Veteran director of photography Steven Poster, ASC recently shot two pilot segments of a dance-centric documentary series Tap Dreams with Panasonic’s new AG-HPX300 P2 HD shoulder-mount camcorders. Tap Dreams is produced, written and directed by Dean Hargrove, whose award-winning 2004 short Tap Heat starred Jason Samuels Smith and Chloe Arnold, tap luminaries who headline the new project.

Tap Dreams illustrates the worldwide appeal of tap and the fervent devotion of its partisans through the international travels of Samuels Smith and Arnold to cities (Washington, D.C., London, Tokyo) where they give workshops for children and teens. Over the course of the four-day intensive workshop, the youths’ raw talent is honed and a handful of students are selected to perform in a final performance with Samuels Smith in Washington and Arnold in Tokyo. The filmmakers intend to use these first two episodes to shop the project to broadcast outlets and festivals.

As DP, Poster, president of the International Cinematographers Guild and co-chair of the Technology Committee of the American Society of Cinematographers, has filmed a wide variety of motion pictures, including the Emmy-nominated Mrs. Harris, Donnie Darko, Stuart Little 2, Daddy Day Care, Rocky V and The Cemetery Club. He received an ASC Award nomination for Best Cinematography for Ridley Scott’s Someone To Watch Over Me.  Last year, he completed filming The Box, written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella. He also filmed Spread, directed by David Mackenzie and starring Ashton Kutcher, which was released theatrically earlier this month.

“I’d shot a documentary about Miles Davis with the AJ-HPX3700 P2 VariCam, and loved the color science,” Poster said. “Then I saw the HPX300 and was impressed with its full AVC-Intra codec for shooting 24p. I wanted to try the camera out, and Tap Dreams was in the offing and seemed like a good fit.”

The HPX300 is a 10-bit, 4:2:2 professional HD camcorder featuring independent frame AVC-Intra recording and variable frame rates for creating fast- or slow-motion effects.

Poster himself operated the A camcorder on the Washington, D.C., with cinematographer Gary Grieg on a second HPX300. The equipment was rented from  DC Camera in Arlington, VA.

“We operated largely handheld, and occasionally had the HPX300s on tripods,” said Poster. “We had the camcorders rigged out with matte boxes and follow focus, and used wide and long zoom HD lenses. I’m enamored with the HPX300’s ergonomics. The HPX300 is so fluid and light, it was easy to sit the camcorder on your shoulder and move around.”

“The camcorder’s light handling characteristics are impressive,” Poster said. “We did much of our work in dance studios, where we could only minimally supplement available light. In one facility, we worked in a practice area that initially had several different color fluorescents, with two walls consisting entirely of full-length mirrors. We asked for table lamps, and we were presented with 10 incandescent lights that we placed around the room for warmth. We repaired all the fluorescents and changed the bulbs so they were all cool white, giving us at least one consistent color overhead. We also had two daylight Kino Flo ParaBeams and an exterior window with daylight coming in. The HPX300s mixed white and black balances beautifully, and the images look remarkable.”

“We brought the material to Laser Pacific to do a full Digital Intermediate, and projected it on a 33-foot screen through an AutoDesk Discreet Lustre digital grading and color correction system,” he continued. “”The footage looked terrific, with an innate warmth and filmic quality, and will clearly transfer out to film remarkably well.”

“The HPX300 is an excellent choice for handheld, documentary-style work,” said Grieg, who has extensive experience shooting commercial and political spots with P2 HD camera systems. “The camcorder was light, mobile, and easy to match, so much so that Steven and I were able to switch cameras at will.”

The Tap Dreams segments were shot in 1080p/24fps in AVC-Intra 100. The crew used 16GB P2 cards in D.C., and 32GB cards in Tokyo. “Capacity was never an issue,” Poster said, “For this kind of work, I didn’t want more footage on a P2 card than would be on a roll of film. We recycled cards in an orderly fashion, with our on-set digital downloader laying off footage and cloning it to two hard drives, one that stayed with us and one that traveled for dailies.”

Tap Dreams is being edited in Final Cut Pro Studio.

“The P2 system is a brilliant idea that frees us from heavy recording gear being built into the camera,” Poster said. “The HPX300’s ENG-style means the camcorder is very well-balanced. Most important, however, is Panasonic’s color science and the way the chip reacts to light.”

For more information about Steven Poster’s career as a cinematographer and still photographer, visit www.stevenposter.com.