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 BROOKS
INSTITUTE INITIATES DIGITAL CINEMATOGRAPHY
CURRICULUM WITH PANASONIC 24P CAMERAS
Students Shoot "Real-World" Commercials with AG-DVX100A, AJ-SDX900
Cameras
SECAUCUS, NJ (May 23, 2004) – Brooks Institute, a world leader
in professional photographic and motion picture education, recently launched
a course
in Digital
Cinematography studies that introduces students to professional shooting conditions
with Panasonic’s 24p
AG-DVX100A DV Cinema™ and AJ-SDX900 DVCPRO Cinema™ camcorders.
With award-winning Director of Photography Daniel Pfisterer as instructor, the
course curriculum not only gives the students an intensive hands-on experience
with the cameras, but also introduces them to professional standards and deadlines
as they shoot 30-second commercial spots for actual clients.
Brooks, with a diverse Southern California faculty in Santa Monica and three
locations in Santa Barbara, CA, currently enrolls more than 600 students in its
film program, with four Degree Programs - Film & Video Production, Still
Photography, Visual Journalism and Visual Communication. The Film & Video
Production Degree currently is approved for three majors - Feature Film, Commercial
Film and Visual Effects & Animation. The degree earned at Brooks is a Bachelor
of Arts Degree (BA) and is equivalent to a traditional four-year university/college
BA.
To support its Digital Cinematography class, instituted by Program Director Glynn
Beard during the current school year, Brooks purchased five AG-DVX100As, an AJ-SDX900
and a Panasonic AJ-SD955B DVCPRO50 studio VTR. Instructor Daniel Pfisterer is
also the owner of 24pCine, LLC (www.24pCine.com), a commercial production company
based in Santa Monica, CA with a client base includes the BBC, Discovery Channel
and The Learning Channel (TLC). He has shot commercials and high-profile documentaries
for many international clients, including the United Nations.
 "Having shot on Digi Betacam PAL for most of my productions, I was curious
how Panasonic’s new 24p cameras would compare,"Pfisterer said. "I’d
done many tests with both the DVX100A and the SDX900, and based on the great
results, recommended these cameras wholeheartedly to Brooks, where I have been
teaching cinematography for a year.
"My tests had actually cross-compared the Panasonic progressive cameras
to both 16mm and 35mm film. With this knowledge, I designed a new, upper-division
digital
cinematography class from the ground up with the goal to shoot a series of
30-second commercials on both the DVX100A and the SDX900, as well as Arriflex
film cameras. My objective is to help Brooks dive into digital acquisition
and give them an edge over other film programs that cling to a traditional ‘celluloid’ curriculum."
Pfisterer described the progression of his students’ assignments. "During
the eight-week, high-intensity course, we produced 16 spots with only one-week
turnaround time for each spot. Some of the commercials were for actual clients,
others were spec spots. Apart from the theory of digital image acquisition,
processing and recording, the class was very much a hands-on, immersion experience.
I decided to make this an industry class, giving my students the opportunity
to get to know important players in the movie capitol. Class meetings were
held at Ascent Media, Clairmont Camera, Otto Nemenz and FotoKem."
He continued, "Every spot had to be shot on both a 24p camera and a film
camera. The guidelines were designed to test the cameras under various lighting
conditions, including nighttime with high contrast and low light, and high-key
daylight scenes with fewer lower contrast ratios. Before shooting, I let the
students test the dynamic range or latitude of the camera. We found that the
DVX100A can handle 6 stops of underexposure and 2 2/3 stops of overexposure
for a stunning total of 8 2/3 stops, a 400:1 ratio of tonal range from darkest
black to brightest white) in the 24p mode with cine-Gamma. The other DV cameras
we tested could only handle a maximum of 5 stops, a 32:1 range. (Negative stock
has a range of 8-10 stops.)
 "The first two spots were shot on the DVX100A and 16mm film. The great
thing about this small camcorder is that you can literally go out and shoot a
short
film or documentary, edit in 24p on your Power Book G4 or Power Mac G5 using
Final Cut Pro and come back from the shoot with a finished cut. Thanks to the
ease of use and simple work flow, each group was able to turn around one spot
per week."
