PlanetEarth - New High Mark for HD prioduction?

[sbove]

Forgive me if I'm behind the curve here...

This weekend I got an eyefull of the new Discovery/BBC "Planet Earth" being broadcast in 1080i on Discovery in a high end AV shop here in San Francisco on a bunch of very large expensive plasma and lcd sets...

Really phenomenally beautiful...arresting, captivating, gorgeous, some in 24fps, 99% in HD...a new high mark (IMO) for an HD production...

$25M budget, 5 years in production, 2,000 shooting days, 40 camera teams, 200 major locations, Cineflex gyro stabilized helicopter gimbal shots, low light work impossible in film, eleven 50 minute episodes...every episode followed by a two-minute behind-the-scenes look at how some of the footage was captured

Huw Cordey, a veteran BBC producer for 3 episodes:

"We shot a lot of footage on the Sony HDW-750, especially where we were controlling the light, such as in the cave," he said.

A Sony HDC-950 was used for much of the aerial gimbal shooting, along with a Canon HJ40 400x lens. The Panasonic Varicam, which Cordey sometimes used to give some sequences a film look, also got a workout at other sites. The gimbal from Cineflex LLC was equipped with a 400 mm Canon zoom lens that was able to closely track wildlife in natural habitats from hundreds of meters away without being detected by the animals.

The entire series--spanning nearly 2,000 shoot days--was captured in 720p, 1080i and 1080p--as well as a few sequences on HD-friendly 35mm film"

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0082/t.1997.html

And soon to be released in entirely on BlueRay...whole set prepriced at only $69.95:

http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Complete-BBC-DVD/dp/B000MRAAJW

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Earth_%28TV_series%29

[Tonaci Tran]

it was discussed earlier, but i had no idea it was going on hd dvdand blu ray. should be hella sweet on a 1080p plasma/lcd.

[Steve Gibby]

I've been watching each episode as it aired on Discovery - 2 more episodes on tonight. It's an outstanding series...

As I've watched it, I couldn't help but wonder how it would have looked if rather than 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and some 35mm film, it was shot primarily in 4k with RED One, with high-speed sequences with Phantom 65 and/or high speed fiim, and then downrezzed to 1080i for airing and 1080p for the Blu-Ray disks. End result = 35mm lens quality and DOF throughout, highly oversampled 4k down to HD, and a smaller production budget for an even better looking program.

As producers, we're all after the best looking project for the best budget. In this producer's opinion, the next Planet Earth style series, produced using RED One, should be a real eye opener, aesthetically and fiscally.

[Tom Lowe]

You can download the entire series in 720p on bit torrents. It's the BBC version. Each episode is about 2.2gigs. I haven't watched it yet, but I took a sneak peek and it does look truly amazing!

By the way, Ron Fricke has apparently been traveling the globe, shooting his follow-up to Baraka for something like six or seven years now. Obviously Fricke does not have 200 camera teams or any of that, but maybe his artistic vision will enable him to compete with Planet Earth.

[Anders Holck]

Yes it was discussed here recently:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1242

[Andrew Benz]

So Anders, nice new avatar, what's in your hand? It says RED w/ the logo, but the look on your face is what got my attention, did you get the golden (titanium) ticket for NAB/RED HQ? Just curious, you seem suprised and amped! Anyway, thanks though for all your good posts...

[Anders Holck]

yeah, I wish...always wanted to be Charlie Bucket :-)

No, it's Jannards business card, sharp as a razor. Using it daily to fight those Sony resellers away:-)

[sbove]

You can download the entire series in 720p on bit torrents. It's the BBC version. Each episode is about 2.2gigs. I haven't watched it yet, but I took a sneak peek and it does look truly amazing!

By the way, Ron Fricke has apparently been traveling the globe, shooting his follow-up to Baraka for something like six or seven years now. Obviously Fricke does not have 200 camera teams or any of that, but maybe his artistic vision will enable him to compete with Planet Earth.

re: torrents: not legally ;-)
re: ron fricke: yes, but he's apparently using 70mm again...nightmarishly cumbersome.

[sbove]

I couldn't help but wonder how it would have looked if rather than 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and some 35mm film, it was shot primarily in 4k with RED One, with high-speed sequences with Phantom 65 and/or high speed fiim, and then downrezzed to 1080i for airing and 1080p for the Blu-Ray disks. End result = 35mm lens quality and DOF throughout, highly oversampled 4k down to HD, and a smaller production budget for an even better looking program.

As producers, we're all after the best looking project for the best budget. In this producer's opinion, the next Planet Earth style series, produced using RED One, should be a real eye opener, aesthetically and fiscally.

