1 Hr. Documentary on WGAL

[Kevin Martorana]

Hi everyone. I recently finished a 1 hr. documentary on the 60th anniversary of our local TV station, WGAL-8. In 1949 they went on the air. I produced the entire video, using old archival film that was "lost" in the attic, old photo and negatives and interviews shot with the XLH1. The photos and negative were scanned at 600 dpi then taken into after effects to be manipulated. The old film was 16mm mag and optical film. Some negative !! We projected the film on a white card...set up our Panasonic SDX-900 SD camcorder, shooting DVCPro50...and dialed in the clearscan...to get rid of the lost frames. It looks FABULOUS. (hey bottom line...I had a 10k budget for this whole thing...coming out of MY pocket !) So film transfer WASN'T an option.

Originally, we had Willard Scott to host the program (WGAL is an NBC Affiliate), but on the day he was to do the "wraps"...he bombed on us ! That's a whole other story ! Anyhow..that was to be shot on HDCam SR by NBC...we would then transfer Willards stuff to our Avid Adrenaline...and insert into the show. Willard was going to be shot chromakey for insertion into our VR set. Well...I now had 4 days before the show aired...and had to do some re-writes on the script so the local anchors could do the wraps.

Well if you have to chromakey 25mbs HDV footage....it can be done. It's not PERFECT...by any means...but the keyer in the Avid did a fabulous job. Since time was of the essence...I didn't even bring the talent into OUR studio...I shot them on the weather set. I added 2 diva light for more PUNCH on them....and prayed !

Bottom line...I've seen alot worse on NETWORK shows !

All the interviews were shot in studio on HDV in the Canon. I used a 35mm Kodak film preset and the 24f setting. As always...the images are stunning ! That camera can still cook !!!!

I've attached some photos

A compressed .wmv video of the opening sequence is here:
Index of /wgal

Hope you enjoy it. The DVD is available for sale...with lots of extras on it.
Go to WGAL 60 Year Anniversary Documentary - $19.95 : WGAL60.com - WGAL Documetary, WGAL 60 year Documetary

Bottom line..I wanted to post this...because I still love this camera. I'm still looking for a HD solution for it...especially for the 24f mode. Roland has the F1 which records .m2t files. I was unsuccessful with it a few months back...because the audio was out of sync.
Avid has now added .m2t to Media Composer 3.5. I'm hoping it would work...because this camera could last another few years if I could find a cheap hard drive solution !

Thanks for checking this out !

Kevin

[Adam Perry]

hey congratulations, this looks great! another lancasterian here on the boards...good stuff. I'll have to keep an eye on WGAL to see if they re air it.

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Kevin Martorana

Bottom line..I wanted to post this...because I still love this camera. I'm still looking for a HD solution for it...especially for the 24f mode. Roland has the F1 which records .m2t files. I was unsuccessful with it a few months back...because the audio was out of sync.Avid has now added .m2t to Media Composer 3.5. I'm hoping it would work...because this camera could last another few years if I could find a cheap hard drive solution !

Thanks for checking this out !

Kevin

....Good job Kevin ! The XL H1 produces images in HDV and full uncompressed out which are simply stunning and totally acceptable for network broadcast. The H1 is used on all sorts of network shooting now. Regarding HDV use in Avid, 1080 60i (59.94 Hz) capture in Xpress Pro & Media Composer had been supported for a couple of years now. What Avid failed to deliver on until the release of version 3.5, was full Canon 1080 HDV 24 F capture. There's quite a long horror story about the demand and wait by many, many end user editors, for Canon 24 F support in Media Composer which dates back to November of 2005, but I won't go into that in this thread. Avid is the first NLE to support the Canon 24 F HDV capture and edit. I understand ver 3.5 of Media Composer no longer requires you to transcode your HDV footage to DNxHD codec before doing an audio and video mixdown, so you can output your projects to web encode, DVD, Blu-ray DVD, or digital cut. Being able to handle your HDV footage in complete HDV format from one end of the workflow to the other totally illiminates any potential to degrade the fragile quality of a 25 Mbit format.

[Les Wilson]

I enjoyed reading your post, seeing the stills and watching the clip. I like the score, the lighting on the vintage equipment and the camera motion you chose. Thanks for putting all that together.

[Kevin Martorana]

Thanks Mark and Les for the kind words.

We've never really had a problem ingesting footage from the H1 into the avid...because we immediately got the Convergent Design HD Connect SI box...which took the firewire output of the H1...and turned it into HDSDI. We then used the Avid 145 or 220 DNxHD codex for the capture.

This show was done in 145.

We often use our Canon HV10 as the "playback deck" into the Avid.

The show was output to DVCPro HD 100 @1080.

I read on DVInfo that Sony now makes a deck that will playback the 24F...Sony HVRM35U.
I want to look at that at NAB...bring a 24f tape along and really see if it does play.
Would be a nice deck to record out corporate videos to in HDV...since DVCPro HD is a bit of an over kill sometimes for those type of shows.

[Adam Perry]

just saw a commercial for this yesterday. looked really good

[Robert Sanders]

Looks very good. Well done.

[Kevin Martorana]

I thought I'd update everyone on the documentary. It's received an Emmy nomination for the Mid-Atlantic Emmy awards ! That includes Philadelphia and Pittsburgh !

We're excited ! Sept. 26 we'll know.

You can view a clip of it on YouTube
YouTube - WGAL TV8 Documentary Segment