Cinematographer Philip Holahan lent his photography skills to the creative team of BLOODTIES, a rock musical written by Ned Massey. They smashed 4 acoustic and 2 electric guitars during their promo photo shoot at dvDepot. BLOODTIES will premiere at The 2010 New York Musical Theater Festival. Holahan shot the photographs at dvDepot using a Canon 5d camera.

An Array of Advantages

The Canon 7d camera is very popular and exciting to work with, shooting still pictures and digital video. Canon single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras create high quality video and give filmmakers more control over their image than video normally allows. The fact that the cameras are affordable and very lightweight only adds to their appeal.

Digital cameras use chips as their sensors. Larger sensors mean an ability to take in more information and therefore, a better image quality. The Canon 7d’s chip is larger than ¾ of an inch, which is a step up from the ½ inch chip in a Sony EX1, which is itself an excellent camera.

More Lenses Means More Merit

Canon’s SLR cameras open more possibilities in shooting because you can use Canon photo lenses. Still camera lenses are more readily available to the average user, allowing more choices in how you want to shoot. Additionally, using these lenses can help create a very cinematic look, including more control over depth of field than you normally have with digital video. As you can see in this video, a shallow depth of field can create a very dramatic look.

dvDepot carries a full array of L series prime lenses, including:

14mm F/2.8
24mm F/1.4
35mm F/1.4
50mm F/1.2
85mm F/1.2
135mm F/2

And the 70-200mm F/2.8 L series zoom lens.

Other New Equipment

In addition to all the new Canon cameras, the Zacuto double barrel shoulder mount is now available at dvDepot. Not only does this cutting edge shoulder mount adapt to any DSLR camera, but it also looks super cool. It can easily be customized for every camera operator; the shoulder mount can be rigged on either the right or left side and is height adjustable. Throw in the Zacuto follow focus and you’ve got everything you need. This new equipment can be rented from dvDepot as a part of any package that includes a DSLR camera.

The Canon 7d is available for rent or in a crew package with an operator and the Canon 5d is available with a shooter package. Call 212.333.5100 and get in touch with the rental or crewing departments for pricing.

The World Cup Trek is an epic race from Berlin, Germany, the location of the 2006 World Cup, to Cape Town, South Africa, the 2010 tournament venue. The contest, organized by dvDepot client Rob Evans, involves three teams, each comprised of two volunteer members, driving 10,000 miles through sixteen countries on two continents to reach the southern tip of Africa in time for the Cup’s final game. Sponsored by dvDepot and produced by both Burgess Productions and Nomadic Nation, Mr. Evans and his team will film their seven week adventure with the intent to transform their journey into an adventure/reality program.

Race for Charity

Contest organizer Rob Evans

As a social activist, Mr. Evans has been involved in several charity initiatives. Some of his recent projects include establishing and maintaining a storage facility for charities in his hometown of Phoenix/Tempe, Arizona, helping organize community projects, creating an arts community in Scottsdale, Arizona, and becoming an organ donor by donating one of his kidneys. Mr. Evans’ conception of and participation in the World Cup Trek is yet another of his charitable endeavors.

Benefiting from the race are three non-government organizations: Grassroot Soccer, Kick 4 Life, Coaching for Hope. These multifaceted organizations work in third world African countries to both coach underprivileged children and aspiring soccer players and provide education and preventative measures to combat the AIDs epidemic.

The Gear

dvDepot is sponsoring World Cup Trek’s production and furnishing the teams with video equipment, including two Sony PMW-EX1R HD cameras, six 16GB cards for footage, two 7” Nebtek monitors to review the footage before uploading it into a computer for editing, and other accessories. With the pristine quality of the Sony EX1, and the durability and storage capacity of the memory cards, no moment of the weeks-long journey will be missed.

View World Cup Trek 2010 in a larger map

After being equipped with dvDepot gear, the World Cup Trek teams began their exciting trip. Departing on May 9th from the United States, the volunteers set out for Berlin, Germany. The teams and the production crew stopped at Berlin’s co-sponsor hostel CityStay to finalize travel plans, go over the route, get all the needed vaccinations and load the last of their supplies into their Renaults.

On the Road

The World Cup Trek cars on the Autobahn

On May 18th, the team hit the Autobahn and almost immediately ran into their first setback. One of the three cars blew a head gasket 200km into the race, a frustrating mishap that could have been avoided. The car, driven by team members Jonathan and Susan, had to wait for the production vehicle to send for a tow truck; however, that car struck a flat tire and its spare tire was coincidentally flat. With two vehicles down, the team had to wait for tow trucks to arrive for both cars. To compound an already rocky beginning to their journey, the police declined to deal with cars that were ill-equipped to handle the Autobahn to begin with.

