American Cinematographer - April 2001 - 113

Thinking "Big" in 24p
by Stephanie Argy
The title

Iike other cinematographers, Patricia

sequence for the
short bigLove

VanOver was

intrigued by Panavision's
modified version of the Sony 24p highdefinition (HD) camera the moment she
first heard of it. VanOver had been study¬
ing the camera for some time with Nolan
Murdock, Panavision's vice president of
product management, when director Leif
Tilden approached her about shooting a
short film on digital video (DV). The cine¬
matographer was aware that the 24p
camera had only been tested on stage or
around the Panavision facility, and she
was eager to give it a "road test."
VanOver took Tilden to Panavision
to watch test

footage from the modified
24p. "Almost immediately, I thought it
was perfect," Tilden recalls. "To me, it
was a hybrid between film and digital. It
was

the best of both worlds, and the

colors

amazing." Most importantly,
was right for
bigLove, a sweetly surreal short about a
young married couple who perform
superhuman feats as they send their two
were

Tilden felt that the look

children off to school. Tilden describes
the story as "Ray
Life as a Dog." He

tion

was even

knew it would

Bradbury meets My
felt that "high-defini-

better than film for

me.

I

give the project another

dimension."

OTrphochanuegrfet.esy
Phot s

Knowing that the modified 24p
camera
would be George Lucas's
medium for Star Wars: Episode II,
vendors jumped at the chance to have
their gear tested with the new camera.
As a result, bigLove grew from being a
little DV project into something much
larger. For example, Geo Film Group was
planning to provide a Libra remote head
for Episode II, but had never had the

suggests the

sweetly surreal
subject matter
that follows. The

production

was

shot with
Panavision's

modified

Sony
24p hi-def
camera.

the head.

bigLove
company that opportunity.
camera on

gave

the

were

Soon, VanOver and Tilden found

they would also have use of an insert car,
a Technocrane and other equipment
rarely found on ultra-low-budget produc¬
tions. "It went from being a very small
DV project to a full-on production," says
VanOver. "I originally looked at it as an
opportunity to do something very small
that would allow me to use the 24p
camera, to see what applies and what no
longer applies. It got so much bigger, and
there was a lot more responsibility."
However, the additional equip¬
ment also opened up new possibilities in
terms of staging the film. "Leif and I
started expanding our ideas," explains
VanOver. "We decided to make it

a

much

interesting piece visually. [Access
equipment] made it a whole
different project."
Tilden says that ultimately, he and
the crew approached the project exactly
as they would have if they been working
with a 35mm film camera, noting that
"the only difference was that there
more

to more

wasn't that much anxiousness, as if we
a

DV

burning film. We didn't treat it like
production."
The size of the HD

camera

also

camera is massive, and so
the lenses, so the actors didn't have
that psychological awareness that,

helped. "The

are

'Okay, we're shooting a DV movie,"' says
Tilden. One of the actors, Sam Rockwell,
told Tilden that this had

positive effect
performance. "Sam said it would
make a big difference, in terms of his
energy level as an actor, if he just saw
someone holding a little camera versus
this massive thing on a dolly," the direc¬
on

a

his

tor says.

VanOver

especially
impressed by the specially designed
was

Panavision lenses; at the time of the

bigLove shoot, the only lens available
the digital Primo 11:1 zoom (9.5105mm T1.6). "We shot it pretty close to
wide-open, even on exteriors," she
relates. "A stop of T2.8 or less was what
we were going for. T2 is nice." She says
she wanted to make the depth of field
much shallower, believing that one

was

American

Cinematographer 111
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