Independent Filmmaker Helmut Schleppi Shot His New Online Series The Interiors in the Rainforests of Panama with Two JVC GY-HD110U Camcorders

Shot in the rainforests of Panama, The Interior is an Internet-only weekly TV series, shot in 24p HD (720p) with two JVC GY-HD110U camcorders, small Litepanel LEDs mounted on the cameras (and elsewhere), and several sets of IDX Endura Lithium Ion batteries. The 13-part miniseries was created by Geert Heetebrij and Helmut Schleppi, a Dutch producing/writing team who say they are determined to explore a new paradigm in the financing, production and distribution of original content. Their working motto: “Don't scale the walls of Hollywood. Walk around them.”
The team’s feature film, A Foreign Affair (released on DVD as 2 Brothers and A Bride), was captured in Russia with actual would-be brides and would-be husbands functioning as extras. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and has been distributed worldwide.

Using low-cost production techniques (including Final Cut Pro editing) and the Internet, the pair produced the series with $75,000 of their own money. They even cast the show online, and will do so again for season 2. Shari Odell, a camera operator for Fox’s 24, served as second-unit DP in Panama. Gary Hoffman was location sound mixer.

HD Studio spoke with Schleppi, who also served as DP/director of The Interior, a week after the first episode appeared online. After a week, Schleppi said the site had thousands of visitors, and the number is growing every hour. The series has been posting for the past six weeks at post facility REBEL ION, in Studio City, CA.

Q: You’re shooting HD video for distribution on the Internet. Will viewers be able to tell the difference?
A: The goal for this footage is wider than the Internet. We plan to make a full-length feature and possibly show this series on broadcast TV as well.

From a technical viewpoint, HDV offers us some advantages, even on the Internet. The HDV format gives us flexibility during color-correction. We can see what the QuickTime compression will do to the original footage and make corrections accordingly. We’re making extensive use of Flash codecs, and HDV gives us more room to stretch the images and add color if we need to. Between Flash and Final Cut Pro there are some color and gamma issues that we need to take care of. With HDV there’s more room to do this and achieve the results we’re looking for. With MiniDV, the footage is less flexible.

Q: You’re recording to HDV tape for this series. Why?
A: Well, I used one of the new Panasonic P2 camcorders once, for a unique helicopter sequence in South Africa, and one of the P2 cards I was using crashed on me and I wound up losing all my data. I could not get the same scene again. It was very frustrating. There’s a real risk that not everyone is aware of. With tape, the risks are greatly reduced. We were in some remote areas of Panama shooting unique footage, and I wanted to be sure I got what I needed before leaving the jungle. We also recorded two-channel audio on the videotape through the cameras.

The Panamanian crew that normally shoots on film was very skeptical of our HDV cameras. They’d seen other HD video cameras fail miserably in the heat and humidity. The high humidity in Panama tends to cause the heads to clog on other VTRs. After working with our HDV cameras and seeing the footage we got, they became instant converts to our way of working.

Q: What do you like about the IDX batteries?
A: We like the Endura batteries because you can use them to easily balance the lightweight JVC cameras. Using the IDX PowerLink system, we could stack two Endura E-7 and E-10 V-Mount batteries together on a camera back. This gave us more record time and extra weight to counterbalance the lens. We had to shoot the entire series in three weeks – 80 percent handheld. We would shoot for 10 hours or more a day (with short beaks) and the batteries never failed us. I was very impressed. The results were great. Despite challenging logistics, power was never a problem.

Q: Anything you’d change about the production?
A: Well, when we do it again we’ll use prime lenses. For this we used the lens that comes standard with the JVC camera. Primes would give the footage less depth of field and likely a better color saturation. But you’d also need a focus puller, which would require a higher budget. Yet, to be honest, many of the people who have seen the footage would never know if we used prime lenses or not. The images we got with the standard JVC package are that good.

To view the series and find out more, go to www.theinterior.tv.