HD File-Based Workflow

Dave Sperling
DP/Cameraman

Bio

As a DP/cameraman with more than 25 years in the video and film industries, Dave Sperling has worked on a widely varied range of projects. He has served as Director of Photography for more than a dozen independent feature films including cult favorites 'Mass of Angels', 'Street Trash' and 'Cool Blue,' thrillers 'Boogeyman' and 'The Drifter,' and most recently the feature 'Wherever You Are' shot with XDCAM HD F350 series cameras. His documentary work includes the series 'Building America's Home' and HD specials on science museums and amazing designers around the world for Discovery, as well as a series of feature-length music documentaries with filmmaker Robert Mugge.

Awards include a Cable Ace for the AMC period television drama series 'Remember WENN' and an Emmy nomination for the PBS 'Mathnet' series. He also creates software data management systems for theatre, film and video as OnSet Software.

Comments

---

Back when I was shooting television series in film, I would sometimes shoot as much as 800,000 feet of 16mm negative a year. The quality advancements in HD video have changed the way we work. When shooting documentary interviews we are no longer interrupted by a 'film magazine change' every 11 or 22 minutes, nor are we in constant fear of exceeding our film allotment for the day (or having to send a runner to pick up a new batch of film).

The new paradigm was brought home to me while shooting the PBS documentary 'Billy Strayhorn: A Lush Life' which we had started in the Super 16mm film format. As the scope of the project became more complex than originally envisioned, it rapidly became obvious that the budget could not continue to support the quantity of film that would be required. After testing several formats, we settled on the CineAlta F900 as an optimal match for the footage that had already been shot in film -- and never looked back. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on such a wide range of projects. Interestingly enough, on almost every project in the last ten years I have had one or more Sony video cameras as my constant companion.

As someone who spends almost 200 days a year behind the camera, riding on the cutting edge of technological advancements has been both energizing and rewarding. For me the disc based XDCAM HD combined with the memory based XDCAM EX system represents a new definition of 'sweet spot' in the image quality/ technology/ reliability/ price/ performance/ reliability algorithm.