LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9, 2004 - "Action-packed" doesn't
begin to describe the video production challenges that faced
director Michael Bryant and his Canon lenses as he directed
"The Fifth Dragon" a reality TV event that followed one
motocross team in their quest to win the 2004 Outdoor National
Championship Series.
We're putting Canon lenses through the harshest environments,
and after 14 weeks of mud, dust and dirt, there's been zero
problems", said Bryant, president of State of Mind Productions.
"The lenses are spectacular for the run 'n' gun shooting
of The Fifth Dragon. They're fast and accurate with an incredibly
clean look."
Bryant and his production team depend daily on the precision
optics and control of the Canon J11ax4.5B, two J17ex7.7B's,
and a J22ex7.6B lenses to capture the race day action and
behind-the-scenes drama of motocross, the grueling sport
of outdoor dirt bike racing. "The Fifth Dragon" puts a microscope
on the riders, mechanics, managers and owners of the Yamaha
of Troy motocross team in their quest, resulting in a reality
show fueled by intense competition, sculpted athletes and
action-packed racing footage.
The Canon lenses are being used with Sony's PDW530 XDCAM
optical disk camcorders. "The image quality on the Sony
XDCAM is superb - it's SD, but as close to HD as I've ever
seen," Bryant notes. "They record at 50Mbps, which is a
very high bit rate, and will reveal any flaws in the shooting
chain. The Canon lenses are excellent for the Sony cameras,
because they're very clean optical glass and this supports
a spectacular subsequent upconversion to the HD format."
With the extremely tough shooting conditions that come with
motocross, durability is a must, and Canon lenses deliver.
"There's a lot of dust in the air," said Bryant. "You need
to have really good, well sealed and robust servos in your
zoom lenses to keep things rolling smoothly, and the Canon
lenses have always worked very well. We just clean them
off and they keep providing crisp images and smoothly running
controls."
The added controls of the new Canon e-series lenses, which
stands for both "enhanced" Digital Drive control functions
and "ecological" design, has also helped Bryant get consistent
results from multiple cameramen, an invaluable asset for
shooting in the field. "With the e-series, you can set a
particular operational style for coverage," Bryant explained.
"I go through the course and do my own shots in my style,
the way I frame it and pull out on the lens. We can input
that exact pullout, so another operator can later take that
lens and camera without worrying - once they frame the shot,
the lens will do the move for them, and they can shoot much
more like I shoot."
For this type of fast paced, reality action the lens becomes
an important interpreter that augments the art and vigor
of storytelling. The lens behavior can often help shape
the content and directly affect the subjective picture quality
of the image. With Canon lenses on hand, "The Fifth Dragon"
has a winning look.
"Canon lenses have allowed us to get into fascinating new
places," Bryant concluded. "It's incredibly clean, stable
glass augmented by state of the art digital controls that
allows us to cover effectively at 50Mbps image acquisition.
Canon is more than I hoped for."
Canon U.S.A., Inc. delivers consumer, business-to-business,
and industrial imaging solutions. The Company is listed
as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies in America, and
is ranked #39 on the Business Week list of "Top 100 Brands."
Its parent company Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ) is a top patent-holder
of technology, ranking second overall in the U.S. in 2003,
with global revenues of $29.9 billion. For more information,
visit www.usa.canon.com.
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EDITORS Please note corporate contact information for
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For more information, please call Canon broadcast and communications
division at 1-800-321-4388 or visit www.canonbroadcast.com.
