I was asked by a production company to shoot behind the scenes footage of the Hockey East Finals at the TD Bank North Garden in Boston, MA. Boston College was taking on the University of Vermont.

This footage would be used in a “flavor” segment of a DVD documentary about the hockey league. It would be intercut with network television coverage. All sound was recorded with the on board shotgun microphone. The idea was to get what the network television cameras could not.

I decided to try to shoot this footage with my Letus. This would give the shots a film appearance with a shallow depth of field. The footage would look much different from what the network could provide.

This video is a sample of what I shot before, during and after the hockey game.

I used one lens the entire time. My fastest prime, the Nikon 50mm f1.4. This is a fat piece of glass and it let a lot of light into the Letus adapter. Most of the shots were from inside dark florescent lit locker rooms and back hallways. I need all the help I could get to make usable pictures. Some of the shots were bumped up with 9dB gain.

The client asked for standard definition 4:3. My Sony HVR-Z1U can shoot HDV 1080i, DVCAM SD, and MiniDV SD footage. This is a real plus because every once in a while, a client needs SD. It is so hard for me to look at the tiny SD 4:3 window and compose shots. I have lived in the widescreen world for so long now. It is great to own a camera that can work almost any job.

The video was edited with Final Cut Pro and I used Magic Bullet Looks for the film look and color grading. I really funkified this video. It looks much different from the original tapes. I also used a filter effect to add more color saturation.

Check out my website for more info: tomguilmette.com