Director Erik Laibe recently wrapped production on a new independent
feature entitled Offside: The Price of Dreams.
Written by I. J. Azimzadeh, it tells the story of an Iranian soccer
player who comes to the U.S., only to be lured away by another
professional team. DP David Lewis shot most of the feature with the
Canon XL H1 HD camcorder (in 24F mode) and a Canon 400 photo lens with
the EF Adapter. Soccer sequences were shot in 60i and recorded to the
camera's HDV cassettes.
Laibe initially recorded to a 7 TB Apple Xserve RAID array, through a
Blackmagic Multibridge Pro converter. The problem with this setup, he
said, was that hard drives are "very heavy, expensive, and vulnerable,"
making it impractical in the field. The dailies were eventually
recorded to Panasonic DVCPRO decks. The filmmaker also used a
Blackmagic DeckLink box to feed images to 23-inch LCD monitors on the
set to monitor what they were shooting.

"If this film had to be shot on 35mm, it probably wouldn't have been
made because of the cost, because it would have been too much of a
risk," Laibe says, adding that the XL H1 performed much better than
other cameras he tested, some of which had problems with rapid movement
during the soccer game sequences. The innovative digital feature is
currently being edited on Apple's Final Cut HD (in tandem with Apple
LogicPro and Shake and Adobe After Effects). It's slated for release in
theaters by the end of the year.

Q: You tested a number of HDV cameras before deciding on the
Canon XL-H1. What did you specifically like about the Canon that none
of the others offered?
A: SDI out (at 1.5 Gb/sec) was a big issue in that it allowed us to
capture to DVCPRO decks rather than DV. This lack of compression was
important to us in terms of visual quality. Also, the quality of the
Canon optics and interchangeability played a part.

Q: You used the HD-SDI output of the camera during recording
to a RAID system. What manufacturer did you use? Why was it important
to avoid compression?
A: We initially set up capture to a 7 TB Apple Xserve (through a
BlackMagic multibridge). It worked great, but during production we
opted to capture to the DVCPRO decks because they were more portable
and we reasoned tape (at this quality) was a more stable platform for
both the field and for long-term storage.

Q: The XL-H1's HD-SDI output does not include audio. How did
you get around this during production?
A: For sound we used digital audio tape recorders (DATs) and also sent
the audio signal into the decks as backup.

Q: What feature do you think is missing from the XL-H1? In an
ideal world, what would you like to see it include?
A: A 100 GB or better camera-mountable drive with an SDI interface
would be ideal. The FireWire drives just don't take advantage of the
SDI.

Q: In general, what's the biggest misconception about HD
production?
A: There should be no misconceptions here. As long as people grasp the
issue of file size, they shouldn't be surprised by hardware
requirements. And since some of the hardware needed is not exactly
mainstream, they should be ready for the added costs. But when you
compare costs to the results the emerging HD market being filled by
these [HDV] cameras is a bargain.