Yes. And Mr. Jannard, I hear, will be funding it, with 1,000 camera crews! ;-) Actually that's not a bad idea...a themed "Day in the Life of RED"...all the first Red owners send in shots from wherever they care to go based on some carefully chosen theme...and it gets woven together into an amazing theatrical documentary, blerayDVD, and book...

as for 35mm lens quality...sometimes, rarely, smaller than 35mm is GOOD...getting a 400mm 35mm lens on a Tyler/Cinefex gimbal mount would be a stretch...

[Tom Lowe]

The few times that I've used the search here it worked great.

[PaulClements]

As I've watched it, I couldn't help but wonder how it would have looked if rather than 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and some 35mm film, it was shot primarily in 4k with RED One...

It'd be great, but we wouldn't be watching it until 2012! :)

[Ken Corben]

It'd be great, but we wouldn't be watching it until 2012! :)

I ran into Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud in Norway during the November '06 Orca season (the Oscar winning producer and director of Winged Migration). They are nearing the end of their 18 month film shoot for a new undersea film. They are using "highly modified" Sony Cinealta cameras to produce their epic underwater 2-D 35mm feature film.

I must say that I am waiting with anticipation to see what these masters produce (they shared a few scenes with me over dinner- WOW!). I don't think we'll have to wait until 2012 to see something revolutionary in the genre. These amazing filmmakers will entertain us all with the release of their film (hopefully this year.)

Also something to watch for later this year is the next National Geographic Films theatrical release (March of the Penguins was their most recent). As yet untitled, it is produced by the "iceman" himself, Adam Ravetch.

I have worked with this filmmaker before and can guarantee this film will be amazing in story telling and imagery even though he did not use a RED camera (rumor has it a few of my Arctic underwater beluga shots may be in the theatrical release:biggrin: ).

The future is very exciting for all of us early RED adoptors. I plan to rise to the challenge and utilize the RED camera to continue the tradition of great storytelling with a camera that enables even more possibilities.

Redcode 4K RAW = No camera modifications required - Thanks RED Team!

[Tom Lowe]

I just watched the first episode of Planet Earth in 720p and was pretty much blown away by its awesomeness!! It's so damn beautiful. I think the next interstellar spacecraft we send out should definitely carry some HD discs with Planet Earth and Baraka on board.

If you were an alien and you watched this series, you would think to yourself: "This must be the most beautiful planet in the universe!"

So were all the overcranked scenes done on the Varicam, or can some of those Sony cams shoot 60i? For the shark jumping out the water, that either had to be film or some very serious interpolation.

I think I am going to fire up Episode 2 right now!

[Poi Boy]

it is an brilliant series; this kind of show always makes me marvel at the incredible patience and stamina that it takes to be a wildlife shooter.
Aloha
-A

[PaulClements]

I don't think we'll have to wait until 2012 to see something revolutionary in the genre.

I was referring to the fact it took 5 years to shoot planet earth, if they had waited for RedOne then it'd be 2012 before we saw the results... only joking anyway :)

[Steve Gibby]

For the shark jumping out the water, that either had to be film or some very serious interpolation.

I remember reading that those sequences were shot using a high-speed film camera. They were exceptional looking in super slo-mo, no doubt. I believe the narration said they were presented at 1/15 normal speed on playback. Those were the sequences I was referring to in my first post of this thread when I mentioned using either a Phantom 65 or high speed film for certain slo-mo sequences to augment a similar RED One shoot.

The cinematography in the Planet Earth series is excellent throughout, and stunning in many sequences. I've watched the series with a 2-track brain: one track simply enjoying the overall programs, and the second track reverse engineering how they got each shot and their posting decisions. The did an exceptional job with this series...

[Mike the beginner]

I read about the specialised equipment they used for some of the macro work, they went to extraordinary lengths to get things suited to their needs.

I watched a program some weeks when they showed you how things were done and the sheer determination of those involved to succeed against the odds. Most folk look at the wonderful footage and think , oh how nice, wish i could get to filming such nice things. Little do they know the hours of sweat and blood those guys and girls put up with just to get a few seconds of footage.

Reminds me of Jim Jannard and red team sort of. We have some idea of how tough it has been, but others will just say "oh thats a nice camera"

Mike the beginner

[Dan Blanchett]

This series is great, and I would love to see it captured in 4K RAW down the road. In 20 years it may be all we have left of some of these magnificent creatures.

[jbeale]

I have not seen the Planet Earth series yet but look forward to watching it on DVD, the reviews sound great. One thing bothered me- I saw a summary that said "...this will never be shot again" and elsewhere "...authorities are unlikely to permit another shoot here".

