Some may say it's a HD project for film, but the Thomson Viper FilmStream camera when shooting 10bit LOG uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB image data, especially in 3.25 mode, really is something quite different, and deserves to be classified as Digital Cinematography, not HD.

So, what's so special about this project?

While there have been a fair number of digitally shot feature films over recent years, all of them have either used normal HD video in 4:2:2 YUV mode, some without compression, some with, or have not been 100% digitally shot, mixing film and HD formats. While HD can produce very impressive cinematic results, as can be seen with Daddy's Boy and the technical suggestion provided by Digital Praxis within the Shooting HD for DI section, the technique employed by the Viper in FilmStream mode in capturing image data is a whole level beyond HD.

In very basic terms, Viper can be used to capture raw CCD image data and present it in a 10bit LOG form from the CCD's native 12bit linear output. This is called its FilmStream mode, and is a very close simile to the way traditional film captures images, without the chemicals and days of delay before seeing an image. For more info see Thomson Viper HD camera.

So, for Silence Becomes You it was decided that we should explore the possibilities of shooting everything in the highest possible digital film format, with the best technology presently available.

MotionFX, a company Digital Praxis has a lot of involvement with, already had a Viper camera with S.two DFR (Digital Film Recorder) disc system, and Quantel iQ DI system, so they were the obvious first stop for discussion.

Based on the conversations that then sprung up between the film's production company (Dragonfly Films) and MotionFX, MotionFX decided the time had come to make Digital Cinematography a reality, and invested in two additional Viper FilmStream cameras, two additional S.two DFR disc systems with A.Dock backup unit to archive to a LTO2 data tape jukebox, a second Quantel iQ DI system for the online conform and grade, a number of Digital Fusion effects systems, additional AccuScene colour viewfinder, etc, etc.

As you can see MotionFX have taken the future of Digital Cinematography very seriously indeed.

The project is a co-production deal, with filming being performed in Lithuania, Post-Production in the UK at MotionFX, and with grading being performed at MotionFX sister company Marina Digital near Genoa, northern Italy, where the audio online will also be performed.

Digital Praxis is acting as technical consultant for the Digital Film Technology, as well as providing production and post-production supervision. The online and colour grading will also be managed by Digital Praxis.

Shooting commenced Saturday 18th December 2004, with a shoot schedule of 6 weeks.

The following images show the previous weeks location scouting and camera test days. More information will be added as the shoot proceeds.

A more in-depth story of the project, including workflow discussions and the problems encountered, can be found here, and images from the film here, and pictures taken on-set here.

Scouting the main location.

Setting-up for camera tests.

Monitor and waveform setup.

Steadycam testing.

You gotta be having a laugh!