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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 13 POST MARCH 2016 NEWARK, NJ — Four Panasonic (www.us.panasonic.com) VariCam 35 4K camera/recorders are being used to shoot The CW's upcoming dramatic series Containment. Slated for a mid-season premiere on the network, the show is being by co-DPs William Wages ASC and John Smith. Containment follows an epidemic that breaks out in Atlanta, leaving the large city quarantined and those stuck on the inside fighting for their lives. In separate interviews to shoot six of 12 Season 1 episodes, DPs Wages and Smith each pitched the VariCam 35 to series executive producer Julie Plec. "The VariCam 35 has excellent dynamic range," Wages says. "Coupling that with the dual native ISOs of 800 and 5000 makes it the ideal camera for a series that has a lot of night exteriors. What's more, the VariCam 35's color science is exceptionally filmic." "I like the way the VariCam 35's super 35mm sensor looks," adds Smith. "The flesh tones feel film like, with beautiful rolloff of the highlights. Also, with the VariCam 35 you get native 4K shooting, and I admire its modular design, the ability to split the camera/recorder in half." Containment was shot last summer and autumn on sets and practical lo- cations in Atlanta. The production rented four VariCam 35s from the Atlanta office of Sim Digital; its Bling Digital division provides post production ser- vices to the series. A and B cameras were predominantly used hand-held; a third VariCam 35 was dedicated to Steadicam work and the fourth was used for second units and back-up. The cameras were outfitted with Fujinon 19- 90mm and 85-300 zoom lenses, and 14mm and 16mm Primes. The main acquisition format was Apple ProRes 4444, used with Panasonic's V-Log curve, which maximizes the VariCam 35's expansive dy- namic range. The production also used the Lumix GH4 updated with V-Log L curve for select 4K shooting. Both DPs say that the ISO5000 setting was intrinsic to the production. "We shot ISO5000 all the time, almost every day," Wages notes. "We were able to drastically cut our studio lighting package. For example, we lit a 120-foot-by-20-foot day backdrop with only 19 2K fixtures, and in most scenes had to dim it down because it was too bright." "The VariCam 35's internal ND filters are fantastic," Smith says. "Also, we took advantage of the ability to load LUTs into the monitoring channels. And the camera is as rugged as promised: we worked in sweltering conditions in Atlanta, 100 degrees, 95 percent humidity, with excellent performance." Panasonic's VariCam 35 is intended for high-end filmmaking, commercials and episodic production, as well as live 4K events. The camera provides im- age handling in multiple formats ranging from 4K raw to more practical AVC codecs for 4K, UHD, 2K, HD and HD ProRes capture. It also features dual native ISOs of 800 and 5000, allowing DPs to realize high image quality in extremely low-light situations. The VariCam 35 also has the ability to record three simultaneous video formats (4K/2K/proxy, or UHD/HD/proxy); an op- tional high-speed 4K uncompressed raw recorder (Codex) that will capture uncompressed 4K VariCam raw (V- Raw) at up to 120fps; internal AVC-Intra 4K/2K/HD recording to 120fps; support for an ACES workflow for full fidel- ity mastering of original source material; and in-camera color-grading via CDLs/3D LUTs. Four Panasonic VariCam 35s were used for the shoot of the new CW series Containment. Here, the VariCam 35s are being prepped for deployment into the field. NEW CW DRAMA CONTAINMENT SHOT ON PANASONIC VARICAM 35 4K CAMERA/RECORDERS