Filmmakers John McDougall and Steve Esteb partnered to shoot, “Dirty Politics,” a political satire about a flawed Louisiana presidential candidate dealing with a scandal as he enters the primaries.
Shot predominately handheld with JVC’s GY-HD250 ProHD cameras, the film premiered last month in Baton Rouge, LA. McDougall had previously shot “Ghetto Stories” with his GY-HD250 in spring 2007.
The film was shot with two time code-synced GY-HD250 cameras running with Zeiss super-speed prime lenses mounted to JVC’s PL mount lens adapter. In situations where they were not able to shoot with the prime lenses, they used the Fujinon Th 13x3.513 BRMU wide-angle zoom.
Most ofthe movie takes place in a hotel presidential suite with three-quarters of the film shot handheld. McDougall decided to shoot handheld to “show the actor’s true emotions” and pull the audience into the film, he said. The camera was light enough that shooting handheld “wasn’t overbearing,” he said.
Shot primarily in low-light conditions, “Dirty Politics” required McDougall to push the limits of exposure for each of the lenses. McDougall used Tiffen antique suedes for filtering and reset all of the camera’s internal settings for gamma and color to a more desaturated look.
For more information, visit http://www.jvc.com/pro.
