Six field video crews, equipped with ten Panasonic P2 HD cameras and 150 8GB P2 cards, hit the trails last month to capture, for the first time, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in high definition.

According to Stan Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod, getting great footage of this race is always serious business and one that presents crews with many challenges-including extreme Alaskan environmental conditions. With temperatures reaching 40 and 50 below, gale-force winds and blizzards, Hooley says the Panasonic P2 solid-state memory systems, which have no moving parts, were an obvious choice.

“Panasonic’s P2 HD cameras offered us the opportunity to get up close and personal from the start to the finish of this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. To have the opportunity to document in high definition the special bond between the human and canine athlete in this highly-competitive environment, with the Iditarod trail as the backdrop, is something that’s very special.”

Jan Crittenden Livingston, product line business manager, Panasonic Broadcast, says the extreme shooting conditions were absolutely a factor the Iditarod team had to consider. However, “no moving parts, at ’57 below zero, allowed them to record pictures that have never been taken before. This is why we put more P2 cards to the task rather than P2 stores. I was concerned that when they would need to off load a card, the P2 drive wouldn’t spin. We also bought warming gloves for the cameras, but the camera operators chose in many cases not to use them. They felt they would rather see the camera and its controls. The cameras operated well without the gloves.”

Livingston played a major role not only in helping the Iditarod team choose HD and the P2 systems, but also with their transition to it. She brought together a stellar team of industry pros to help prep the Iditarod crew for the big race. She explains, “We chose C.R. Caillouet because we needed an engineer who could set up the big cameras and work through any engineering type of problem. C.R. was also a key component in tracking the equipment and making sure I got it all back. Barry Green was my next choice for his knowledge of the HVX200. I don't know anyone who knows that camera better. He and C.R. worked well together to get a certain look from both cameras. Next I brought in Mike Caporale, who has done a lot of shooting for me in the past, and is also a photographer. I needed both these talents to tell our back-story, and someone who would be willing to go the distance. Bernie Mitchell was chosen for his willingness to take on the role of field producer and to make sure everything got to where it needed to be. Bernie is also a shooter, so he teamed with Mike for the duration of the trip. The final member of the team was Art Aldrich. Art is a Final Cut Pro wizard. He worked with the crew to bring them up to speed on ingesting, editing and launching to the Internet all of the videos for the [Iditarod’s own official Web site, the Insider]. He also designed the system for backup and redundancy, so there would actually be three copies of the footage.” Beyond the collective expertise, adds Livingston, the group worked well together and had fun. “I think the entire team had a great time and they really brought the story home.”

According to Hooley, this project had many moving parts. Once he and his crew decided on HD and the P2 systems, and put everyone through the appropriate training process, they had some logistics to work out.

Prior to the race, Hooley explained that he and his crew “believed the P2 systems would improve [the] workflow. Our goal was to have a seamless process of gathering product, posting it, archiving it and then re-implementing the memory cards into the field.”

The workflow process began with the six field video crews, armed with the AJ-HPX2000 2/3-inch shoulder mount and AG-HVX200 handheld cameras, following the race via a variety of vehicles ranging from helicopters to snowmobiles and from different vantage points. For instance, there were front-, middle- and rear-positioned camera crews, as well as an “Iditarod Air Force” team for overhead shots and pickup and delivery of the P2 cards.

“The [Air Force] team was made up of pilots who volunteered their flying time, aircraft and expertise,” explains Hooley. “They were the lifeblood of the logistical flow that was required to make the race a reality. The Air Force crew picked up the P2 cards with the footage [from the field crews] and delivered them to hubs. That’s where the editors were waiting so they could work with the footage to prep it for online.”

Hooley says there were 26 hubs, or check points, set up along the trail. Once the video editors received the P2 cards with the Iditarod footage, they’d download the material onto their MacBook Pro’s and then edit in Final Cut Pro. Some of the footage was encoded in Flash Media so it could quickly be posted to the Iditarod Insider Web site; the remaining footage was held for later use for one of several upcoming documentaries about the race.

“We worked in real time during the race,” says Hooley, “to capture the drama that these ultra competitive athletes provided. Anywhere from 10 to 15 clips were downloaded daily on www.iditarodinsider.com from the various check points.” In addition, VERSUS (formerly the Outdoor Life Network) created three one-hour documentaries that broadcast during the race. The Iditarod’s own production company will soon be releasing its own HD documentary available on DVD.

Hooley admits that prior to their transition to the P2 systems, his team did have some production problems in the field. However, he quickly points out, “it wasn't just the kind of camera we used, there were a number of workflow factors that contributed to our challenges last year. Most of those challenges centered around dealing with multi-formats that created more workflow. In the past, we contracted production companies that used a number of different formats, mostly beta. Today, this kind of change [to P2] would have been considered a leap of faith, but we believed that this system and its work flow would become the norm in the future years of the Iditarod’s coverage."

Livingston adds that she’s “been very sensitive to people saying the P2 system is fine for news, but if you want to do a documentary, you need to look at some other product. I felt that by doing this one project, which represents a major documentary effort, in a very challenging environment, we could prove that P2 is just about the most perfect solution regardless of what the production task was. As a result, the P2 system worked without a hitch. The cold was probably the biggest problem but the P2 didn't care. All told it was a synergistic event, the outcome was greater than the sum of its parts. The Iditarod crew, as well as the Panasonic team, was amazing; they worked long hours, and put up more video than they ever have. The P2 worked extremely well. It just really seemed like a perfect combination.”

The Iditarod race has been an Alaskan tradition for more than 35 years. This year’s race began in Anchorage on March 4 and ended 1,150 miles later in Nome on March 13. A musher’s eye view of the sporting event, with footage of winner Lance Mackey (who had captured his third consecutive title just two weeks earlier in the Yukon Quest), can be found at www.iditarodinsider.com, at Panasonic’s own www.panasonic.com/iditarod or by purchasing the upcoming HD documentary on DVD directly from The Iditarod’s Web site. Pre-orders are now being accepted online.