Kantziper quoted in Crews Control’s “Crews News”
See links section above.
Video Crew | Equipment Rental | Field Production | Contact
Blog >> Back to Top
How to book a video crew.
Looking for a true, free-lance camera person specializing in field production? Experience is key here…book someone who shoots on a regular basis and hires ancillary crew people regularly. One way is to google “video crew” and use one of the national crewing services that shows up…one stop shopping! Another route is to get a referral. If that isn’t an option, the internet is a great resource. Google “video crew + the city and state you are looking to shoot in”. If you are looking to book a video crew in North Carolina or anywhere in the world, the best type of crew is one arranged by a free-lance camera person. That may seem obvious to some, but some people, including seasoned video producers, seek out production companies and that may not find you the right personnel.The reason is that you aren’t looking to “build a house”. You are looking for someone to “craft and install some beautiful counter tops”. A crew that regularly goes into the field and shoots in a variety of situations is what you are after. You want a crew that can walk into an environment and feel at home in almost any location, probably even, “been there, done that.” Whether it be a hospital operating room or a board room videotaping a C.E.O. of a major corporation.Production companies may be able to fit the bill, but if you are going into an unfamiliar city your best bet is to use a DP (Director of Photography / camera person) who specializes in field production. A specialist will always have more experience than a company or group that claims expertise in multiple fields like web design, editing, shooting and whatever else they claim to be that month. Years of experience is not something you can use to gauge the quality of a company. Years of experience is an individual thing specific to a person. Make sure you hire the right person and not the oldest company.The bottom line is the person behind the camera does it all the time and does it for a living…he or she has a vested interest in making you happy so he can continue to grow his business with satisfied customers. Also, the sound person and any other crew members will be people the DP chooses to work with and not some staffer that didn’t have an edit that day - the whole crew will be professionals who do this type of very specialized work for a living.All that being said, the first choice of a crew service usually yields good results but isn’t for the producer who wants to have a more hands on approach. Crewing services are a terrific and easy way to get a crew anywhere fast but with a little leg work you can find an excellent crew yourself.
Traveling Producers Hate to Digitize?
As a free-lance camera person, I’m always looking for new ways to help out traveling producers. Whether it is supplying time coded audio files or wireless video links for hand held b-roll, or accommodating any other special requests. While still shooting a great deal of tape on jobs, especially for out-of-town producers, some producers “walk away” with hard drives at the end of the day. For those traveling producers that still shoot tape - still the majority - it amazes me that they HAVEN’T been asking me to ship a hard drive at the end of the shoot so when they arrive back home they can go straight to edit. When shooting in DV, DVCAM, DVCPro50/HD, a great service I can provide would be digitizing services…a hard drive arriving in the morning FEDEX with Quicktime files ready for import.
KPSR upgrades small form HD camera to latest model
Sometimes it makes sense to chase the rabbit of technology. In the case of Panasonic’s latest small form camera, the AG-HVX200A, Panasonic has made a few refinements that are very important to working professionals. The most important improvement is in “speed” or light gathering capability. The camera is at least a half stop faster with substantially reduced noise. Late May I will take delivery of the new camera and after some testing will sell the under 1 year old HVX in inventory. Someone will get a great deal when the time comes!
Excerpt from article written in mid 2007 about KPSR and Focus FS100
Challenge
Freelance cameraman Glenn Kantziper provides professional field production services to corporate and broadcast clients such as ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and ESPN. “My client list is pretty diverse; they could call from anywhere in the world,” he explained.
Like other video production companies, Kantziper was looking to add HD capability to his portfolio. “At first, I was actually considering buying a full-sized camera, but decided it was wise to start smaller, test out the waters, and see the demand for HD among my clients,” he said.
For Kantziper, Panasonic’s AG-HVX200 camera offered the best combination of performance and price. “I’m always blown away when I see the quality of the footage from that little camera,” he said. While the HVX200 offered the best HD solution for his budget, Kantziper wondered how to handle the storage requirements. “At the time I purchased the camera, 8 GB was the largest card you could buy — and it was expensive.” Kantziper needed a more economical HD recording solution that would also give him the flexibility to handle long-format recording.
