Dark takes the heat for LG Electronics

High Five
HD Pioneers Cox and Dark Take the Heat and Capture Spectacular Footage

Spectators at a drag race in Tucson, Arizona rubbernecked in amazement as an unusual looking vehicle crossed their paths over and over again throughout the day. It wasn’t a top fuel funny car or even a jet. It was an all-terrain vehicle with a portable high definition VTR, a nine-inch HD monitor, a tripod, a ton of batteries and motley HD crew piled on.

HD pioneers, Kristen Cox and Randall Dark were hired by LG Electronics to capture HD demonstration content in 1080p at 4:2:2. The content is destined for use in retail stores nationwide where it will demonstrate the capabilities of LG’s 2007 flat-panel digital HDTVs.

Equipped with Sony F-900 Cine Alta cameras owned by HD Vision Studios, Cox decided to rent the SR-1 VTR and cart the machine and monitor around.

The production team members varied from location to location. In all the production shot five separate demo programs for LG. “Nature” was shot on location at the LA Zoo, Three music videos, “Legacy,” “One Day” and “Like an Ocean” by artists Dennis Lamar and Angie Paris, were shot on location in Waco, Texas and the drag race, “Speed,” was shot on location in Arizona.

Arizona was the location where ATVs were utilized.

In Los Angeles and Waco, Cox and her team traveled on a rolling cart and a Mag Liner. Shooters Dark, Allan Westbrook and Dave Nash were tethered by coaxial cable to the cart or ATV where DIT, Sean Fairburn managed the images being recorded directly to the SR.

Cox directed from the vantage point of the nine-inch HD monitor. The cart carried the VTR, monitor batteries and small sundries. They also carried lenses, additional batteries, chargers, and other gear.

“Each location presented its own set of challenges. The one common thread was that we went through batteries very quickly and all but one of our set-ups were outdoor locations where power was not available. We had to get pretty creative when it came to finding a place to charge batteries. In Waco, we used Baylor University’s campus and had to be prepared to shoot between classes or else deal with a herd of college students passing through. The drag race presented us with a very large venue to cover and some tricky camera angles .Oh yeah, and there was the catastrophic bodily harm risk as well,” says Cox.

“Kristen Cox and Randall Dark are pioneers in HD program production, true experts in their field, always pushing the envelope of creativity and HD production techniques,” says John Taylor, vice president, public affairs, LG Electronics, USA. “So it made perfect sense for LG to reach out to HD Vision Studios and 16x9 Productions to produce unique and compelling 1080p programming for our newest full HD flat-screen HDTVs.”

from Digital Cinema Report