Into France and Spain

Barcalona Harbor

After two days of camping outside a McDonald’s in Hof, the team was back on the road in rainy, foggy weather. After seventeen full hours of continuous driving through miserable weather, the team left Germany and finally entered France nearly two days behind schedule and in dour spirits. The fair weather and sunshine in France, however, lifted team spirits. The group even had time to stop for a rest at Beziers, a picturesque city with a large winemaking industry. A 10-hour scenic road trip from Beziers to Barcelona (effectively avoiding traffic and tolls) was the next course of action for the team. From Barcelona the team managed to rest up before catching the last ferry out of Tarifa and into Marakech.

With any luck, the team will reach South Africa around July 5th, a few days earlier than planned. We hope to continue providing support and enthusiasm for the entire team on their amazing trip! Be sure to follow updates about the World Cup Trek on dvDepot’s Twitter and Facebook.

dvDepot is always excited to work with student filmmakers. After two months of preparation, on Saturday March 6th, a group of NYU film students shot a music video for the indie band Kafei. The Lansdale, Pennsylvania band is comprised of Alex Kahn on guitar, keyboard and vocals, Doug Raus on drums and vocals, and Eric Henkels on vocals, keyboard and guitar. Guitarist Alex is an NYU student, as well. Check them out on tour or online! http://www.myspace.com/kafeimusic This video is for “Stay Close” off of their new album Intimacy Addiction. Read, watch and enjoy. http://vimeo.com/10537859

The Crew

In late January, director (and my good friend) Zoe Robyn approached me with the task of producing the video. I jumped at the chance to work with such a great group of people, all NYU film students. The production staff consisted of Zoe as Executive Producer and Director, Megan Pinson (aka me) as Producer/AD and Kathleen Sullivan as Assistant Producer/2nd AD. Mandy Mandelstein served as DP with Gabby Moses as her AC (who also served as onset photographer) and Josh Glass as DIT. Mandy also worked closely with lighting designer and gaffer Eric Mann. Joanna Naugle handled art direction. Elexa Cangelosi did wardrobe and makeup for the actresses. Divya Gadangi served as hair stylist.

PreProdcution

Finding the right location, a large enough space which we could get on our small budget was the first task. Transforming that space – a large basement with black walls and a stage for the band – for the video was an undertaking. The art direction was an enormous amount of work. Joanna designed and created the three life size Barbie boxes, which along with the stage, served as the set. It took 12 large cardboard boxes and nearly a whole roll of duct tape to make them!

Finding the right look and personality for the “dolls” was essential. Sara Nurmi, Chantelle Fuoco and Dasha Kittredge were all highly enthusiastic about the project and they were great sports when it came to spending an entire day in the Barbie looks Elexa and Divya crafted for them. We also organized a couple dozen extras to shoot a crowd scene, only to discover that we could not bring such a large number. It was frustrating to find out we had to eliminate that scene the day before the shoot. I was so concerned with finding enough extras; the regulations of our location never crossed my mind. However, eliminating that scene from the shot list and shooting schedule meant more time to work on other shots.

The Budget

Realizing, however, just how much a shoot requires is always eye opening – equipment, art supplies, wardrobe, craft services, etc. Working with a low budget meant renting and borrowing equipment from several different places – some last minute essentials (apple boxes!) came from dvDepot. Eric and Mandy came up with a lighting set up which effectively lit the space according to Zoe’s vision, using as few lights as possible.

At the end of the shoot, we did go over budget but only by about 100 dollars. The budget was broken down in terms of equipment rentals, art supplies, wardrobe, and craft services. Art supplies and wardrobe actually turned out to be the main areas where we went over budget. Chances are we could have stuck closer to the budget with better communication between all members of the crew. While the budget was broken down by department, the decided upon numbers did not make it to each crewmember who was then reimbursed for their particular purchases. Emergency purchases the day of the shoot were also not factored into the budget. Who knew we would run out of false eyelashes?

The Shoot

It’s a lot to ask a college student to be awake and alert at 8:00am on a Saturday, but not when it comes to a shoot. Shooting started at 9:30am and lasted until around 10:00pm. With Mandy leading the camera crew, the shoot went very smoothly. Her job as DP started months before the shoot. She and Zoe worked closely to create a look and tone for the video. While location scouting, her ability to visualize the shots before the sets even existed was an asset in planning. When it came to shoot day, Mandy knew exactly what she was looking for.

During the shoot, my main responsibility was making sure everyone was happy, well fed, and in the right place at the right time. Shooting in a location with poor cell phone reception definitely complicates things! As it turns out, the greatest obstacle was completely out of our control. Kafei’s car had been towed earlier and getting it out of impound took far longer than expected, delaying the second half of the shoot by about three hours.

