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SVHS to MII: Reality Meets the Road AV Video, March 1990.
SVHS to MII: Reality Meets the Road
AV Video, March 1990.
Adventures on the Pampas: Or How I Won the Small Format War
By Mark Freeman
Background
I've written, produced and directed documentaries since 1976. My
first professional assignment was a commission from the Center for
Independent Living (Berkeley, CA). With little budget and less
experience, I used a wind-up Bolex to shot a 16mm, black and
white educational film: "Crip-Trips." This simple program was a
success. It met the client's needs-- providing positive images of
people with disabilities. The film aired on public television and was
widely used in educational settings.
Since that modest beginning I've worked on a wide variety of
programs --some on film, but since 1982 exclusively on tape.
Almost all of these programs were independently produced for
nonprofits. Documentaries about art and culture, or political and
social issues never seem to be funded at "state-of-the-art" levels.
The challenge is always to match the funds available to the most
appropriate technology.
One solution is to push the limits of consumer equipment, while
trying to maintain sufficient quality for broadcast on public
television. In 1976 I experimented with double system Super-8
sound. The final product was blown-up to 16mm and then
transferred to tape. In the mid-1980's programs were produced
in VHS and mastered in 3/4" or 1". The on-going video "format
wars" have created new opportunities and no little confusion.
Attempts to utilize divergent formats --combining the apparent
advantages of each-- often creates a"mixed-marriage" with
unpredictable results. Pre-production
In January 1988 I was planning to leave San Francisco for a year's
research and shooting in Argentina. 1989 would mark the 100th
anniversary of Jewish agricultural colonization in Argentina. And I
believed that there would be an interested audience (both in
Argentina and the United States) if I could capture the story on
videotape. I had a good idea; a chance to work overseas for an
extended period; and little available funding. (Most of my budget
was in the "to be raised" column.) The apparent solution was a
lightweight camcorder. The most likely choices were VHS, SVHS or
8mm video. (Hi-8 wasn't yet available.) Consumer equipment offers
few advantages --except price. I bought one of the first available
SVHS consumer camcorders --JVC's GR-S55U. (It was so newly
released that SVHS-C (20 minute) cassettes were seemingly
unavailable in quantity. In the week prior to departure, I phoned
suppliers all across the US to locate the 15 hours of SVHS-C
cassettes I needed.) The promise of greatly increased resolution
(exceeding 3/4" --they said) determined my choice of SVHS.
I had to be self-sufficient for shooting in Argentina. The television
standard there is a unique format -- PAL-N. The electricity is 220v
50 cycles. Video supplies and accessories are only available in the
capital (Buenos Aires) at a cost of about three times US prices. And
SVHS in any standard was totally unknown and unavailable. In
addition to my SVHS camcorder I traveled with a portable battery-
operated color monitor/receiver, a high quality lavaliere
microphone (Sony ECM 55-B) and a simple light weight tripod. Two
battery chargers for the camcorder gave me extra flexibility.
(Because they ran on all types of current, I could use one as a ac
power supply and use the other to charge camcorder batteries.)
The addition of a voltage transformer and rechargeable nicad
batteries and battery charger gave me increased range. The color
monitor, an audio cassette recorder, short-wave radio etc. all ran
on standard nicads (D and AA). (An IBM Portable PC needed only a
locally purchased surge protector to run on Argentine house
current.) Shooting in a consumer format in a foreign country had
an additional welcome
advantage. At customs I avoided any
duties or restrictions because our small "nonprofessional"
equipment attracted little attention. Consumer camcorders are auto-everything: auto-focus, auto-iris,
auto-white balance, auto-audio level. Where and when possible I
used the manual over-ride settings. The footage suffered the most
in back-lit situations. I quickly learned to move the subject, or
move the camera, or to shoot close-up to fool the auto-iris.
Remarkably the auto white balance and the automatic gain control
audio functioned quite well. Shooting in relatively controlled
situations was a big factor.
