VMI
The extreme low light 4m ASA Canon ME20F-Shas been used by
Offspring Films to capture the behaviour of one of the world’s fastest
mammals at night for the first time.
The Elephant shrew, with a recorded speed
of 28kmph, was filmed in the wild in Kenya by Offspring for One Wild
Day (working title) for a major Broadcaster. The 3 x 60-minute natural
history explores how certain animals survive and thrive in different habitats
over a 24-hour period.
For the episode set in the African savannah,
Producer/Director Anwar Mamon with DP Mark Payne-Gill DP selected the
ME20F-SH. This is a full-frame HD camera with a sensitivity of over ISO 4
million (+75dB).
“Obviously, telling the story of an animal’s life over 24
hours means filming at night,” explains Mamon. “The traditional way of doing
this is to use infrared (IR) imaging which gives you a look which is quite
cold. In contrast for this series, The commissioning channel wanted to give the
show a warmth and that meant making the animals look natural by capturing as much
colour as possible.”
The Elephant shrew – or Sengi, as the creature is
colloquially known – moves rapidly at ground level making tunnels in the grass
as it uses it extended nose to hunt for insects. "The tunnels are about three
fingers’ width and provide a roadmap for judging where they might go and
therefore where to place the camera,” says Mamon. “We put the camera on a
slider so we could move between tunnels.”
Footage was recorded onto a Convergent Design Odyssey
7Q recorder with a 5.6" TV Logic monitor used as a makeshift
viewfinder.
“VMI had supplied us with the ME20 before so it made perfect
sense to work with them again,” says Mamon. “While we knew exactly what we
wanted they delivered it all for us just as we expected.”
Offspring and Payne-Gill had first used the camera to film
small primates called Tarsiers in Indonesia last year, so had a good working
knowledge of just how far to push it before introducing too much noise.
“We found, in tests, that the ME20 produced excellent
results up to 45dbs (approx. 140,000 ISO) after which noise became
noticeable but with noise reduction would still produce incredible results,”
says Payne-Gill.
The team were able to use very low soft key lighting
provided by an Aladdin 'A' light and Eyelight LEDs without effecting the
creature’s behaviour. “As a result we only needed to shoot between 18 and 21dbs
(approx 50,000 -70,000 ISO),” says Payne-Gill. “The camera wasn't even having
to work hard to give amazing noise free images.”
The use of a little supplementary lighting meant he was able
to select f2.8 and f4 macros.
Other programmes in the series explore jungles and
deserts. For the deserts programme they deployed the ME20F-SH to film an even
smaller animal called the Kangaroo Rat and in the Namibian desert they recorded wild
elephants at night.
“At times we were shooting at times during a full moon which
is bright enough to see detail on the animals and in the sky,” says Mamon. “We
also filmed elephants with less than a full moon and despite not being able to
light for such a larger area camera still performed well.”
The offline is being performed at
Bristol's Filmsat59 on Avid with online in Autodesk Flame and the
grade on Lustre. Noise reduction is done in Avid Symphony using Neat
Video.
TX is later this year
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