The Genesis After Superman

The success of the Genesis on Superman Returns and the many features it has been used on has been well documented, but what has its affect been on the local market and what are the benefits for Australian DOPs?

The Genesis has been used on local projects as diverse as major feature films, short films, commercials and TV station promos.

The most publicised production has been Apocalypto, shot by Dean Semler in the jungles of Mexico. In an interview for American Cinematographer magazine, Dean commented on how even during the testing of the Genesis he was “Astounded” by its performance in low light, how he “Never thought in a million years he would be shooting digital” and that “2500 ASA is something that had never been in my vocabulary.” Dean later commented that “This camera can see in the dark.”

It was the extraordinary performance of the Genesis in low light that helped convince Greig Fraser to use the camera on The Bug, a short film directed by Jane Campion.

“My major issue with the previous HD formats had always been the lack of exposure latitude when recording to tape or digital files” states Greig. “During our testing this was the primary requirement I was looking at.”

“I shot exposures inside, next to a window at dusk as the ambient light outside was fading. Rather than the image becoming extremely murky and aesthetically unpleasing, I found the underexposed light on my subject’s face to have a beautiful, painterly quality about it. The Genesis held detail in the shadows area that I am sure film would have lost. Combined with these underexposed areas, the detail that held outside in the relatively bright sky was amazing.”

On Apocalypto, Mel Gibson would keep the camera running for up to 40 minutes at a time so as not to interrupt the actors and at around $A135 a tape, it certainly did not stretch the budget. This flexibility and potential cost savings for large shoots also aide the lower budget productions as experienced by DP Simon Higgins and Director Dean Friske during their filming of the recent evocative summer campaign for Foxtel.

They filmed 35 talent individually over two weeks on many locations. There was no time for elaborate set-ups. The job required a flexible kit that could provide high production values. The Genesis saved time and money by allowing the generous use of natural light and avoiding film processing costs. The candid nature of the shoot wasn’t interrupted by mag changes every five minutes.

Higgins said “I was sceptical about not shooting on film. I've learnt to shoot HD in the last few years and have developed a mild paranoia about protecting the highlights in frame. The Genesis has an inbuilt tamper proof exposure setting that maximises the highlight latitude of the format. The rushes looked very close to what I might expect from a compressed best light telecine transfer. Therefore we were only a grade away from getting some great pictures. We shot the equivalent of 130 rolls of 35mm for only a fraction of the cost, but achieved a really surprising near film quality. The other bonus is the non adjustable rear focus design. Back focus just isn’t an issue with this camera.”

Friske argued that for 10% of the budget, the Genesis could easily help achieve a 50% increase on production value. “There’s nothing worse than hearing of a commercial costing a bomb and not seeing any of the cash on screen” Friske said. “In this day and age, it’s all about getting as much of your budget on screen as possible. Anything less isn’t just being lazy, it’s being stupid.” Needless to say, Friske felt it was a worthwhile investment.

DP Hugh Miller and Director Husien Alcajic enjoyed a similar experience when shooting promos for Channel 9. Hugh believes that the Genesis “Is probably the most exciting and cinematographer friendly digital camera system on the market.”

“We chose it for the upcoming Channel 9 promos for the lensing options and the ability to slot straight into Nine’s existing HD post pathway. The image quality and dynamic range is outstanding. It is fabulous being able to achieve a shallow 35mm depth of field that is not possible with 2/3" CCD cameras. I was surprised how versatile it was to work with; leaving so much room in post to achieve whatever look the director is after.” Husien states that “Shooting on the Genesis was a great experience. I was excited by the possibilities of an HD camera that would give me everything traditional 35mm would and was blown away by the image quality and the unique look that you can get. It’s definitely the way to go and is especially good for streamlining the post aspect of the two spots we shot.”

