Peter Beeh ~ Cinematographer | Category Archives: behind the scenes

We went through a really interesting exercise the other day shooting a couple of the lads from The Chaser at the ABC Studios in Sydney. The sequence was essentially an FX shoot where two of the Chaser lads presented the opening sequence for an awards night to camera.

Woopy doo you say. Why bring in a specialist cameraman from Sydney and go to all that effort in a big expensive television studio? Well, ultimately their image will be keyed and prepped, then put through a very flashy prioprietory system which projects a lifesized (or bigger) 3D holographic like image onto a screen. So… if you want to get really flashy about your live venue displays and image projection, this is so the way to go.

We shot the guys against green, having to take special care to light them in a way that works best for the Musion system. I used the Sony PDWF800 HD Camera but recorded to the new Cinedeck multi format recorder. How awesome is this device. You can record uncompressed, prores 422 and 444, Avid DNx, Cineform and more, all down to solid state esata drives. It also has a field monitor with waveform, vectoscope and other goodies. Audio remains an issue shooting prores, but I hope that will be ironed out in the next firmware upgrade.

More about Musion: http://www.musion.co.uk/

Shooting Star Picture company is involved in producing content for Musion in Australia.

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July 25, 2010 by peterbeeh

Grip Factory Glide

Shot a range of classy interviews this week and called in a good german dolly to create some great long lens camera moves. Here’s the finished product: http://www.hddop.com.au/2011/07/30/me-we-heroes-corporate/. Chris from Flying Gecko had the honour of pushing me around for a couple days.

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July 15, 2010 by peterbeeh

Squeezing into a 747 cockpit

Sometimes the most exciting places to work become the most complicated. Asked to shoot part of a promo for Qantas I was excited to have had to chance to spend the day hanging out in a 747 cockpit. But as Captain Alex said, planes are made for the comfort of people in the back, not for the pilots up the front. And they’re even worse when on the ground because there is no ventilation available without engines on. And of course, when you want a good cockpit shot, you want all the little dials and lights to be on. No ventilation, thousands of little heat generators, confined space —- sweaty shoot!!

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July 10, 2010 by peterbeeh

Deep Purple Backstage

The weird things we do. Here back stage following Deep Purple out to perform at the Sydney Entertainment Center. While the band was older and certainly with a lead singer looking stiff and arthritic, Smoke on the Water was cool. This was taken with the producer’s mobile. The woman in the foreground is their minder. Oh well, doesn’t matter how old you are, when you’re a rock star you always need a minder to hog the limelight!

While the XDCam PDWF800 offers great low light performance, it too was rendered useless in the dark grime of back stage pathways just as a band moves to walk on stage.