My goal was to produce a 1/2 documentary -- The Yidishe
Gauchos. This is the story of Russian Jews escaping pogroms at
the turn of the century. They built a network of agricultural
communities and became ranchers and farmers on the pampas of
Argentina. The script called for a combination of oral histories,
academic commentary and archival footage. Interviews were
conducted in Spanish and English. (The final program would be in
two versions. The English version would have subtitles. The
Spanish version would lay Spanish audio over the English
interviews.) Archival materials came in many formats: 16mm film,
3/4 PAL-N, VHS PAL-N and still photos. Everything was
transferred in Argentina to 3/4" NTSC and reserved for the on-line.
Production was an adventure. My Co-producer (Alison Brysk) and I
piled our personal luggage and video equipment aboard Argentine
buses. This almost always involved overnight travel and
transferring from relatively modern carriers to rattling, dust
belching diesels headed across the unsigned dirt roads of the
Argentine interior. We were visiting the small towns that were the
sites of Jewish colonies. We explored old homesteads, abandoned
synagogues, libraries and theaters that were once the sites of a
thriving Yiddish culture.
Today a few Jewish-Gauchos still ride the range. But electricity only
exists in town. More than once taping was cut short because there
was no way to recharge our camera batteries. (Batteries theoretically can be charged with adapters to car mounted cigarette lighters.
And although Argentines smoke constantly lighters aren't a
common accessory in the jeeps and trucks we traveled in.)
Interviews in unlit country house interiors were traded for outside
locations on patios or under a (rare) tree. High contrast lighting on
the pampas was an on-going challenge. (The more contrast in the
original tape, the more difficult to produce satisfactory release
tapes.)
The greatest advantage of our extremely portable equipment was
reduced set-up time. People living in the Argentine countryside are
far less familiar with video equipment than most people in the
United States. Our hosts had scheduled us to meet and interview
more people, in a shorter time, than we had thought possible. They
had barely allowed for travel time; not to mention set-up time. We
soon had our guerrilla technique honed.
We'd be introduced to an old timer --average age 75+. Alison
would explain our project and where we were from. She'd attempt
to get the lavaliere wire under the interviewee's shirt. I'd throw-up
a single bounce light if possible; mount the camera; plug in the mic
and off we'd go trying to jog memories. We collected wonderful
stories, and made many friends. I shot from slow moving tractors
and towering grain elevators. I was invited to cover the restoration
of an ancient steam locomotive. I learned to drink mate' --a potent
herbal stimulant; I discovered Yiddish parodies about life in the
colonies; but I never did master the tango.
Post-production
After a year of hunting and gathering I returned to San Francisco
with over 15 hours of material. At this point there were several
alternative routes to completion. The most critical choice was
whether to masterdirectly from the SVHS original tapes, or to
transfer the original material to an intermediate. (In the year I was
overseas the number of likely intermediate choices had grown to include 3/4, 3/4 SP, Betacam and Betacam SP. 1" was too
expensive to consider.) I was convinced that avoiding an
intermediate format and mastering directly from SVHS would be
cost effective and offer the possibility of saving a generation. The
choice of mastering format would come later.
The first step was to stripe (non drop frame) timecode on the audio
track of each original SVHS-C cassette. The JVC camcorder
recorded audio on two linear tracks simultaneously. (There were no
hi-fi tracks.) A rented Panasonic industrial SVHS deck with separate
audio inputs and a time code generator were required. I found it
convenient to set the timecode "hour" location to correspond to
assigned reel numbers. (E.g.Reel 1 equals timecode 01:00:00:00
etc.) Because SVHS audio tracks are in close physical proximity it is
not possible to stripe timecode and simultaneously generate
window dubs. (The intense audio timecode tones (track 2) tend to
bleed on to the adjacent dialog track (1) making editing difficult if
not impossible.) From each 20 minute timecoded SVHS-C cassette
a separate VHS window dub was made. (Window dubs are
cop