PRODUCTION STILLS FROM DIRTY POLITICS 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wayne, NJ (August 15, 2008) –Filmmakers, John McDougall and Steve Esteb partnered to shoot, Dirty Politics, a political satire about a flawed Louisiana presidential candidate who is dealing with a scandal as he enters the primaries.  Shot predominately hand-held with JVC’s GY-HD250 ProHD cameras, the film premieres on August 16 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

McDougall, who had previously shot Ghetto Stories with his GY-HD250 in the spring of last year and was extremely pleased with the visual outcome, was excited to use JVC’s cameras to shoot Dirty Politics and to utilize the camera to its full potential, delivering the highest quality image for their film.

The film was shot with two timecode synced GY-HD250s cameras running with Ziess super speed prime lenses mounted to JVC’s PL mount lens adapter.  In situations where they were not able to shoot with the prime lenses, they used the Fujinon Th 13x3.513 BRMU wide-angle zoom.  “There was a lot of movement and focal length changes in some of the scenes, so being able to rely on the zooms did save us some time,” said McDougall.

Most of Dirty Politics took place in a hotel presidential suite with three-quarters of the film shot hand-held.  “We decided to go hand-held to show the actor’s true emotions and to lure the audience into the action.  And the camera’s weight was light enough that shooting hand-held wasn’t overbearing.  Depending on the type of set-ups and the type of movement, I would go back and forth between the Fujinon and the Ziess lenses,” added McDougall.

“I bought JVC’s PL mount lens adapter, which is a pretty incredible product.  I have to admit that I’ve seen all the moving glass devices and I have not been a fan of any of them.  And being from the traditional film world, I felt there was always something in the way of what the final image was – plus all the moving parts that generate sound issues.  But using JVC’s PL mount lens adapter provided an optical solution that was so much more preferable to me, and it was reliable,” said McDougall.  “The PL lens that we used was a full set of Ziess speed primes lenses. Because of the nature of shooting, we couldn’t always use primes because we were literally shooting up 11 pages at a time, which is very intense for a dialogue driven film of this nature.  So I would resort back to shooting with my Fujinon wide angle zoom, jumping back and forth depending on the type of set ups and the type of movement.”

There was quite a bit of shooting in low light which pushed the limits of exposure for each of the lenses.  Also, McDougall ran Tiffen antique suedes for filtration and reset all the internal settings for gamma and color to a more desaturated look.  “The GY-HD250s were also affixed with Cavision follow focus units and matt boxes, with the DR-HD100 hard drives running simultaneously with tape,” added McDougall.

McDougall further commented on why JVC’s camera was the perfect choice for Dirty Politics, “The camera’s user-friendliness and layout of the controls made it extremely easy for the other camera operator to use.  There are a lot of features, which gave us the ability to change the temp settings within the camera.  Steve and I are extremely happy with the final footage.”

“JVC has been very supportive to me for using this camera format. I give a lot of credit to Carl Hicks at JVC and JVC’s tech support.  There are many cameras out there and I’ve used many of them, but I was comfortable within the budget parameters of making Dirty Politics work for that camera body,” said McDougall. “There are lots of changes happening in the digital world for film making. The combination of the GY-HD250s performance and its features is critical to produce a high quality film.  I know people who have GY-HD100’s and GY-HD200’s and use them day in and day out, so obviously the camera has proven itself as a true professional camera.”

Dirty Politics stars Beau Bridges, Melissa Anne Davenport, Howard Hesseman, Jerry Katz, Judd Nelson, Melissa Peterman and Johnny Valdetero.  For more information about Dirty Politics, please visit http://www.dirtypoliticsthemovie.com/.

For more information and high-resolution photos of JVC’s GY-HD250, please visit JVC’s Web site at http://pro.jvc.com/newsroom.

ABOUT JVC PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS COMPANY

JVC Professional Products Company, located in Wayne, New Jersey, is a leading manufacturer and distributor of a complete line of broadcast and professional equipment. For more information about this, or any other JVC Professional Products Company product, contact JVC at (800) 582-5825; or Candace Vadnais at PFS Marketwyse 973-812-8883, ext. 430 or visit JVC’s Web site at http://www.jvc.com/pro.

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