15 February, 2012 – For New Zealand cinematographer David Paul the 2011 feature film production Kiwi Flyer was a welcome opportunity, but it came with the special challenges of low budget film making.

One of the first challenges for the cinematographer in this situation is to recommend a suitable camera for technical reasons, the right look, and suitability for the shoot, and a viable work flow – while remaining within the budget restraints, says Paul.

"The Sony PMW-F3 camcorder ticked all those boxes on paper, but it had to prove it could do the job. So I shot a test sequence with the camera, sent the footage to post house Images and Sound who produced five different looks and colour grades for us and exported them as digital cinema package (DCP) files.

"The producer, director and I projected results at a digital cinema, and we just went: 'wow that is amazing'."

Producer Tim Sanders recalls the moment: "That was when the quality of the image really struck me," he says.

"There was a very tight camera budget and I hadn't been too sure to what to expect from the camera, but when I saw the images on the big screen, I was astounded at how good they looked."

It is an opinion he reconfirms later during colour grading.

"Everything holds up really well. The movie is a fast paced, bright kids action film, and the colour quality and sharpness are fantastic."

Sunshine challenge
The movie was shot during August and September 2011 on location in the provincial New Zealand South Island city of Nelson, known for its pristine air and sunshine. It is a family film that tells the story of Ben, a lad who enters Nelson city's annual trolley derby and competes against some local bullies.

For cinematographer Paul, Nelson is a great location but the clean, bright light would push the limits of any camera, especially when the crew's lighting budget did not stretch to large silks or high power HMI lights for controlling the sunlight.

"We had 30 days of clear skies and sunshine, and that was our biggest daily challenge, because the light is so crisp," says Paul.

"The Sony F3 coped with it really well. Contrast was helped to some extent by the trees which did not have leaves at that time of year, but we could not have shot the film to the standard we achieved on any other camera in this budget range given our limited lighting package and crew resources."

The camera was mostly used single camera style, and was rigged with Zeiss Compact primes II, an Arri MB-20 matte box, and FF1 follow focus, Convergent Design nanoFlash off board recorder, a Cineroid electronic viewfinder and SmallHD monitor.

"It did not feel like it had several third party options added," says Paul. "It really works like a single unit. We never had to fiddle with the camera; it just worked and worked like a treat."

Easy
Paul also believes a large studio style digital camera would have slowed the shoot down.

"Perhaps 50 percent of the movie is handheld, and I would not want to do that on a bigger camera. Because the Sony F3 is light and compact, it is easy to throw around, whether on the shoulder or off the shoulder. It fits into little spaces, it was ideal for this kind of movie," he says.

To compliment the main unit camera, the second unit employed a lightweight Sony EX3 with a 4:2:2 nanoFlash off-board recorder for the fast trolley racing shots. Both cameras recorded data as 23.98 fps, 4:2:2, 180 mbps, I-frame MXF files to the off-board recorders, but also recorded simultaneously to the on-board SxS cards.

"Projected, the Sony F3 on-board SxS footage was impressive in itself so is a very viable and solid back up," says Paul.

Line producer Maile Daugherty says this approach made for a very flexible work flow – something that was carefully planned.

"It wasn't a very big budget movie so we had to streamline a lot of processes around data wrangling and rushes, so we all sat down and made a flowchart about what was going to happen," she says.

"We were in Nelson without access to post production facilities, so we had to be completely self sustaining. As well as the high quality off-board system, we had the on-board system linked to the sound, and that served as our rushes drive that was downloaded directly for file-based circulation so that we didn't have to run off DVDs or do to any of that stuff.

"I was very happy with the camera and the workflow was smooth and trouble free."

Paul recalls that at the end of the shoot the footage was able to fit on a couple of terabyte hard drives, a factor helping keep data management within budget.

"We had exceptional image quality for comparatively little storage," he says.

And for Paul the image quality is the big prize, with the Sony F3 putting a big screen look and quality within reach of low budget film makers for the first time.

"It is little powerhouse – and it is such an easy camera to work with," he says.

Kiwi Flyer will be released during 2012.