Canon HD Camcorders Bring Cinema Verité to the Masses

by MM Staff | Published January 14, 2009

Inspired storytelling, superior HDTV production values and prudent budgeting are essential elements in the competitive world of producing innovative programming—whether for today’s cable networks or local cinemas. For Varuna Entertainment, achieving these goals is made easier by using Canon’s XH G1 HD Camcorders to capture dramatic, challenging and often dangerous footage for two of their latest cable reality series.

“Canon’s XH G1 HD Camcorders represent a technology advance that has allowed us to improve both the quality of our work and our costs,” notes Prema Ball, producer at the full-service, Los Angeles-based production company. With a growing roster of acclaimed cinema verité, documentary and story-based reality programming to its credit, Varuna Entertainment has led the way in using HD technology to produce feature films, music videos and corporate media.

Mountain Warriors
Capturing HD video of skiers in treacherous alpine conditions places unique demands on both people and equipment. For this reason, Varuna Entertainment chose the compact, fixed zoom-lens convenience of Canon’s XH G1 HD Camcorder to shoot its new series “Ski Patrol: Crystal Mountain,” which debuted on truTV this past October.

“It was a hazardous shoot,” Ball explains. “We followed and filmed a ski patrol as they rescued people and blew-up potential avalanche sites all over the mountain for the entire season. The XH G1 HD Camcorder really helped us out a lot because of its compact size, ease of maneuverability and its durability. They were absolute warriors on the mountain.”

“The XH G1 HD Camcorder worked out great for that series,” agrees Varuna Entertainment director of photography Chun Ming Huang. “The XH G1’s 20x zoom lens is fast. And you can start off pretty darn wide and go in pretty darn tight, so you get that good variety right there.”

“Choosing the XH G1 HD Camcorder was a great decision because it is light enough to be held while skiing and also produces excellent image and sound quality, even though we put them through a pounding for 12 weeks on the mountain,” recalls Bryan Stratte, Director of “Ski Patrol: Crystal Mountain.” “Shooting this type of show doesn’t give you the luxury of set-up times or second takes. It’s all in the moment, and you’ve got to have a camera that’s professional and fast, so the Canon XH G1 has been quite an asset for us.”

“Some of the skiing shots were captured by our camera operators holding the XH G1 HD Camcorders on monopods,” Ball elaborates. “Occasionally the operators would fall, and it was much better that they were holding the lightweight XH G1 than a heavier HD camera. A bigger HD camera could cause as much damage to an operator as the fall itself.”

Shooting Characters
From the heights of a snowy mountain to the depths of the world’s busiest shipping system, the latest creation by the team of Jason Morgan and Robert Zazzali is “In Too Deep,” a series for The History Channel documenting the hazardous world of marine salvage operations.

“We filmed a barge being lifted from the Mississippi River,” relates Ball. “That’s a very large operation. We have crews shooting several wrecks right now that were the result of Hurricane Gustav.”

“The XH G1 HD Camcorders are fantastic for the ‘run-and-gun’ shooting we’re doing on barges and tug boats, which have cramped spaces we wouldn’t otherwise be able to get into,” Stratte adds. “In addition to directing, I also shoot portions of these shows myself. The XH G1’s give me the flexibility to be able to shoot and still call the shots, which is awesome. These cameras do a wonderful job of capturing cinema verité moments and making them beautiful.”

Stratte cites another key advantage of using Canon XH G1 HD Camcorders that’s also crucial to the production of reality series.

“We’re shooting our shows to be as real-to-life as possible,” he confides. “The characters we shoot are not actors. We don’t want anyone ‘playing for the camera.’ The XH G1’s are not invasive. After a while they start to blend in. Not having a big, obtrusive camera pointed at their faces allows them to relax and be themselves.”

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Comment by n64 emulators on 1/14/09 at 10:57 pm: Film making keeps getting better and better. I need to chuck away my camera from just a year ago! Awful how things outdate so quickly. Never ending :(