Solution
To address the HD storage challenge, Kantziper selected the FS-100 Direct To Edit recorder from Focus Enhancements. Designed to work with the AG-HVX200, the FS-100 lets videographers record DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO 50, and DVCPRO/DV streams directly from the HVX200 to disk via FireWire. With its standard 100 GB hard drive (and optional 160 GB) the FS-100 offers long recording times at a more cost-effective price point than several P2 cards.
“I had been seeing favorable reviews of the FS-100’s 3.0 software from users on forums and word of mouth. After seeing the success others were having with the device, I decided to pull the trigger,” said Kantziper. “And together, the HVX200 and FS-100 have exceeded my expectations in terms of quality and performance.”
Before the FS-100, Kantziper used to provide clients with a tape after each shoot. With Focus’ Direct To Edit technology, he now transfers files from the FS-100 to two external FireWire drives — keeping one for himself, and providing one to the client. When shooting SD, he often records to both tape and the FS-100 drive simultaneously. “This way the client can keep the Mini DV tape for archiving, with the added bonus of not having to digitize footage,” he explained.
The FS-100 is capable of recording video in a wide range of formats, including DVCPRO HD and DVCPRO 50 in native QuickTime mode for direct import into Final Cut Pro.
“The beauty of the FS-100 is I now have the capability to record in many different formats,” said Kantziper. “As a freelancer, I have to shoot for people from all different walks of life. And with the FS-100, I can shoot for almost any editing program, as opposed to a P2 card that only supports MXF.”
With the FS-100’s 4.0 software, Kantziper can now playback slow motion and fast motion footage directly in real time from the FS-100. “It’s always nice to be able to play something back in the field to make sure it looks the way I want it to,” he said. “That was a great addition to the product.”
Benefits
The combination of the FS-100 and HVX200 gives Kantziper a cost-effective entry point to offer HD services to clients. “The FS-100 and HVX200 have let me get into the HD world for a very reasonable price. Nothing else can touch the price — and the imagery is amazing,” explained Kantziper. “I can pass some of that discount onto my clients and they get great HD footage. Everyone is happy. Think about it — with the FS-100, I didn’t have to buy a 30K full-sized tape camera, and my clients don’t need to buy a 30K HD deck.”
And Focus’ Direct To Edit technology delivers added value to Kantziper’s clients. “Clients can now walk away from a shoot with the files right on their external hard drive — meaning they no longer have to digitize when they go back to edit. And clients have been extremely happy,” concluded Kantziper.”
Another reason to shoot HD
If you are working with talent that has limited time, HD can be a real time saver if you are shooting for an SD out project. You can zoom in post instead of shooting a talking head twice as in shooting a script all the way through wide then tight for editing purposes. You’ll never be able to tell the zooms were done in post. We used to say VHS was “the great equalizer”…now SD is “the great equalizer”.
Depth of Field
Everybody shooting video on location today gets asked to “make the background out of focus”, especially when shooting interviews. Well, sometimes this is easy and sometimes it is difficult…that is NOT what this article is about! This article addresses the little known fact that most professional cameras produced today have 16:9 chips and a lot of what we are still shooting is 4:3. Of course, the smaller the image sensor, the more depth of field. So, ponder this: If we are shooting 4:3 footage with 16:9 chips, whatever size those chips may be, than you are using less than the whole chip and therefore have increased depth of field over the older style 4:3 chip cameras in the same situation! The bottom line is that if you want less depth of field in 4:3, use your old 4:3 camera instead of your 16:9 camera if you have a choice.
Video Crew | Equipment Rental | Field Production | Contact
© 2008 Kantziper Production
Services & Rental, Inc. All rights reserved.
Contact: KPSR, Inc. Greensboro, NC
(336) 882-4536 :: Glen@KPSR.com
Contact: KPSR, Inc. Greensboro, NC
(336) 882-4536 :: Glen@KPSR.com