Dollhouse Goes Digital

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Mon, 10/12/2009 - 20:00 -- Nick Dager

While the first season of Twentieth Century Fox Television’s hour-long thriller Dollhouse was shot on 35mm film   Director of Photography Lisa Wiegand is currently shooting season two with the VariCam 3700 Panasonic’s solid-state P2 HD VariCam camcorder. “I own Panasonic HD and digital cameras (AG-HPX170 and AG-DVX100 camcorders) and thought I would like the HPX3700 for Dollhouse ” says Wiegand. “We do a lot of handheld work and the VariCam is more lightweight streamlined and faster than video cameras with heavy decks on-board. Also I’m a huge fan of Panasonic flesh tones and our ‘dolls’ obviously need to look their best.” 
  Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse starring Eliza Dushku Tahmoh Penikett and Olivia Williams follows a highly illegal and underground organization that employs individuals who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Hired by the wealthy powerful and connected the Actives don’t just perform their hired roles they wholly become – with mind personality and physiology – whomever the client wants or needs them to be. Whether imprinted to be a lover an assassin a corporate negotiator or a best friend the Actives know no other life than the specific engagements they are in at that time.  When they are not at work the Actives or Dolls are confined between missions to a secret facility known as the Dollhouse which gives the show its name.  
   
 The Dollhouse production rents two HPX3700s outfitted with Panasonic’s new AJ-CVF100G color viewfinders. An AJ-HPX3000 is used for second unit photography and the production uses an AJ-HPX2700 P2 VariCam for high-speed shots and an HPX170 one-third inch P2 HD camcorder for specialty shots notably those conveying an apocalyptic vision of the future. The series is shot in 1080p AVC-Intra 100 using Zeiss DigiZoom lenses (wide and long lenses for each HPX3700) as well as small Zeiss DigiPrimes.  
 
 The production uses the HPX3700’s enhanced Film-Rec 600 percent setting which provides additional latitude in shooting particularly for day exteriors with white production design.

“The HPX3700 has been an excellent choice for Dollhouse ” Wiegand says. “It provides considerable recording time with the five card slots and solid state is decidedly more reliable and environmentally-friendly than a tape-based system.”
 
 Dollhouse www.fox.com/dollhouse