Cutting the crowd scene, though, meant we still had enough time at the location to finish shooting and clean up according to schedule.

After the Shoot

Looking back, there were a few things that could have been done differently. During preproduction, a lot of time was dedicated to location scouting and casting, which was, of course, very important. However, waiting until just the week before to figure out the lighting set up and look into lighting rentals was a risk. One thing to keep in mind for the future is that everything takes more time than you think it will; planning is key. Zoe finished editing the video this week and the final product looks amazing. I am very excited to have been a part of this project. Watch “Stay Close” here! http://vimeo.com/10537859

Last month, dvDepot covered Fashion Week. New York City’s Fashion Week is followed internationally. Each September and February, the hottest designers, both up and coming and established, gather in Manhattan’s Bryant Park to debut their collections for the next season. Last month was displaying fashions for Fall 2010. For the past few years, we have been working on this event with Shanghai TV’s “The Style Today.” Host Penny Wei conducted interviews at 9 different shows including Max Azria, Tibi, and Diesel and shot the runways. These photos are “live” from Bryant Park on February 17th.

Roger Coraggio has been shooting for “The Style Today” since they first came to us several years ago. His excellent work and coverage of Fashion Week events have produced a strong working relationship with Shanghai TV, which is owned and run by the Chinese government. On this shoot he used the Panasonic SDX900 shooting with the DVCPRO50 format. Along with Roger were sound recordists Dennis Brioso and Diana Milani and Production Assistant Daniel Pleacoff.

Fashion Week is a fantastic event that occupies the entire city’s production resources. At every show, we meet people we know also covering the event. Add celebrities, exciting fashions and a healthy dose of overseas production crews and you have one of the more enjoyable jobs of the year for us.

With EX1, HVX200, and other cameras that shoot to memory cards becoming more popular every day, the work flow on sets is changing. Log and capture used to be an important phase of post-production, but now, data transfer is a part of production. We’ve had our share of trial and error here at dvDepot trying to figure out how the future is going to look.

1. What to call them?

Nobody seems to have any idea of what to call this position. Data wrangler comes up a bunch. More common is “a guy to, like, do transfers and stuff.” Some people just call them camera utilities or assistant cameras. We eventually settled on memory card transfer technician, so that the duties are specific. We’ll shorten this to “card tech” or “transfer tech” most of the time.

2. Can a camera utility or AC do this?

A lot of utilities will know how to do this. But a lot don’t. We sent one of our best utilities on a job to do P2 transfers and he ended up taking twice as along as expected. Any time there was a problem with the camera, he jumped in to help fix it. This is what he’s good at, so it makes sense. This shoot also only ordered two 16GB cards per camera for several multicam interviews in a pretty short time. He had to be constantly dumping and wiping cards to keep up with shooting. We didn’t have time for him to do anything else.

3. Can I send an editor or assistant editor?

It’s tempting to send post people out. They have experience doing file transfers. They know the different formats post requires. We had an editor out once who really knew the transfers down pat and how to format the drives. However, when the camera decided not to recognize the memory card, he had no idea what to do. We sent one of our in-house technicians to solve the problem pretty quickly, but somebody without any knowledge of using the camera on set is missing an important piece of the puzzle.

4. How do you keep the cards organized?

We worked on one shoot when they were making fast transfers. The transfer tech noticed that he was missing the last batch of footage from camera B. None of the cards were labeled. We had to go through each card again and figure out which one had the missing footage. Most camera operators know to label their tapes, but some overlook labeling their memory cards. Labeling your cards is more important than labeling your tapes because cards will be wiped and then the footage is lost forever.

Most people don’t realize it, but P2 cards have an area on the back that is designed for using dry erase markers. You can easily label the cards with A2 or something similar. SxS cards unfortunately don’t have this same convenience. For now, we use paper tape because gaff tape is too thick and can get stuck in the camera. The important thing is training our transfer techs in making sure that all cards are labeled and that they never accept a card from a camera without it being properly labeled.

5. So who do you send?

We decided that we needed people who are specifically suited to being card transfer techs. They need experience working on set, often as an AC or camera utility. The techs are often called upon to assist in the camera department and they need to be prepared. Additionally, the best candidates are often trained editors. They understand the problems that can arise with file transfers and can deal with them. A lot of our techs are working toward becoming full time editors. Using this as our starting criteria, we have recruited a pool of freelancers who are specifically assigned as transfer card technicians.

By finding the right people to handle the job and making sure the process they use is correct, we’ve turned memory card transfers into a smooth process. We are curious to find out how other people are dealing with this situation. Let us know what you’re doing in the comments below.

