Clearly there were technological lessons learnt, as I’ve been writing in this series. There were also a whole bunch of other useful lessons: in no particular order.
Author: Philip
Adobe Anywhere collaborative editing in a familiar environment. http://t.co/u8AFGLKN
One of the pleasures of the whole Solar Odyssey experience was my exposure to Hoverfly, who had signed on as a sponsor for Solar Odyssey (although it never actually happened).
Final Cut Pro X
I made the deliberate decision to use Final Cut Pro X to experience it on a bigger project. While there are some things that bug me in the interface – see my Disclosure Triangle rant for a start – there are many things I really enjoy and I’m mostly still finding it faster, particularly now that I’m into editing.  Faster for my editing style at least. It performed well with FW800 and USB2 interfaces into the mid-2011 MacBook Pro I was working with in the field. It performs even better with that USB drive connected via USB3 on the MacBook Pro Retina. (My welcome home gift to myself, originally intended to be used as part of the production.)
For the on-board production, the plan was to ingest all footage via the Mac Mini server to create a Final Cut Pro X Event – for the day, the sub-day or the story . The funny thing is, I questioned Apple’s use of “Event” in Final Cut Pro X until I had to try and find a term to cover the same ground. Event seems to work as well as anything.
My approach to audio is where I would make the biggest changes. Largely because the show I produced was not the one I set out to produce, and because I think the radio mics on board were overkill.
Lighting
My primary choice for lighting was to go with LitePanels LED lights (and of course flexible reflectors). The LitePanels Micro, Mini Pro and Croma were the perfect choice. All the reasons you’d go for LED in the first place – low power consumption, low heat and small size – worked for us, plus the ability to vary the output down to “just enough” to fill in facial shadows, made them perfect. We particularly loved the Croma’s ability to dial in just the right color temperature. Also important for our journey was that they ran on standard, rechargeable AA batteries. To be disposing of hundreds of batteries would not have sat well with Solar Odyssey’s “green” message.
Cameras
My choice of cameras were from Sony: a single NEX FS100 and three NEX7 DSLRs. (One DSLR was destined for the helicopter platform that never eventuated leaving it spare.) I totally love these cameras, even with their kit lenses. The NEX7s are a great camera and I’ll be keeping at least one for future personal use – for both still and video use. Audio quality is good enough to use to sync with second system audio, or with a directional microphone, good enough for field voice recording.
Now that Solar Odyssey is over for me, I thought it was a good time to look back at the equipment choices and whether or not I’d make the same choices again. As it turned out, I ended up producing a different show than the one that I was preparing for, which was largely based on a solar powered boat. As it turned out, we never tested the workflow on the boat (as we never actually got on the boat).
Making Movies 20 Years Ago vs. Today: A World Of Difference http://t.co/qGCpq9pE
Of course the technology has changed seriously in favor of documentary filmmakers but, more importantly, the business climate has changed. Mike Masnick compares two podcasts: one with Kevin Smith revealing a bunch of voicemails: