Seeing Europe in HD

by
Randall Paris Dark
Co-Founder, President, HD Vision Studios
Studio City, California
Contact Randall For More Information

The goal of Non-fiction programming has always been to document reality without manipulation. The forcibly controlled medium of motion pictures makes it difficult if not impossible at times, to achieve. Because of the limitations within the aesthetic itself, creating a situation in which real moments can simply “happen” is rarely if ever possible. The High Definition (HD) video format however, has made significant strides in freeing me from the obstacles standing in the way of spontaneous, undirected reality.

The benefits of HD have never been more apparent than in my new documentary series, European Getaways. My crew had three short weeks to capture images from 10 of Europe’s premier cities – Paris, London, Rome, Naples, Amsterdam, Venice, Monte Carlo, Nice, Athens and Barcelona. The footage shot in each city was to be edited into a 25-minute stand-alone documentary. I decided on a guerilla-style approach. I divided the crew in half, gave them each five cities, an HD camera, and Maxell HDCAM videocassettes.

The goal with this series was to show these famous places from the point of view of a first-time tourist. In each city we bought tourist maps and traveled from destination to destination, emulating what any foreign visitor might do. What I wanted to achieve was an accurate representation of each locale, so that a family planning to visit one of these cities could watch our programs and decide which location and which attractions would best appeal to their interests.

With this type of project, HD has two huge advantages over film: the ease of camera set-ups and the fact that we didn’t need to get our footage developed. By looking through the viewfinder on my HD camera I could see exactly what I was shooting and recording. The sound was fed directly into the camera. As a result, preparation time was significantly decreased. This allowed for more flexibility when moving from location to location, without sacrificing the quality of the images.

Free from long hours of preparation, we were able to shoot 50-60 set-ups per day. One of the best examples of this advantage was at the Vatican, in Rome. We witnessed the Pope giving mass and were given permission to shoot footage of him from just a few feet away. Using film, we would have had to meter the light, make sure the sound was synched, and record the sound separately with a DAT recorder. Because of the ease of operation with our HD Camera, we simply turned the camera on, white balanced, and recorded the event with sound recorded directly onto the Maxell tapes. Our shooting caused no disruptions to the mass.

I was so confident in the footage I shot that I shipped it home without even giving it so much as a glance. Thanks to the reliability of the camera, and because I trust the reliability of Maxell’s HDCAM cassettes, I was confident there would be no problems with exposure or digital glitches. What I saw was what I got, in real time.

It wasn’t until I got back to Los Angeles to begin editing that I actually saw everything I shot. I was able to edit online, directly from the masters shot in Europe. Because we wanted to accurately represent all the familiar European Icons, color correction was practically nonexistent. I wanted to represent each city as we saw it, not as we could perceive it through the subjective magic of post production.

Herring Broadcasting, Inc., a parent of the “Wealth TV” HD network, has recently purchased our series and will air it on their network. . The best way to see it is in true high definition, and we’re hoping that those who tune in have as good a time experiencing Europe as we did.