Australian drama series have an international reputation for great television drama that showcases the country’s actors and locations, and the success of these programmes equally reflects the abilities of skilled local production teams.

DOP Mark Wareham ACS has spent 20 years as part of these crews that work under tremendous pressure to deliver leading content to viewers around the world.

This year he was behind the camera working on two major series, Underbelly Razor for Nine/Screentime and SLiDE for Fox 8/Playmaker.

Each of these demanding projects had differing requirements but Wareham found the Sony SRW-9000PL camcorder, the first shoulder-mounted HDCAM-SR camera, more than met his client’s needs. Two cameras were supplied for each project by Gear Head.

“I began looking at camera options during preproduction for SLiDE - the director wanted it to look like it was shot with a Canon 5D and had some depth to it and the producers wanted a fairly simple workflow where they could easy ingest material into Avid post-production systems,” explained Wareham.

“There has been a big push to use data cameras with several new high end models on the market but I felt they weren't suitable for my needs. The Sony SRW-9000PL fitted the bill perfectly because it has the full Super 35 sized single CCD sensor and uses the familiar HDCAM-SR tape media. And it has a PL mount so I can use film lenses to control the depth of field.

“The project was going to be mostly hand held so I needed a camera that was well balanced and something that wasn’t going to kill me during the four month shoot. Even though it’s quite a solid little camera it’s actually very well weighted - it reminds me a bit of an older film camera, like a 35BL.”

Wareham believes the SRW-9000PL is well suited to the fill the gap that has opened up in the market by the move to data cameras which he states are more applicable for short term projects.

“Some people say data is quicker but I think it’s only quicker if you’ve got less material. If you’ve got a feature film or maybe a six part series it’s OK but once you get to 13 parts the amount of storage and its management becomes an issue. What data has done is put a lot of other stuff on set, whereas with tape you’d write the roll number on in post-production, job done - there’s no data management.”

Speed ramping on location

The Sony SRW-9000PL’s ability to provide speed ramped shots in camera also found favour with both series

“The camera can actually speed ramp in shot between 1 - 60 frames per second. I did some of that with SLiDE then moved across to the new Underbelly Razor where they previously shot using Varicams or Sony HDW-F900s.

“We did some tests with other cameras but the first director was very impressed with the speed ramping on the SRW-9000PL because they previously hadn’t been able to do that in-camera. They use a lot of slomo in Underbelly so we were able to shoot that effect in-camera, on location and combine it with a choice between shutter and gain log compensation, or in some cases no compensation so that I got a sort of hand cranked, more organic, film effect that suited the period look we were after.”

Underbelly Razor also benefited from the camera’s suitability for the many Steadicam shots captured in the series. “The operator had used it previously as a Steadicam camera on the Packed to the Rafters series and he liked the fact that he didn’t have to remount the camera on the Steadicam for different shots - he just spun the camera on the one switch and simply flicked the picture over,” said Wareham.

Post-production

Visual effects shots for Underbelly Razor were also easily handled by the SRW-9000PL.

“In the pre-production meetings the producers were very keen to have a format that could deliver the quality and resolution needed for visual effects replacement shots,” detailed Wareham.

Fitted with the HKSR-9003 RGB processing board, the camcorder delivered full-bandwidth digital 4:4:4 high-definition RGB recording and output capability. The option also provided S-LOG Gamma, essentially a digital negative, allowing images to be tailored during post-production in the same way they would in a film-based work flow.

“They were very happy we were shooting on SR because they got the quality and flexibility they needed in a format that was quick and easy to turn around. They were used to working with tape and it meant they didn’t have to buy a lot of new storage and backup systems.”

Happy endings

“I ended up doing the two jobs with the 9000 because it fitted the bill in an ergonomic, performance and post-production sense,” concluded Wareham.

“It’s essentially a very flexible and reliable camera built on a proven camcorder frame. A lot of people have seen what I’ve done with it and thought it must be a great camera - the picture quality is undoubtedly very good. I can see it being used in a variety of roles including 2nd/3rd unit feature film work and telemovies.”

Wareham’s work with the Sony SRW-9000PL was recognised during the recent Queensland and Northern Territory 2011 ACS Awards for Cinematography. In the Telefeatures, TV Drama & Mini-Series section he won two Gold Awards - for Underbelly Razor, Episode 6 and also Cloudstreet (3-part drama miniseries). He also won the Kodak Judges award for Cloudstreet.

By Press Release

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