The German HD sports feature "The Axe of Manitoba," a 90-minute documentary on the Frankfurt Lions ice hockey team premiering at Kinopolis in September, is being produced in 720p50 HD with the Panasonic HVX200 and P2 solid-state storage technology.
According to producer Uwe Winter, the HVX200's variable frame rate feature allowed him to acquire two-and-a-half seconds of “beautiful slow-motion footage" for every second of action.
The documentary follows the team both on and off the ice, and Winter's crew
needed to move fast to keep up. The benefits of the HVX200's compact size, easy media handling and computer-friendly workflow were necessary.
The workflow of the documentary was based on using two 8GB and five 4GB P2 memory cards to capture more than 45 hours of action. During the day, footage was transferred to a 60GB portable Panasonic P2 Store and copied to computer at night.
When inserted into a computer's PCMCIA slot, audio and video data on P2 cards is instantly available, with each cut ready to use as an MXF file. The data can be used immediately for nonlinear editing or routed over a network.
For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.