Back To The Future: Good Fight Goes HD

In 1997, as a recent graduate of USC’s Film School, I remember telling a woman on a plane that I doubt I’d ever become a filmmaker if I always had to “shoot on film.” She thought that was quite odd. “Are you going to shoot video? Like on the news?” she asked, with a disapproving frown. A nervous laugh escaped as I tried to reassure not only her but myself that I could indeed become a “filmmaker” without actually shooting video.

See, at that time I had been following the emergence of firewire and was a firm believer that DV would revolutionize what people had always thought video to me  - ugly, flat, cheap and unartistic. When I got my first DV camera, a first edition Canon XL1 I knew I was right, that the DV revolution was underway. I ended up shooting over a dozen TV spots with that camera, and combining it with some niffy film-look plugins, I managed to get some great looking images.

Then, in late 1999 we went into pre-production on my first feature film, Runnin’ At Midnite. Initially I wrote the budget for a 16MM shoot, with a blow up to 35 MM. I did this because that is what everyone told me I had to do. To make a long story short, I chucked that budget and went back to my roots as a DV filmmaker and decided to shoot the feature on the XL1. When my DP, Robert Ballo, told me about HD and some of his connections in the field, we decided to shoot on HD. You can read about my experiences in HD here.

Here is some test footage of the HF100 from Vimeo. I haven’t had a chance to upload any of my tests, but rest assured I’ll post when it’s online.

The film was shot on one of Sony’s First HD camera. It was a 100,000 camera, with an expensive downcoverter attached to it, and shot on expensive HDCAM tapes. Again, the whole thing was expensive. While I gave us some great images, it sort of went against my desire to have a more free, more nimble film crew. The body was large (Betacam body, actually) and the cabling was intense.

The film did great - DVD release, dozens of film festivals and screenings around the world - so I can’t complain. But ever since then I’ve been waiting for HD to catch up to my wish: portable, light, inexpensive and cinematic motion.

My wish arrived in the mail a few days ago in the form of the Canon HF100. The same as it’s twin, the Canon HF10, except this one has zeo moving parts as it records to fast Flash cards, which you can swap out as easy as you can on your digital still camera. The entire package is amazing. Check these specs out:

3.3 Megapixel Full HD CMOS Sensor

Full HD Lens-to Screen (1920 x 1080 Capture and Recording)

Canon 12x HD Video Zoom Lens

24p Cinema Mode

30p Progressive Mode

There are some more feature laden camera, but for $600 dollars this is one amazing camera. Online you’ll find a million reviews from people that debate whether this model is better than that model, whether this lens cap is sturdier than that lens cap, and so on. While these are all great, sometimes I think they are missing the point. We are in the middle of the golden age for filmmakers. For about 5k you can do now what you needed about 50k to do only eight years ago. It’s really amazing. The only reason for someone not to make the films s/he wants to make now is sheer laziness.

As for me, I’m actually considering shooting my next feature on this camera. Yes, there are better cameras out there, but not for this price point. I could shoot with the Red One and have zero paid actors, or shoot with three of these and get some great talent. A obvious choice to me, but what a great time to be making films, to have these kind of choices.

Happy shooting.

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