Rickshaw Run hits Deck

Singapore based independent television production company, The Deck Pty, together with sister company Talkabout Media FZ-LLC, recently completed production on an innovative programme involving a 3,000km adventure race across India from Goa to Nepal in an auto rickshaw.

“We’re delighted to work on the Rickshaw Run. It takes a lot of

experience and a certain amount of specialist knowledge to produce a programme of this nature, so we felt confident in what we could offer,” said Jon Moore, executive producer, The Deck.

The show is co-produced by The Deck and Dubai-based sister company Talkabout Media. On the ground support is provided by India based production company Wildtrack Productions. “For any production to be successful in India you need to have a local production company. We have a long standing relationship with The Deck and are happy to assist them on the ground here in India,” said Azhar Habib, executive producer, Wildtrack Productions.

The end result is a 60-minute lifestyle adventure programme. A number of regional and international broadcasters have expressed interest in airing the programme, including Ten Sports, Star TV, Showtime and Discovery Travel & Living. “If you think of a much grittier version of Michael Palin with a touch of reality thrown in, you’ll be along the right lines,” said Ian Carless, executive producer, Talkabout Media.

Not surprisingly, the production raised a few technical challenges. The first of these was, which format to shoot in. Given the intended broadcasters included Discovery, Star TV and Showtime Arabia, it was quickly decided HD was the only way to go. To capture the footage, the producers went with two cameras, the Sony EX1 and EX3 XDCAM cameras.

“We invested in the EX models eighteen months ago and use them exclusively for all our content acquisition. They’re small, lightweight, yet still have all the functionality of a bigger camera. And of course the picture quality is exceptional. The EX is without doubt the best pound for pound, value for money camera out there,” said Moore.

“The versatility of the EX is fantastic,” said Ian Carless. “We’ve chosen to shoot in progressive mode for this shoot to get that filmic feel. Often we use the EX in conjunction with 35mm adaptors such as the Letus and PS Technik but on this trip we’ve opted not to. Most of the shooting was handheld and on the run which didn’t lend itself to the adaptors. In addition, we shot a number of time lapses which of course is easy to do with the EX,” Carless explained.

Both the EX cameras had Chroisel matte boxes fitted, allowing filters to be used for various scenarios. “We have a couple of very cheap shoulder mounts. Twenty bucks from Ebay! But they’re incredibly effective. The EX tends to be a little front heavy, especially with the matte box so the shoulder mount is a great help,” said Moore.

As with any road trip movie, the show would not be complete without on-board coverage. For that, the producers opted for a consumer camera, the Sony HDR C100E.

“We looked at various options but in the end opted for the consumer camera for two reasons. The first being time. We were on a very tight schedule, which didn’t allow us to continually stop, rig, check and download footage from the on-board cameras. We had a Magic Arm and Fat Gecko suction mount, which allowed easy rigging on any part of the rickshaw we wanted. And we had both a wide angle and fish eye lens allowing a great reverse POV shot of the rickshaw driver and passengers. Plus they record up to 8 hours at full HD quality. Secondly we wanted something the presenters could easily operate themselves when they were on the road. The handycam is something they’re all familiar with and easy to operate,” said Moore.

As with any production, sound was a major consideration. For this the producers resorted to a mixture of boom and radio mics. For the boom mic, they opted for the standard Sennheiser 416 with Rycote windshield and boom pole. “It’s the industry workhorse and gives great coverage when you’re trying to mic a group of people constantly on the move,” Carless added.

For the radio mics, the producers had three units of Sennheiser EW100. “It’s one of the best radio mics on the market. The receiver fits nicely on the horseshow mount on the front of the EX and the transmitter fits easily into a pocket or can be clipped to a belt. In addition, the mic head is tiny and perfect for concealing on the presenters shirts. We also had a Sony ECM 77B wired lapel mic for more confined and controlled situations such as the video diaries recorded with the presenters,” said Carless.

Managing the workflow for a 14-day shoot can be arduous especially in a tapeless environment. “We were very conscious from the start about the amount of footage we might capture. We didn’t want volumes and volumes of rushes to go through. For that reason we were only shooting with two main cameras and one on-board. Doing this forced us to plan our shots more carefully and structure exactly what we wanted to include in the programme. Even then we estimate captured three to four hours of footage a day,” said Moore.

Downloading the footage was done via one of three Mac Book Pro’s each installed with Final Cut Pro and Sony’s XDCAM Clip Browser. “We carried three Mac Book Pros primarily to save on download time and also to make sure we had redundancy should anything happen to any of the Mac Books. We were traveling through some pretty remote areas so we needed to plan for the worse case scenario,” said Moore.

Similarly for data storage the producers had two 1TB external hard drives. Footage was downloaded on a daily basis and backed up to each of the hard drives. In addition, the producers prepared a daily two minute edit highlighting the days exploits.

“We quickly realised the Rickshaw Run was one of those events which captured peoples imagination. We wanted people to be able to experience what we were going through in real time and not have to wait for the actual television programme. So for that reason, we produced a dedicated website where we uploaded daily highlights, photos, video diaries and blogs from the presenters and producers,” said Carless. The website has attracted over 3,000 unique visitors and over 500 people are following the blogs regularly.

The strategy is part of both companies wider commitment to the digital arena and part of the companies’ core philosophy. “I don’t believe it’s enough for production companies to just make great television programmes anymore. We create content. Content that can be used over a wide variety of delivery platforms of which television is just one. More and more people want to view the content they want, when they want, how they want and not be confined to a broadcasters schedule. Digital offers this freedom,” Moore explained.