Freelance camera operators at a loss for which model to choose
Jul 27, 2009 12:19 PM, By Michael Grotticelli
Don Smith with his new JVC GY-HM700 HD camcorder.
With some TV networks and local stations moving to file-based HD workflows while others remain mired in SD videotape-centric environments, freelance camera operators that have to buy new equipment every three or four years are facing their biggest dilemma ever. While the variety of camera models is wide, careful consideration must be given to how footage will be used and the realities of today’s broadcast production environment.
Such was the case for Don Smith. Operating in and around Dallas, TX, he’s been a network news freelancer for more than 35 years; having shot, edited and produced segments for NBC’s “Nightly News” and “Today” show as well as numerous pieces for ABC’s “Good Morning America” and CBS News. Smiths’ work can be viewed online.
Heretofore, like most freelancers of the day, his cameras of choice have always been made by Ikegami and Sony. Among his vast body of work, Smith shot the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City for NBC News, in 1993 shot the Branch Davidian stand-off in Waco Texas for CBS News; and in May, edited a piece on Arkansas couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 18 children for NBC’s “Today” show on an Avid Media Composer system.
“I owned my own gear for a long time, but then I sold it because I got tired of dealing with the upkeep and maintenance of it,” Smith said. “Then I used the Ikegami HL-79 camera, provided by NBC, for years.”
For regional shooters like Smith, the current trend to use specific, network-provided cameras usually comes from corporate offices located hundreds of miles away and thus is not always the ideal model for the operator who’s using it on the ground. In addition, it is bittersweet for freelancers, in that they could previously rent their gear to the networks for a day of shooting, while also getting paid for their shooting skills.
In general, it was previously believed among the networks that the Ikegami cameras have a “warmer” look while the Sony has a “colder” look. Thus, different pieces called for different looks. If you had that particular camera at that particular moment when a story broke, you got the job. Today, the requirements are less strict.
“Shooting requirements were once extremely ridged, but not anymore,” Smith said. “Especially with the current confusion of the formats and the variety of skill levels, you’ll see things on air today that you would not have seen years ago. Budgets are so tight now that they'll use whomever is cheaper, or producers they've quickly put into the field with a camera.”
In today’s “anything goes” market, the challenge for freelancers like Smith is to pick the right camera that will facilitate the most amount of work. Pick the wrong model, it’s said, and you might find yourself with an expensive paperweight.
“It’s a mess right now, as far as formats are concerned,” Smith said. “There’s no baseline or standard that everyone is adhering to, like we used to even five years ago. In fact, the group of freelancers that I now work with most often are really in a quandary over what camera to buy next.”
That’s because the networks are sending mixed signals. ABC, for example, has put out a memo stating that it has not decided on a “house” camera for HD production, but requires any camera operator it works with to shoot SD footage in the widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio.
NBC has requested in recent years that for its high-profile shows, operators should use HDCAM cameras while HDV are used by producers themselves. (This caused a lot of friction with the camera operators union initially, but now producers shooting footage is commonplace.)
In the past year the NBC owned & operated station in Dallas, KXAS-TV, dropped its Panasonic DVCPro equipment in favor of Panasonic’s P2 cameras. This file-based workflow caught freelancers in the market by surprise and left many who had bought Ikegami and Sony cameras out of favor.
After much consideration of the future of electronic newsgathering, Smith recently bought a JVC GY-HM700 HD camcorder, which records video as .MOV files on solid-state SDHC Class-6 cards, that are immediately recognizable to Final Cut Pro editing workstations.
Despite all of its advanced features, Smith chose the JVC camera because of the cost of the media it records to. He said that if you shoot on P2 or SXS cards — which are much more expensive than the off-the-shelf SDHC cards Smith’s JVC camera uses — then hand it off to a producer for finishing, you might not get it back.
“In the confusion of breaking news, you are going to lose control of your media,” he said. “A producer will need it for their own purposes and you may or may not ever get it back. And that can be several hundred dollars out of pocket for each of these cards.”
The price of the media has certainly become a factor in many purchase decisions. Smith said he owned the Sony EX3 camera for a while, which uses SXS cards. To avoid the higher cost of the cards, freelancers in Dallas were using a special adaptor to allow the camera to use SDHC cards (but you couldn’t store over-cranking or under-cranking effects).
“If networks are going to P2 or SXS cards, I see a lot confusion as to how to keep track of those cards, unless the network is willing to pay for them,” Smith said, adding that both recording formats are reliable and provide adequate storage capacity for news shoots. “You could wind up with nothing to shoot on the following day because producers are holding on to your cards.”
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