American Cinematographer - July 2006 - 90

The

only visible

to edit. After he locks

picture, he returns
original files and re-renders the
shots he actually used at higher resolu¬
tion, naming the new renders the same
as the low-res proxies. He then moves

evidence of Reel

to the

Stream's modified
DVX100 is a USB
2.0 port.

the low-res movies into

a

folder labeled

"old" and puts the high-res copies into
the folder where the low-res ones used
to be. Because the files are named the

when he opens Premiere, it sees

same,

the

QuickTimes as if they were the
old ones, and all he has to do is re¬
render the project within Premiere. "You
new

never

have to re-conform; the transitions

all there. You don't have to do any
work other than press the render
are

button."

Schiele, who does his Androm¬
Our main

phone line is also

our

tech-

support line, and we've spent lots of
late

nights working through problems
people."
We found the biggest drawback
to the Andromeda system is that the
footage is captured into a proprietary
with

format that must be rendered before it

be used for

editing or compositing.
extremely slow process,
depending on the computer's speed.
Using Merkovich's Mac Mini to
can

This

can

be

an

on

vacation in

Andromeda, and Schiele used the
camera for the short, for a trailer for
another

project, and for elements for
motion-graphic titles.

primarily
Final Cut
he renders all his files as TIFFs

Pro, says
and takes them into After Effects to
break them into sections and label them.
He then does his color correction, crop¬

ping and other adjustments, and makes
both DV and HD versions of the shots. "I
edit with the DV versions, and after I

lock the edit, I can
and make

an

replace the footage

HD version."

Like Merkovich, Schiele works

Upon reviewing the footage from

as a

visual-effects artist, and he says

native format to 1280x720 10-bit TIFFs,

that

background helped him feel

tests, our first reaction was that the
camera's wide shots and daylight exteri¬

we

our

could convert 75-80 frames per

minute, but this would take much longer
on a

PowerBook

or a

slower

desktop

unit. (Flowever, Reel Stream supports
Macs with Intel processors, and that
should

help as Apple releases faster
desktops.)
The system's other disadvantage
is that the

camera

has to be hardwired

laptop to record, but that might be
problem for some projects than
for others. "This does really well for
what I'm doing: staged, controlled
shooting, where I block everything and
know all the setups," says Merkovich,
who is making a short film using the
camera. "If you were going to do runand-gun shooting, this camera would be
to a

less of a

horrible."
Another Andromeda beta tester,
Erick Shiele, used the camera to shoot a
short film,
about

July 2006

picture
Tokyo. For the
action sequences, Schiele already had
DV footage he'd shot during his own
vacation in Japan, and he wanted his
American sequences to look very differ¬
ent. Merkovich advised him to try the
while he's

eda post work on a Mac using
Adobe After Effects and Apple

tests from Reel Stream's

transcode

86

accountant to shoot an action

a

Danger Tokyo. The movie is
who is advised by his

man

comfortable

with

the

Andromeda.

our

ors

looked harsh and video-like, not that

from

standard

DVX100

"We're in the effects world, so we're

different

not so nervous about

footage. We would like to conduct more
refined tests to see if we can improve
the response. However, we were
surprised and pleased by Andromeda's
ability to handle low-light situations. Our
candlelight shot in particular turned out
beautifully, and although there was
noise in the frame, it was relatively soft,
almost like film grain. We actually found
the look of the low-light material much
more pleasing than what we'd seen

putting stuff on a
hard drive," Schiele notes. He admits,
however, that this form of recording can
be a hurdle for other filmmakers; on his

project, he immediately cloned all
so there would always be a
backup. (His wife took the copies off set
for safekeeping.)
Certainly, with all the rendering
and LUTs and direct-to-disk recording,
working with the Andromeda is not for
the technologically timid. The key is
figuring out the workflow. Both
own

his files

from

some

lower-end hi-def

the Andromeda for any

ies, though they have slightly different
methods. Merkovich, who edits in
Adobe Premiere Pro, creates low-res

scenes on

QuickTime movies of all his

reason

enced. He

uses

these low-res versions

In

fact, we've discussed switching over to

Merkovich and Schiele work with prox¬

original
files, naming them the same as the orig¬
inals so they can be easily cross-refer¬

cameras.

one

especially dark
projects we're shooting with

of those other

cameras.

We found the most

compelling
system is
its remarkable latitude. In our magichour shots, for example, we were very
impressed at the range the camera
to use the Andromeda
American Cinematographer - July 2006

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2006