"Never" is a strong word. It is true if the species is extinct or if the habitat is gone. Is that true? And if no more film crews are given permission to shoot at a given site, is it because of the authorities, or because of the activities of the last crew? I hope this doesn't sound too skeptical but these questions seem to naturally arise from those statements.

[Ken Corben]

This series is great, and I would love to see it captured in 4K RAW down the road. In 20 years it may be all we have left of some of these magnificent creatures.

A terrifyingly true statement starting with polar bears and the Great Barrier Reef based on some scientific estimates.

[Tom Lowe]

I have not seen the Planet Earth series yet but look forward to watching it on DVD, the reviews sound great. One thing bothered me- I saw a summary that said "...this will never be shot again" and elsewhere "...authorities are unlikely to permit another shoot here".

"Never" is a strong word. It is true if the species is extinct or if the habitat is gone. Is that true? And if no more film crews are given permission to shoot at a given site, is it because of the authorities, or because of the activities of the last crew? I hope this doesn't sound too skeptical but these questions seem to naturally arise from those statements.

Well they somehow got permission from the Chinese to shoot a panda bear with its newborn baby in a freakin cave in China. That could not have been easy! They must have played on the ego of the Chinese.

I agree with you Gibby about watching this series with a 2-track mind. It's amazing some of the shots they got, and my mind is always trying to keep track of how the shots were done. Those dolly-shot dissolves from winter to spring were really cool. They seem to use morphing CGI somewhere in the process, along with good old dissolves. I guess they shot in one season, and carefully marked out where to lay the track down so they could return a number of months later to capture the same exact move in different seasons. Really cool stuff!

By the way, how awesome was that snow leopard chasing an antelope on the side of a cliff?? Incredibly agile creatures.

[Moir]

The shark leaping slo-mo was apparently shot using a modified video camera normally used for car crash tests. The version broadcast by the BBC in the UK had a 10-15 minute "making-of" section after each episode, and they showed Simon King shooting the sharks. IIRC, the camera was capable of shooting for 15 seconds, and was then out of action for some time (maybe 15 minutes?) while the footage was downloaded to a computer.

I believe the reference to things "never being shot again" refers to a recently discovered cave somewhere in a US national park. The cave has been closed to pretty well all visitors to prevent pollution of the atmospehre.

Getting permission to shoot Giant Pandas in China was possibly not too difficult. The Chinese authorities are usually very happy to have foreign visitors to their protected areas - for a price. In fact, there are two panda reserves where tourists can go panda tracking, and have a 90% chance of seeing wild pandas.

For me the Snow Leopard shots were the best part of the whole series. My inner wildlife dork feels obliged to point out that the "antelope" were in fact Markhors, which are goats.

[Ken Corben]

It's funny how the scientists and park rangers have become "film savvy" these days. I have encountered jaded individuals that feel they have compromised their integrity by participating in film projects OR demand $10K appearance fees...YIKES!

I had the President of a major network tell me he would not set a precedent by paying this fee no matter how remarkable the film was going to be. Oh, the daily drab of being a producer.

Thanks to the BBC for raising the bar...the DVD sales and broadcast ratings open the doors for similar projects.

[Michael Brennan]

Most of the video gound shots on Planet Earth were Varicam.
Next series is also shooting Varicam for the ground work.
When watching 1080i on a large screen these ground shots looks soft.
Underwater scenes shot on HDW750 and aerials f950/HDCAM are sharpest.

They had and still have a choice to use 1920x1080 10 bit recording and didn't/won't use it.

BBC are political/producer led organisation, where starange decisons filter through to the field...at a recent BBC HD open day a senior production manager said to the audience that when shooting HD tapes should be rationed to cameramen because online storage is expensive and so film style shooting ratios should be adopted!

BBC may see that Red has its use to replace 16mm film for the man in a hide scenario.(snow leopard chase was shot on 16mm film) as it is low cost.


Mike

[jbeale]

> HD tapes should be rationed to cameramen because online storage is expensive and so film style shooting ratios should be adopted!

Hard to understand- must they ingest 100% of the footage for online? They don't have the capability to just import the good takes? Do any of these cameras have "live buffer" options so you can wait in active-pause mode and press record and still capture say the previous ten seconds?

[Michael Brennan]

> Hard to understand- must they ingest 100% of the footage for online? T....

Often they load everything to a server, at one time it was 4:2:2 10bit HDSDI, now it is DVCPROHD codec, hardly storage intensive!

BBC like many large organisations are being driven by a "Post centric" period.


Mike

[Zakaree Sandberg]

anyone know the frame rate for the slow mo stuff?
or even the regular stuff?

what is wildlife generally captured at?

[Nick Shaw]

I think the high speed Great White footage was 1000 fps