In early January, 6,000 managers of Advance Auto Parts' (Roanoke, Va.) stores attended a national sales meeting that opened with a seven-minute high-definition branding video shot with Panasonic VariCam AJ-HPX2700 P2 HD camcorders.

The auto parts company chose two production companies, New Perspective Productions (Pittsburgh) and VPS Productions (Roanoke), to collaborate. In early November, two crews, each equipped with VariCam 2700s with Zeiss Super Speed lenses, initiated an eight-state road trip with only 15 to 18 shooting days allocated to profile Advance Auto customers and the store personnel who serve them.

The meeting video will ultimately be re-purposed as a mini-documentary, commercial spots and online content.

"The video has a monumental role in the transformation of our company," says Bryan Gregory, director of consumer education and video production, Advance Auto Parts. "After 77 years of traditional retailing, we know that to grow successfully, we must meet our customers where they live in terms of needs and experience. The storytelling in this piece portrays the 'everyday heroes' we serve and illustrates to our Advance family what it means to be part of their world." Gregory served as executive producer of the project.

"This was a first for me in corporate video, working with another director-shooter and his company to create a single vision matched to a single shooting style we'd both have to adhere to on separate sets in separate states," says Mark Fallone, New Perspective's vice president of production and development (and an HPX2700 owner). "While VPS' DP was in Bayou country and I was traversing Amish roads outside of Goshen, Indiana, we shared files and frames via text messages. We made sure we were shooting every aspect of the joint production in step. Together, our separate crews captured close to 1,200 minutes of footage during three weeks."

The piece was shot in AVC-Intra 100 at 1080p/24fps, edited in Avid Adrenaline, and finished to Blu-ray. The video was projected in high definition at the Advance Auto Parts' sales meeting. VPS Productions rented its HPX2700 from DC Camera (Arlington, Va.).

New Perspective on P2 HD
Mark Fallone is a longtime user of Panasonic tape-based HD and P2 HD camcorders at New Perspective Productions. New Perspective purchased the VariCam 2700 late in 2008 from Azcar Digital Media Solutions (Canonsburg, Penn.).

"The AJ-SDX900 was our first Panasonic camera purchase, and that introduced us to the rich, film-like Panasonic 'look,'" Fallone says. "We became early adopters of P2 HD, and our AG-HVX200 familiarized us with the P2 workflow, which we present to our clients as a 'full-flow work system.'"

"We'd previously rented a tape-based VariCam for several major projects, and it always proved a workhorse with really amazing imagery," he continued. "So when we went shopping for a highly mobile EFP/ENG style camera, but one that could be tricked out with high-end lens packages, we didn't need to look much further than the HPX2700.

"It carries the cinematic lineage of the original VariCam, with the added attraction of the sleek P2 workflow. The HPX2700 has performed beautifully on projects ranging from those with the heft of the Advance Auto shoot to handheld :30 spots to viral Web videos.

"The AVC-Intra codec is really robust," Fallone continues. "When I'm shooting 10-bit 4:2:2 AVC-Intra 100, I have absolute confidence I can put footage in front of the client and say, 'There's your HD, with no sacrifice on the compression side. That's what you're paying for.'"

"Dynamic range performance is one of the reasons we bought the HPX2700," he says. "I am constantly awed at how the HPX2700 rolls so beautifully from the highlights to dark areas, and that's using the factory setting with very little tweaking. Faces with backlighting or any modeled light look very rich and saturated, never artificial or electric."

"The camcorder really shines with a real piece of glass like the Zeiss Super Speeds," Fallone adds. "A lens of that caliber changes the dynamic of the shoot, and encourages you to use a lot of different focal lengths. You realize a beautiful image with virtually no chromatic aberration."

While Fallone didn't engage the HPX2700's variable-frame-rate capabilities on the Advance Auto Parts shoot, he has used it on other projects, notably a recruitment video for the Community College of Allegheny County that featured high-speed background footage to convey the notion that students can "get their degrees fast."

"I can depend on the HPX2700 for consistent excellent results," Fallone says. "I tell my crew if I'm going into battle, that's the camera I want in the foxhole with me."