LOS ANGELES, CA (Mar. 16, 2001) -- Crystal Lake Entertainment of Encino, CA recently selected Panasonic Broadcast’s AJ-PD900WA 2/3” DVCPRO50 Progressive camcorders to shoot, in its entirety, “Extreme Close-Up,” the latest theatrical film directed by Sean Cunningham, creator of the “Friday the 13th” franchise, originator of the “House” movie series, and Executive Producer of the upcoming “Jason X,” to be released in theaters this August by New Line Cinema.

“Extreme Close-Up,” a whodunit thriller set in the world of reality television, was shot late last year in Los Angeles and is currently in post-production, with an anticipated mid-year release date. Crystal Lake rented the Panasonic DVCPRO50 progressive equipment from rental company Birns & Sawyer, Hollywood, CA.

“Shooting in digital video was, to a certain extent, a budgetary choice but more importantly, the medium allowed us to move very quickly on material that had suddenly become highly topical,” said the film’s producer Geoff Garrett.

“Having committed to video, we decided DVCPRO Progressive afforded us an image quality superior to digi Beta with attendant cost-savings that permitted us to have two cameras.”

Director of Photography James Mathers added, “Another valid reason to shoot digital on this particular project was the nature of the subject matter, a show about a TV show. We shot a great deal in a cinema verite style with multiple cameras, where one camera would sometimes enter the other's frame. All of our footage was usable, even the ‘prop’ camera’s POV, and it was quite an interesting dynamic when one camera’s feed wound up on a monitor that was being shot by the other, giving us two different, simultaneous views of the same action. There were also many monitors in frame for locations like the control room, edit suite and TV studios. Although it is, of course, possible to sync a film camera to a monitor, it could not have been easier than shooting digital cameras with synchro-scan.

“I decided to treat ‘Extreme Close-Up’ like a film shoot. Instead of relying too much on a monitor or scopes, I did my testing in pre-production much like I would on a film. After determining the sensitivity of the camera when operated at -3dB was equivalent to ASA 400 film at 24FPS, as I'm used to shooting with film, I lit by eye, assisted by my light meter. We didn’t even carry any large high-resolution monitors or scopes of any kind, which would have been costly and probably slowed us down a lot. We got by with one 8” battery operated monitor per camera for the director to see what he was getting, and it was all we really needed.

“Once the cameras were set up to my liking, I actually began to feel more confident of my results than with film. Having preordained the multitude of settings that control an image as far as colorimetry, contrast range, etc., what I saw in dailies became more predictable than I sometimes get when I’m not in good sync with the telecine colorist. I also understand that being digital, I will still have quite a bit of latitude when color correcting in post”

Garrett explained that the off-line edit is being performed in a DV format on the production company’s own Media 100 NLE system. The on-line edit and HD color correction will be done in 480p at Complete Post (Hollywood, CA), which specializes in dealing with this new format. The 480p master will be upconverted to 1080i, and scanned out to film at CFI Laboratories (Hollywood, CA).

Garrett noted, “The new digital video formats create a number of choices for filmmakers, and ‘Extreme Close-Up’ definitely benefited from that increased selection.”

DVCPRO50 Progressive provides content creators a new means of acquiring and finishing in high resolution, while saving money by shooting on a nearly standard definition budget. DVCPRO50 Progressive offers 480 lines of Progressive Scan recording at a digital video data rate of 50Mbps, a low 5:1 DV-based compression ratio, 4:2:0 signal processing, four 16-bit 48 kHz uncompressed digital audio channels, and compatibility with 25Mbps DVCPRO, 50Mbps DVCPRO50 and 100Mbps DVCPRO HD.

DVCPRO50 Progressive produces images with full 4:2:2 detail, and 480 progressive scanned pictures compress better and more efficiently. With 60 complete frames per second, 480p delivers sports and live-action with film-like clarity and is the perfect medium for upconverting and inter-cutting with HDTV formats as well as for digital cinema (tape-to-film) applications.

Capable of recording either 16:9 or 4:3 images, the AJ-PD900WA DVCPRO50 Progressive camcorder features three 2/3-inch M-FIT CCDs and records 480 progressive scan images in 50Mbps and 480 interlace images in 50Mbps and 25Mbps. Other key features include 33 minutes of progressive recording, 10-bit digital processing, a signal-to-noise ratio of 63dB, and minimum illumination of 1.6 lux.

Fully-operational at under 14 pounds, it consumes less than 28 watts of power and offers a bayonet mount for high definition or standard definition 2/3-inch lenses.