Entire episode of House M.D. shot with Canon 5DII

[feppe]

Cali Lewis from Geekbrief.tv got behind-the-scenes access to the shooting of season finale for House M.D., somewhat entertaining hospital show about an antisocial genius doctor called House, and his team. Ms Lewis claims that the entire episode is shot with Canon 5DII.

I expect 40-something minutes of claustrophobic DOF - but I'm tickled pink to see the results of a true video dSLR in the hands of a pro motion team.

It airs on Fox in the US on May 17th.

[feppe]

Philip Bloom has an hour-long interview with the DP on his blog - haven't listened to it, yet. The blurb states the DP went for the 5DII due to its shallow DOF, and he shot wide open with a 50mm at f/1.0. Sounds like the DOF will be just as I was afraid, but I'll hold my judgment until I see the show.

[Justan]

Thanks for the link. It was a good discussion and covered a lot of ground. It says something profound when a top rated show is willing to not only use this instead of a film camera but take advantage of it to push the limits of what they can do. They said that they did a number of tests to do direct comparison to film and were mostly very happy with the comparisons. Many of the comments were about the efficiency the camera brought to the production process. Items such as ability to work in tight spaces without removing walls, and the ability to abandon the delays related to working with film, and working in very low light. They did depend heavily on the camera operators skills to make up for deficiencies of the cameras and lenses, but said it worked out okay.

They didn’t suggest abandoning film cameras. In fact at one point Mr Yaitanes said that they were worried about the impact using the Canon may have with their other camera vendor. Then he added that the competition is actually good for all.

In the end they said their goal, as story tellers was the driving force. They emphasized that the Canons had a some limitations but they were definitely a worthy addition to the toolbox

I'm a fan of the series and am looking foreword to see if the product is as good as the discussion.

[Justan]

I caught the season ender. It was done as well as any other episode. Part of the show took place in the shattered remains of a building collapse. The spaces in this part of the story were very tight. Of course the viewer can’t know where the stage ends but there was no obvious deficit in wrt DOF or any other way I could tell as a consequence of using the 5DII. I'm sure that is exactly what the production crew was after.

On a related note, it’s nice to see a positive turn of events for the main character (Hugh Laurie).

[Plekto]

I'm constantly amazed what using some skill can do for you.  By forcing themselves to overcome a challenge and work with limited technology(compared to a typical pro camera and rig), they can often do just as well.     I think a lot of it was that they used that hugely expensive 1.0 lens, though.