Garry Wapshott was introduced to the Genesis on a shoot for Utopia films at the end of 2006. “Using the Genesis for the first time was not as scary as I had anticipated. Apart from the HD monitor replacing my light meter, which in itself is rather daunting for someone who usually relies heavily on this piece of equipment, everything else felt and looked very familiar. I would even go so far as to say that in certain cases having the advantage of knowing what is coming off the monitor gives you a great platform to experiment, especially with your lighting.”
“The results were excellent and the fact that the Technical Director from the post facility was able to see the footage and make judgments at the time of shooting, gave us a huge advantage with our particular project, which we otherwise would not have had.”

“I think that for certain projects, the Genesis would definitely be the camera of choice, given the overall excellent results I have achieved with it and also the flexibility it gives in allowing results to be seen instantaneously and therefore encouraging experimentation that would otherwise not be possible.”

Working with the Genesis on The Condemned by Ross Emery

The Condemned is a story concerning at its core, versions of reality, framed within a story about a reality TV producer prepared to take the format to its violent extreme on a jungle island and broadcasting the contestants’ battles live on the internet.

The visual imperative was to present the viewer with different ways of “seeing” the story depending on whose perspective they were experiencing. In my mind it was very important to reinforce the story point that reality can have a theory of relativity, i.e. the truth depends on where you view your reality from.

Shooting with the Genesis was something that jumped into my mind very early as a way to manipulate the images. We decided to shoot the jungle scenes on a high speed film stock for a grainier, harder edge look and the control room, where the images are recorded and broadcast from, on the Genesis. This was to give the story a delineation between the buffered video images on the screens in the control room and the harsh realty of the violence happening to the combatants in the jungle.

The Genesis gave us a number of great advantages in a creative and production sense. The look was a given and worked well to assist the story. The set of the control room was filled with monitors. Using the Genesis system let us see how the monitors were behaving and we were able to adjust monitors to get the best result. The scenes within the control room were mostly long dialogue pieces and the savings over shooting film were considerable.

We shot the rest of the film on Panavision Millennium XL cameras with Primo lenses, so when we swapped to the Genesis, the lenses, camera support and accessories all stayed the same. It made for a very smooth transition from film to HD. Having crew who had previous experience with the Genesis was a great help. Some departments didn’t even notice that we had changed to shooting with the Genesis.

Dailies were transferred to D5 as a safety master and then Digi-Beta tapes were made for the editing department. This is an area that needs some attention because some post production facilities are not up to scratch when dealing with high end HD material. They seem unwilling to take the steps to give us the back up we need to use this as a production device. This I’m sure will get better as more productions move to this format.

Grading the film was done on a Baselight DI grading system and the result was great. The Genesis material was very flexible and we ended up making some significant alterations to the colouration of the images without much ill effects. In the end I was expecting to see a greater difference between the Genesis images and the film, but the look of the Genesis was more like film than I had imagined.

I’m glad I made the decision to shoot film and Genesis mixed. It logistically worked without a hitch. The savings we made gave us some flexibility in other areas of the budge. The result was an advantage to the film both creatively and financially.

Advantages of the Genesis During Post Production

The Genesis uses an RGB Sensor (Not Bayer Pattern) with equal resolution and equal MTF for each colour. Keying is easier and the edge definition of mattes is better.

The Genesis uses a Super 35mm sized sensor. The angle of view, depth of field and optical quality of familiar 35mm format lenses is retained.

The Sensor geometry is constant and fixed. It doesn’t introduce any secondary geometric distortion.

The Genesis has very low noise. Matching composited elements becomes much easier.

Genesis footage has a defined Gamma response which can be completely linearised.

Genesis footage has significantly reduced colour crosstalk. Keying, integration of CGI and colour space conversion is all easier and more accurate.

No red, anti-halation backing, halos on highlights for easier keying and compositing.

Never any steadiness issues.

Real-time, on-set compositing in HD for live interaction is possible.

On-set live capture of actual frames to computer is possible.

Instant on-set confirmation of Green Screen quality, including numerical exposure value via Waveform Monitor.

Increased motion blur is possible by selecting the 360° shutter.

Multiple cameras, shooting different speeds can be set to the same f-stop by selecting Constant Gain Mode.