NEWS

GREEN GREEN GRASS SHOT IN HD

Shooting Partners Project Management worked with Shazam Productions to complete the first television series in Europe to be recorded fully in HD.

Green Green Grass is a spin-off from John Sullivan's Only Fools & Horses and has proved to be very popular.

Although the series was initially broadcast in SD on BBC1, it was recorded in HD ready for when companies such as SKY and BBC make the transition to HD broadcast.

Shooting Partners provided the HD location equipment, while Chris Dingley provided the expertise in helping convert Teddington's studio 1 to HD.

Like most sitcoms GGG was a mixture of some location scenes and a studio recording, as live, in front of an audience for reaction and timing. As there is no HD studio big enough in the UK for a number of sitcom sets and audience and because the director did not want a four waller with an HD OB unit (Director Tony Dow wanted to work in conventional surroundings allowing him to concentrate on the comedy)

" They came to Shooting Partners asking for a solution that gave them HD without limiting their creativity. What we essentially did was temporarily convert Teddington's Studio 1 to HD. We bought in 5 Sony HDC-950 cameras, an MVS-8000 production switcher and four HDW-F500 VTR's, plus monitoring and measurement. The HD upgrade had to be readily moved in and out as the programme worked on a typical sitcom schedule. Some parts of the conversion, particularly fibre for the cameras and cabling between the studio floor, gallery and master control, was a permanent installation and will allow the studio to switch between SD and HD regularly in the future" commented Chris.