Producing fiction with the Sony PMW-500

The director of photography and director of NB Producciones, Nacho Benítez, recently gave a conference, coinciding with the Sony Media RoadShow, in which he explained his experience in fiction production with the PMW-500 camera. This XDCAM HD 4:2:2 50 Mbps camcorder designed for news, fiction, programs, documentaries or for medium-sized production companies that need quality and reliability, has a 2/3” Full HD CCD sensor that offers a native 1920×1080 resolution.

The director of photography and director of NB Producciones, Nacho Benítez, recently gave a conference, coinciding with the Sony Media RoadShow, in which he presented his experience in fiction production with the PMW-500 XDCAM HD 4:2:2 50 Mbps camera.

This camcorder designed for news, fiction, programs, documentaries or for medium-sized production companies that need quality and reliability, has a 2/3” Full HD CCD sensor that offers a native 1920×1080 resolution.

One of its advantages is its sensitivity and high dynamic range. With a camera body that is very popular among Sony users, they appreciate the use of the typical tree menus and the numerous assignable buttons (on the side).

One aspect that Nacho Benítez highlighted in his presentation is that the workflow in fiction production in Spain has accelerated in recent years. For weekly prime time series (with episodes of about 70 minutes), the minimum filming time per episode is around nine days with about eight pages of script per day. In the case of daily series, they are recorded at a speed of one day per episode, which would mean about 25 pages per day for 40-minute chapters.

Most productions are shot multi-camera, with two or three cameras, without tape and using camcorders. Tapeless capture, in addition to accelerating dumping processes, allows for savings in time and versatility. Even so, some prime-time series are shot on tape, as is the case with Red Eagle (recorded with the HDW-650P HDCAM), Spain (with the HDW-900R) or Land of Wolves (HDW-650P HDCAM. Small format cameras such as the Sony PMW-EX3 are also being used in productions such as Eva's fish tank.

"Parallel to the acceleration in the flow, the quality of production has been improved by introducing numerous action scenes with more demanding filming. This implies having cameras that are up to the task," commented Benítez.

“The new scheme of working in fiction with the new generation of PMW-500 camcorders has meant, in addition to the absence of tapes, the use of non-linear files, having a high-quality LCD viewfinder on the side and the replacement of the physical color correction filters with electronic filters,” he added.

Advantages

In addition, the new cameras allow simultaneous recording of proxies and metadata with the advantage of being able to navigate through clips or record continuous clips (being able to record a continuous clip with marks instead of generating a clip each time the REC button is pressed). The 15-second cache memory, the possibility of using an interval meter (recording, for example, the passage of clouds or the assembly of a stage), the focus assistant, the clip markers (shot mark and flag) and the variable frame rate: 720-50p (1 to 50) 1080-25p (1 to 25) are other advantages that the PMW-500 provides.

Unlike its older sister, the PDW-700, this camera is cheaper, records on SxS cards instead of disk, is lighter, consumes less and has a better quality LCD... although, in this case, it does not record input signals. Its sensor works at 14 bits although it finally records at 8, thus working with more gray range. Since in fiction a lot of work is done balancing blacks and whites, this camera has great versatility.

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