Cameraman Falk Gunold documented the six-month EcoFuel World Tour, in which a Volkswagen running on natural gas was driven 28,388mi through 40 countries on five continents, with the Panasonic AC-HVX200E P2 HD handheld camera.
The Panasonic camera's compact design and solid-state technology allowed Gunold to shoot comfortably from the car and easily download daily footage from P2 cards directly to the drive on an editing platform.
The idea behind the EcoFuel World Tour was to show that this alternative fuel concept is a feasible and globally available technology. Throughout the tour, Gunold shot in DVCPRO 50, using six 4GB P2 cards to capture 48 minutes of broadcast-quality footage each day.
Using the microphone bracket on the camera, Gunold attached a Sennheiser ME 66 shotgun microphone head for audio, as well as a top light. Each night, in the car or at the hotel, he downloaded data from the P2 cards to a Panasonic Toughbook CF73 equipped with an Avid editing platform. He then stored daily footage to individual folders on two separate drives, and after each segment of the tour, used the data within the editing platform to create an Internet clip, stored on a CompactFlash card. In this way, Gunold preserved all his daily footage on external drives, provided material for satellite feeds and updates on the project's Internet site and recycled space on the editing system for each new stage of the journey.
For more information, visit www.panasonic-broadcast.com and www.ecofuel-world-tour.com.