If you’re shooting with a camera that uses memory cards, we highly recommend assigning a qualified crew member to this position. If you’re like to hire somebody from dvDepot, please contact our crewing department, by emailing crewing@dvdepot.com or by calling 212.333.5100.

Everybody’s raving about Twilight now, but a lot of people were surprised when it was an enormous blockbuster. Showtime jumped into the game early and got an exclusive deal for showing the Twilight movies. Obviously, they wanted to turn the premiere into an event with specials and behind the scenes material. We were lucky enough to help on the material shot in the New York area. You can see some of our footage in the video shot below or at Showtime’s video site.

Shooting underwater takes not only an experienced shooter, but the right kind of equipment. From the normally hidden world of the ocean to the underwater antics of a pool party– underwater footage is a desirable addition to many projects.

Here at dvDepot we have two great models of underwater housing that can be used with a variety of cameras, such as the Sony V1U, Z1U, Pansonic DVX100, Sony DCR-VX2000 and DSR-PD150. In addition to this we also have some audio gear that is suitable for water based shoots -the Lectrosonic MM400C transmitter and M152 mic.

The Sony V1U is best paired with the Equinox HD8 Underwater Housing which can be seen below. The Equinox can be brought to depths of up to 75 meters (250ft). It also has BRS ( Ballast Release System) for easy travel. This is also useful if trouble occurs on a dive–just pull the release pin and the Equinox will shoot straight to the surface.

Ewa-Marine V2000 Underwater Housing can be used with a wider variety of cameras such as the Sony PD150, Sony Z1U, Panasonic DVX100, Sony DCR-VX2000, and Panasonic HVX200. This housing enables the user to film up to 10meters (33 ft) below water. It features a double laminated PVC Construction and an Optical Glass port. The bag shape makes it easier to carry. Also included are weight straps, which makes it easier to achieve buoyancy. It is also ideal for filming while snorkeling, shallow diving or moving in and out of the water. This type of underwater housing has been used to good effect for the show “Made” which airs on MTV Saturdays at 3pm.

The Lectrosonics MM400C Lavalier transmitter is ideal for use in heavy rain,humidity and/or water based shoots and can be submerged in the water if necessary. Also featured is a waterproof On/Off/Mute reed switch and non-detachable antenna. The switch is removable to avoid accidental switching caused by the talent. A machined finish provides a non-corrosive housing, preventing rust and oxidation. The use of the MM400C results in greater range with minimal noise.

The Lectrosonics M152 is a highly sensitive omnidirectional microphone that can be used with the MM400C. It also features a watertight mini connection that makes it ideal for a shoot that’s water bound!

If you have a shoot coming up that requires water-friendly equipment, feel free to contact us and we can put together a package that suits your production and budgetary requirements. We look forward to working with you!

A series of Earthquakes absolutely devastated Haiti on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, BET called us to shoot a series of PSAs to help raise awareness, get people to contribute and to connect people with loved ones in Haiti.

We cannot imagine what the people of Haiti are undergoing, our thoughts and prayers are with all those suffering in Haiti. The outpouring of support over the last week has amazed everyone and we hope it continues.

The Weinstein Company is releasing their new movie “Youth in Revolt” starring Michael Cera this month. dvDepot worked on a series of promos for the film featuring Michael Cera and the cast of MTV’s The Jersey Shore.

As anybody who watches the show knows, the Jersey Shore kids are a wild bunch. They did not disappoint us here. DJ Pauly D took one look at Michael and decided he needed a makeover. They changed his wardrobe and spent an hour giving him Pauly’s signature hair style. Also, once they heard there was a hot tub on the roof, there was no keeping them out of it– not even the 20 degree weather. In spite of all the fun they had, our crew reported that everybody was professional and easy to work with. We can’t wait until the promos premiere so we can see our finished product.

The promos were shot on three Sony EX1s with our operators Jeremy Leach, Andreas Wagner and Chris Piazza. We had two audio techs on set to mic all the people: Diana Milani and Michael Correa. Kevin Provost was a camera utility and handled data transfers. Joseph Bandelli was our PA. We worked with Partizan, who were producing the spots.

You can see more pictures on the sites we borrowed these from: People Magazine and the Huffington Post. We also get mentioned in the article at New TeeVee.

Today, we’re prepping for a multicam reality shoot in January. Those sorts of shoots require a lot of preparation and often take days to get ready.

One exciting piece of gear on this shoot is our Starlink wireless monitor system. The Starlink is a powerful wireless transmitter and receiver that can be mounted onto the camera. We’ve cameras down to the street and received the signal in our seventh floor office. On a multicam reality project, it allows a producer to monitor all cameras from a centralized location, no matter what environment they’re in.

Has anybody else used the Starlink? Are you as excited by them as we are?