Greek documentary maker adopts HDCAM

Producer Vangelis Tremopoulos says he used the HDCAM camcorder in exacting conditions, including the inside the ancient Thracian Tomb at Kazanluk, Bulgaria.

“We were asked not to use artificial lighting to protect the ancient murals and frescoes. We shot inside the tomb with no light at all. The Sony 750 did an excellent job with the gain set to 36db,” he says.

For another documentary, the HDW-750P recorded inside Alistrati’s Cave in northern Greece. The cave system is said to be where Hades led Persephone down into the Underworld after tricking her into eating pomegranate seeds. “We experienced high humidity in the cave which made conditions difficult to work in. The cave authorities also banned any lighting for fear of damaging the stalactites and stalagmites. We considered abandoning the project until we realised we had under-estimated the 750. It delivered perfect results,” Tremopoulos says.

Exoptron also owns an HDW-730S HDCAM camcorder, as well as an HDW-2000 recorder and Sony LMD-232W monitors.

“The cameras and equipment have met every shooting challenge,” Tremopoulos says. The company issues its programmes in the Blu-Ray format.

Future productions

Exoptron’s managing director Spiros Gavalas says the company makes programmes for an international market on ecological, environmental and folk themes.

Three more HD productions are in the pipeline. The first, expected at the end of the year, is about the prehistoric plant spirulina, which astronauts eat in tablet form because it contains so much mineral goodness.

A second, on modern followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, is in post production, while a third examines the role of the olive tree in Mediterranean diets and is still in production. These last two are expected to be finished in 2008.

Exoptron edits on two in-house non-linear HD post-production suites equipped to process full colour bandwidth RGB 4:4:4.

Exoptron hopes to raise HD’s profile at a conference in October for broadcasters, producers and directors. “We want to show them what’s possible,” Tremopoulos says.

17 September 2007