DoP Alex Wakeford was keen to use the Viper as he had previously used Sony's F900 on Daddy's Boy, which can be seen elsewhere within this website, including within the introduction to Shooting HD for DI... Here DoP Alex gets to grips with the AccuScene colour viewfinder, which he loved.

As you can see from the following images, this was a test for a Viper setup to be used within a full feature production, so the rig was not as well sorted as it will be (cables not tied back, etc., but the crew thought it was great). For this project all shooting was 2.35, which the S.two can display in the correct aspect ratio, in this instance direct to the Astro monitor.

We made a Director's trolley for the S.two disc recorder used to capture the Vipers 4:4:4 RGB FilmStream image data, and associated equipment, including two 12v batteries and their charger (although these are not shown on the attached images). The idea is to keep the batteries on charge as often as possible, enabling the power to be shut off and the camera and disc recorder to be run off the batteries only for sound work.

For monitoring we used an Astro combined waveform, vector and image monitor to save having a large monitor for the Director. This worked well as the Director accepted that the images were to be viewed for composition and not colour, and Light Illusion' representative was able to use the waveform and vector scope to check the DoP's setup. This proved very useful a number of times and the DoP congratulated our combined abilities to get the best images for post - he say's he learnt a lot about the difference between film & HD and Viper!

During down time between scenes shots were reviewed on a 14 inch HD monitor to check everything was going as planned. This approach was soon stopped as the images were exactly as expected and the Director and DoP were confident with what they were seeing through the viewfinder and via the combined Astro monitor. Specifically, the DoP found the AccuScene viewfinder very good for focus setup, again reducing the need for a large on-set monitor.

For most shots the Viper tripod mounted, with the DoP behind the lens and a focus puller ensuring accurate focus following.

The trolley rig enabled the recording equipment to be quickly moved around to follow the action. It also enabled immediate playback of captured takes for directorial review, as seen here with Director Toni Harman reviewing the previous takes to enable deletion of unnecessary material. In this way only true potential takes make it through to final selection with all aborted shot being immediately deleted.

A lot of shots included the use of tracks for panning or zoom work.

And because of the Viper's fantastic shadow detail capture capabilities there were very few additional light used, with only a few 2.5Ks used to throw shadows through external windows, as can be seen with the light spill on the wall in the image above.

The wide dynamic range available with Viper was a key part of its choice for capture as many shots included simultaneous interior and external detail on a sunny day in London. The following images are taken from one scene within the project, showing the wide dynamic range captured.

This image was shot with no additional lighting at all, just that coming from the windows on the back wall, which were the only windows in the room. Light conditions were very low as evening was progressing. Note also the 2.35 aspect ratio used, something unique to Viper in the world of digital cameras.

This image shows the grading applied to balance out the green cast and apply the required 'mood' to the image. Note this is the raw 'Log' image, without print LUT applied.

This is the same image as above, but with a print LUT applied showing the true colourimetry of the image.

And this final image shows the extended latitude available by grading the image darker, revealing the detail visible out of the window. Compare this with the nominal graded image above!

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