Pfisterer added, "The workflow for shooting on mini DV and DVCPRO50 (SDX900)
was the same; we edited on Final Cut Pro on a dual 2 GHz Power Mac G5, and
we captured
via IEEE 1394 from the AJ-SD955B deck. Ascent Media in Burbank up-rezed our
edited 24p spots to D-5 HD using a Wilcox Alchemist Platinum. This allowed
us to do tape-to-tape color correction on a DaVinci 2k Spirit system, facilitating
some tweaking of exposures, black-levels, contrast, color, saturation, etc.
 "I asked Ascent Media to do a film-out of several of the DVX100 and SDX900
spots. The class and I would then compare these film-outs with the spots that
originated
on film and with the 24p commercials. The spots that were shot on the DVX100
or the SDX900 looked considerably more filmic than anything I had ever seen
from any non-progressive cameras, including my own Digital Betacam PAL as well
as DVCAM cameras I have used. We screened all of the spots on a high-definition
DLP projector with Aarmadillo front-end processing to compare the 24p-originated
spots to their film-originated siblings.
"The first impression I had while watching the DVX100 spots projected
on a large 40-foot screen was how well the image held up on such a large screen.
While
this is only a 25Mbps format, it has detail resolution that looks close to
that of 16mm film. Spots that were shot on the SDX900, a 50Mbps format, were
even more impressive, with rich blacks that held amazing amounts of shadow
detail and highlights that did not blow out. At times, the images acquired
on the 24p cameras looked so brilliant with rich but natural colors that I
caught myself double-checking with the projectionist to make sure we weren’t
in fact looking at a film-originated spot. When switching back to film, the
most obvious giveaway was the grain."
Discussing some practical aspects of the coursework, Pfisterer said, "We
discovered some non-technical things when doing our comparisons. Not only were
the 24p cameras easier to use than the film camera, performances captured on
the 24p camera in several cases seemed more natural. The performers seemed
more at ease with the smaller camera. Cumbersome, bulky film cameras can definitely
have the effect of making an actor feel uneasy, very aware of the artifice
of production. Panasonic’s 24p cameras are unobtrusive and less intimidating
to the student filmmakers as well as to the cast, improving their performances
and ultimately helping you make a better movie. Moreover, the film-like images
the cameras produce will put students and indie filmmakers at a competitive
advantage both at festivals and film markets versus folks shooting with conventional
(interlaced) video cameras."
 Pfisterer has recommended for Brooks to put a stop on purchasing any more non-24p
cameras. Instead, they are considering buying more DVX100As, a second SDX900
and probably a VariCam in the near future. "Students shopping around
for film schools may want to make sure that the school they choose is on the
cutting edge of technology. I feel that as more and more films are shot on
24p cameras, why
not be ahead
of the curve? Give students the tools and training they need to be ready for
the real world once they graduate."
The AG-DVX100A offers over 20 new user-requested features, plus all the top-performing
functions of its predecessor (AG-DVX100). New features include enhanced 24p
and 30p progressive mode functions; improved color reproduction; new cine-like
gamma curves and enhanced image adjustments; a slow shutter function for higher
sensitivity and dramatic motion effects; smoother zooming and focusing; a new
squeeze mode for 16:9 recording; and new auto focus assist and interval recording
modes for improved ease and versatility.
Panasonic’s AJ-SDX900 offers filmmakers the ultimate in acquisition flexibility,
expressed in the operator-controllable selection of EFP-quality 4:2:2 sampled
DVCPRO50 or classic 4:1:1 sampled DVCPRO recording, with support for native
16:9 wide-screen. The
AJ-SDX900 combines in one camera the "look"and "feel"of
electronic film, high-performance 525-line field production, and low-cost NTSC
compatible news. It is also the first 50Mbps 4:2:2 sampled standard definition
camcorder to offer 24 frames-per-second progressive scan (480/24p) acquisition,
in addition to 30 frames-per-second progressive (480/30p) and 60-fields-per-second
interlace scan (480/60i) capture.
For more information on Brooks Institute, visit www.brooks.edu.
Daniel Pfisterer can be contacted at Daniel.Pfisterer@brooks.edu or Daniel@24pCine.com.
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