History anywhere with Blackmagic and Applecart

Scott Billups and his PixelMonger crew pride themselves on being able to go anywhere in the world and pull together high-level productions. Filming and producing a number of historical recreations for some of the top US cable channels, PixelMonger has traveled across Europe and the US capturing shots for large battles, royal coronations and scenic backgrounds. And they have done this using the latest in post-production technology enclosed in a single moveable system – the PixelMonger Applecart.

The Applecart is a post-production house on wheels. Using a Thomson's Viper HD camera and the latest version of Final Cut Pro, PixelMonger is able to shoot and edit on the latest equipment. One piece of hardware that has made the Applecart’s workflow possible is Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink HD Pro to capture and color correct shots.

With Blackmagic’s DeckLink HD Pro, Scott Billups is able to shoot with the Viper and capture footage right into the Final Cut Pro system. Using DeckLink HD Pro also allows extreme color accuracy, which is extremely important due to the fact that he is shooting so many different locations, scenes and plates that often include a castle in one shot, archers shooting in a field, and then knights charging on horseback. Blackmagic gives him the color space he needs, and lets him go 4:4:4 right into his main editing system.

“I need authentic looking shots, which means I need to travel to many different locations. That means that my equipment has to be mobile, but still needs to meet the high expectations of producers who expect me to be working with the best technology out there. Blackmagic’s DeckLink HD Pro has definitely allowed that,” said Scott Billups.

Billups continued: "By shooting 30 fps Progressive HD, directly to the computer's hard disk, we can precomp our shots before we send the actors back to costume. It also gives us almost twice as much colorspace than we would get from recording to tape."

The Blackmagic DeckLink HD Pro is a Dual Link HDTV 12-bit SDI capture card with built in multi-standard analog video monitoring. Supporting the highest quality video standards that exist today, DeckLink HD Pro is fully Dual Link HD-SDI 4:4:4 based using 2 channel HD-SDI inputs and outputs. SDI connections can instantly be switched to standard HD-SDI 4:2:2 or standard definition SDI. Other features include:

True multi-standard, switchable between SD NTSC or PAL and HD, 1080i, 1080p and 720p including under and over crank Varcam
True 14-bit analog 4:4:4 HDTV and SD monitoring output
Dual Link 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 1080HD, 720HD, NTSC/PAL
8, 10 and 12-bit uncompressed RGB or YUV
Fully digital SMPTE-259M /292M/296/372M10-bit SDI input and output with embedded SDI audio; switchable between SD SDI and HD
Independent monitoring of HD/ SD SDI video output and more.

Metalocalypse

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Chrysalis

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Fatima

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The Yes Network

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Copley

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