As the main shooter for a museum dedicated to the news industry, Tom Haller shoots HD footage for a variety of documentaries and news celebrity interviews that will be displayed on widescreen monitors throughout the museum's new facility, set to open in Arlington, VA, in 2007.
Haller uses an Ikegami HDLV-90 1080i camcorder with a Canon 8:1.28 lens that records to DVCPRO HD videotape. HD footage is offlined in SD, then EDLs are onlined in full res on one of the museum's two Avid DS Nitris NLE systems. He also uses a variety of specialty macro lenses, such as the Boriscope, to get extremely tight close-ups when creatively shooting static objects), such as a recent shoot of a typewriter.
Q: Many people in news don't like the way they look on-screen in HD. Have you experienced this in your work?
Definitely. Our first reaction to HD was that many people in the news industry were concerned how they would look on camera, because of the higher resolution. It continues to be a source of anxiety for many well-known journalists. With the Ikegami camera, we get beautiful soft pictures that do not accentuate the blemishes on people's faces as much as with other electronic cameras. I don't use any filters when shooting, because we want as mush information on the original as possible, but we can (and do) fix people in post, when necessary.
Q: What about focusing issues when shooting HD?
I've used other HD cameras that are difficult to focus when you are shooting a specific subject within a noisy environment [such as crowd scenes]. I find I'm constantly having to back-focus to get the images I want. The image you see in the viewfinder is not what you see when you get back to the edit suite. It's usually more soft than you think it is. If you don't have a monitor on set, it can screw you every time. I can do more run-and-gun shooting with my Ikegami than with other cameras, feeling confident that I know what I'm getting right away.
Q: What do you do about framing for widescreen when shooting a talking head interview?
We're always putting a graphic (created in Adobe After Effects) to the left or right side of the screen, so I frame my subjects tight, to the extreme right or left, knowing that the graphic will help fill the 16:9 frame nicely. With talking-head interviews, which is the majority of work I shoot, it is tough to judge where to place the subject in the frame. I don't like to center them because it leaves a lot of empty space on screen. It's a challenge, but you get good at it after a while.