, as the sun went down, I would gradually take them off and open up the iris.
We were also stealing shots that looked like it was still daylight when the sun was down. The camera was that good. We used white bounce cards and silks as well. There was also a portable generator we used for a few lights, but most of our shooting was done with pure sunlight, and the dailies looked great.
Q: What are some of the features that you particularly liked about the GY-HD100U?
A: I like the way the camera's features are laid out. I had such a limited crew for this shoot that I was operating the camera as well as serving as DP and there were many times when I had to pull my own focus, or zoom while moving on a dolly. With the GY-HD100U I could do all that myself and still use the tripod tilt and pan features. I could tilt the camera with my right hand while attempt to pull focus and zoom the lens with my left, simultaneously. With other HDV cameras, with different layouts, I'd need three hands to do the same thing.
The Focus Assist feature also saved my butt many times. When you turn it on, the scene appears in black and white, while everything that's in focus appears in red. When you're trying for critical focus on someone's eye, for example, most HD cameras are tough to focus correctly, but with this feature, you are sure every time.
Q: How did the 720p footage hold up to fast moving scenes?
A: We did have some fast-moving scenes that I thought turned out better than I had originally thought they would. I used a setting on the camera called “smooth motion function”, which helped smooth out the rough edges during pans and dolly shots.
A lot of the stuff we shot, I was blown away by the depth and color saturation. It was the closest I've seen to 16 mm film.
Q: Anything you wish the GY-HD100U had that it doesn't?
A: I wish it had a 16:9 flip-out screen viewfinder, which is a feature other HDV cameras have. It does have a letterbox and a stretch feature, but I don't like to use them that much. I saw everything I needed to see in the 4:3 area with the widescreen letterbox bars on. I will say that the footage looked a lot better on a monitor in the studio than what I saw in the field on the camera. That was a pleasant surprise.
I also wish the battery packs lasted longer. But with the addition of the Anton Bauer battery attachment, we were able to shoot for over 6 hours on each battery charge. We used about 1 ½ batteries per day.