Some things are just easier at night, like getting HD to look more like film. In the light of day, things get a whole lot trickier. If you really want to push an electronic camera to the limit, try shooting into blasted-out light, under fluorescents, and then doing the ultimate high-wire act, extensive day-for-night. That’s enough to give any cinematographer acid reflux, especially if he hasn’t used the camera before. But when The 4400, USA Network’s five-episode microseries, aired in July, critics immediately noted that the look of the footage skillfully dramatized the plotline – thousands of earthlings abducted by aliens over the decades are returned home and become strangers in a strange new land: the United States.

Director Yves Simoneau didn’t need aliens or spaceships to communicate the paranormal. He needed a DP who could stick and move on a four-hour pilot schedule but deliver the considered lighting of a feature film, moving from cold, clinical set-ups to warm, romantic ones. The buzz among the eagle eyes started quickly after the broadcast: It was the first outing for the Grass Valley Viper in prime time, so they speculated on everything from the glass to the recording devices used. As it turned out, just like the feature Collateral, The 4400 crew had teamed the Viper with Sony HDCAM SR decks.

When cinematographer Tom Burstyn signed on, the producers and the studio were locked in a Super-16-versus-35mm stand-off. Burstyn suggested HD. He’d tested Grass Valley’s Viper and felt that at its 4:2:2 VideoStream setting, the camera gave him latitude to do "painting" later in post. So Burstyn shot straight, opting not to make adjustments at the camera head, but adding color and contrast with light. This method, he says, saved time. "The big difference shooting HD, says Burstyn, is "we’re used to lighting for the shadows. I think for video, you have to do it backwards and start with the highlights."

Burstyn rented three Vipers from Plus 8 in Vancouver along with three Sony SRW-5000 decks. (At the time, Sony’s new SRW-1 decks were in short supply and still in beta.) Two camera "buggies" were configured to roll the decks around with 14-inch Sony monitors and Leader vectorscopes (about 60 pounds of equipment). The two separate carts allowed the first unit to move on to the next set-up while the second unit held back to pick up insert shots.

Extensive Steadicam work was done with a cable wrangler handling the single cable that ran back to the deck as an operator moved in and out of elevators and down halls. The complaint heard on the set was a pretty novel one: The camera’s too light. Burstyn says that weights and a wind baffle solved the problem and predicts that a digital magazine will eventually give the Viper a more familiar feel. To handle car shots, the crew simply loaded the HDCAM SR decks into the trunk.

Burstyn, who’d shot in HD twice before using CineAlta cameras, was flying the Viper for the first time and he discovered that it changed the way that he worked. He found himself lighting without a meter and checking what he’d done only after he’d finished. There are advantages in the latitude of the Viper output, which he says "is almost as good as 35mm film. Because you can see exactly what the final result is with monitors on the set, you can really sculpt your shadows. You know exactly when you’re falling off into black, whereas in film you have to leave some fudge factor in there in case the lab is having a bad day."

Lighting became more efficient, Burstyn explains, because the camera maintains a lot more contrast in shadows than a film camera. "If you were doing a night scene exterior with a deep distance in film," he says, "you’d have to deal with those muddy shadows way off in the back, whereas with the Viper, the shadows have some integrity, some punch to them, so you can leave them alone."

For his crew, none of whom he says had prior video experience, job descriptions changed, especially for first ADs, who were relieved of the responsibility of loading magazines and starting and stopping the camera. These functions were taken over by the digital imaging technician (DIT), whose job it was to make sure that frame rates were set in the three SRW-5000 decks, that the decks were genlocked, and that audio was being laid down on the videotape. Additionally, the DIT had to make sure that iris levels were correct and that all monitors were fed (the production used a combination of Apple Cinema Displays and SD monitors, which required downconversion).

Freed of the care and feeding of the camera, the ADs could concern themselves more with craft, says Michael Shugrue, VP at Vancouver’s Plus 8. "They were dealing with the f-stop, their focal marks, their lens choice and their filters, and the DIT basically is taking the responsibility for both cameras. He had to plug in three things in the morning- the two cameras and power- then they could start laying down bars and tone from the audio mixer."

Burstyn admits he was "greedy" about glass. He picked up a complete set of Zeiss DigiPrimes (5mm-70mm), which he calls "magnificent" and used whenever possible. For shots requiring long lenses, he went with the Fujinon’s E Series zooms (HAe10 X 10 and HAe3 X 5). He also packed an Angenieux Optimo and Innovision Optics’ HD snorkel lens.

With the sci-fi project behind him, Burstyn says from his home in New Zealand that he’s sold on the Viper for television projects and is looking forward to using the camera again – this time in FilmStream mode.

Produced by Viacom in association with American Zoetrope and Renegade 83 for USA Network

Executive Producers: Ira Behr, Maira Suro and Rene Echevarria

Producer: Brent Karl Clackson

Director: Yves Simoneau

Director of Photography: Tom Burstyn

Camera Operator: Trig Singer

First Assistant Camera: Bob Findley

Gaffer: Jeff Pentecoast

DIT (Digital Imaging Technicians): Alan McKinnon with John Ratcliffe and Chris Maybury

Colorist: Achim Kapitza (Rainmaker/Vancouver)

Equipment Rental: Plus 8, Vancouver