by Sam Adelman
In 2002, when the topic first came up to switch from shooting on traditional 35mm film to HD for our upcoming film Screen Door Jesus, all I heard was negativity from the old school professional grapevine. I remember similar skepticism in post when the Montage was introduced to replace the Moviola back in 1985.
“The decision to shoot HD was primarily economic,” said Director of Photography Dan Stoloff. “We knew that we could shoot more days, afford a second camera, and have a Steadicam, ultimately putting more production value up on the screen.”
“The look of the Sony 900 was a bit sharp for the look we were going for,” stated Stoloff, “so after significant testing we found that by placing a Fogal silk stocking on the back of the lens, it softened the hard edges and gave us a more romantic and timeless look, softening the color saturation giving the highlights a kind of glowing halation.” Screen Door Jesus won for Best Cinematography at the Hampton’s International Film Festival in 2004.
The dilemma on our next film, Welcome to Academia, was which HD camera to choose. David Dunlap, our DP, who also shot Shaun of the Dead, selected the Arri D-20 camera primarily for its lenses, which allowed him to shoot some scenes wide open, throwing foreground and background images out of focus, creating depth of field more common to film, a visual style our Director, Kirk Davis, had discussed with co-screenwriter and Executive Producer Elzbieta Szoka.
Kirk Davis, the Director on both films, summed up shooting on HD by saying, “the most pleasant aspect that we discovered in using Highdef was the ability to move quickly from take to take, shot to shot and set-up to set-up. This allowed for a continuity of rhythm for the actors, the crew, and my own creative process, which greatly benefited the final film as a whole.” 
