The thirty-minute documentary A New Hope takes a journey deep inside the walls of Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary a prison located on an 18 000-acre property that is engulfed by the Mississippi River and named for the birthplace of its former slaves. Angola a maximum-security facility that is home to more than 5 000 inmates was once called the “bloodiest prison in the South” and espoused a simple philosophy: lock up the men and throw away the key. The film was screened earlier this month at the prison for an audience of inmates staff and state corrections and other elected officials. The documentary originally aired on FamilyNet Television’s On Mission Xtra series a production of the North American Mission Board that won a regional Emmy for “Best Magazine Show” for its premiere season and is being submitted to several upcoming film festivals. Herb Kossover principal of Kossover and Company Atlanta Georgia served as director/director of photography with Amy Kossover of AK Films as co-writer/producer and David Druckenmiller as editor Stephen Ostrander was line producer and The North American Mission Board was the executive producer. The production’s second camera operator was Jon Swindall. Ron Anderson of Atlanta’s Colorama was the colorist and Creative Sound Concepts also of Atlanta did the sound sweetening. Kossover used NAMB’s Panasonic HPX2000 HPX500 and HVX200A P2 HD camcorders for the Angola shoot. David Strupp of the Atlanta office of the WH Platts Company supplied the AJ-HPX3700 P2 VariCam and an AJ-HPM110 P2 Mobile. A New Hope was predominantly shot at the prison with some interviews shot in New Orleans Baton Rouge and Georgia. Kossover who has worked with Panasonic 24p taped-based and tapeless cameras throughout the past decade spent two weeks at Angola last August which followed some preliminary shooting done in June of the previous year. Kossover says that he used the HPX3700 and HPX2000 to shoot interviews whose subjects ranged from Angola’s Warden Burl Cain to Dr. John Robson Dean of the Bible College to numerous students/inmates. A pivotal interview was shot with Pastor Clifford Jones a former prisoner and graduate of the college who now ministers to two churches in New Orleans. When inmates were interviewed in their cells Kossover shot with the HVX200A for maneuverability and a handheld look. He would use the HPX500 as a third camera on select interviews and for multi-angle shots. The acquisition format shot throughout on all the camcorders was DVCPRO HD 720/24p. “We shot some interviews and establishing footage outdoors in the Louisianan summer ” Kossover says. “It was hot humid dank and muddy and P2 reacted very well versus any tape-based format. We were able to shoot in the rain without stopping. We often shot in low light situations and many of these scenes are remarkable.” The production team stayed at a bed-and-breakfast near the prison and set up a work area with the P2 Mobile and Panasonic 17-inch LCD HD monitors. “Essentially we used the HPM110 to screen dailies and ensure scene integrity and continuity ” Kossover says. The version of A New Hope that was broadcast on FamilyNet was cut using the DVCPro HD 720p60 codec in Final Cut Pro 7 on a Quad-Core Mac with an AJA Kona LHi Card. “Although much of the footage was shot in 24p we chose to log and transfer to 59.94 clips and edit in a 59.94 time base ” says editor Druckenmiller. “This allowed us to combine pre-existing 29.97 media with new 23.98 footage and more importantly provide the required 29.97 broadcast SD master when editing was complete.” For the February screening at Angola Druckenmiller revised the documentary and created a DVCPro HD 720p screening master using the Panasonic AJ-HD1400 DVCPro HD VTR. The piece will be displayed in HD with playback from the HD1400 to a Panasonic PT-DW6300US 6000 lumens WXGA projector. Click here to view the first three minutes of A New Hope on Vimeo
