Chris Wahlmark 12/17/24 Chris Wahlmark 12/17/24

PASCP Presents: The Nutcracker

Under the leadership of a new artistic director, PASCP’s The Nutcracker once again captivated audiences at Eisenhower Auditorium, and we were lucky enough to be asked to capture the magic.

Nittany Ballet Dancers in The Nutcracker

One of my favorite events to film each year is PASCP/Nittany Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. While many of the main elements remain year over year, it’s still amazing to see the new ways that each scene is dreamed up.

While I normally just film the show for archival purposes, this year I was asked to also provide b-roll footage during the dress rehearsal, to be used for social and publicity for next year. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get more familiar with our Ronin RS-2. While I’ve usually operated with the FX6 and a prime lens, I decided to run with a Sony FX3 paired with the 24-70 f2.8 GM II. I also had two focus motors, and took the time to 3D print a couple gear rings to operate both zoom and focus from the Ronin handle. The final touch was wireless monitoring with the RavenEye module that broadcast live video to my phone. All in all, a pretty streamlined setup!

I coupled the gimbal footage with some handheld, slo-mo shots on the FX6 and 70-200 f2.8 GM II lens. Although it broke my back a bit, the 4k120 looked amazing, and I loved being able to use the rehearsal as an opportunity to get closer to the stage, to really capture the technical performance aspects that might otherwise be missed from the back of the auditorium.

I captured the show with two Blackmagic Design products: the Pocket Cinema Camera 6k Pro, and the Production Studio 6k Pro. Both have EF mounts, so I paired the pocket with a Sigma 24-70 Art zoom and the studio with the beloved Canon 70-200. Manual focus is a must, so I loved working with the large monitor on the Studio and its focus peaking abilities. I also decided to be professional and make postproduction less taxing by getting the camera timecodes synced with a couple of Tentacle Sync E packs.

Why Blackmagic versus the usual Sony packages I typically film with? Well, I’ve found for these shows that BRAW is just an amazing, invaluable tool when working with ever changing stage lighting, and the increased dynamic range allows me to reign in the spotlights while still having some of the more dimly lit parts of the stage still visible. And since I deliver in 4k, the 6k sensors give me creative flexibility with cropping if needed. The downside? File sizes. Footage and audio from both shows occupy nearly 3TB of space on my array.

From the Client:

“Working with Chris at CW Studios has always been such a pleasure. The quality of work and the attention to detail is unparalleled, and they’re never afraid to try something different. I would highly recommend CW Studios for your next video project.”

— Paul Gibson: Artistic Director, PASCP

About the Project:

- Ronin RS-2 Gimbal
- Sony FX3/FX6
- 28-70 f2.8 GMII
- 70-200 f2.8 GMII
- Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6k Pro
- Blackmagic Design Studio Camera 6k
- Sigma 24-70 f2.8 DG OS HSM ART
- Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS III USM

Behind the Scenes

Archive Screen Shots

Chris Wahlmark 11/25/24 Chris Wahlmark 11/25/24

2024 Renaissance Fund Reception

We made sure that the footage of this event hosted by Alumni Development was as elegant and dramatic as the setting.

Every year, Penn State Alumni Development holds the Renaissance Fund Reception, an event which celebrates yearly honorees of the Renaissance Fund Scholarship. The scholarship helps support academically talented students with the greatest financial need, and the evening gala plays host to the best of our student, university, and local communities.

For the past two years, we’ve been honored to play a small role in the evening’s AV production, as well as being tasked with creating a video archive of the event to send to donors and friends of the honorees to mark the occasion. In addition to projection control, which mostly consisted of a Powerpoint presentation, hangslides with logos, and lyrics to the alma mater, we were also tasked this year with creating a playlist and providing background music for the pre-show cocktail hour. Luckily, the honorees provided pretty specific requests: ‘well-known foot tappers from the ‘30s and beyond, but without lyrics.

While I have a pretty extensive musical background, I thought maybe this could be a challenge taken on by our future AI overlords, and they produced! A search string of ‘upbeat music from ‘x’ decade, without lyrics,’ turned up quite a few hits, and then I was able to aggregate that list and ask for a two hour playlist of a similar nature. At that point, some time was spent in Apple Music creating the list, weeding out the bad seeds, and adding a few of my own that I thought would work well, and voilà, a dj business was born!

For the video production we pulled out all the stops, utilizing Sony cinema-line cameras (FX6 and two FR7s), all with matching full-frame sensors and set to 4k60. PTZ camera control was supported by the RM-IP500 controller, and our new production cart made sure all those connections were tidy. A huge thank you to the Penn Stater AV staff for making sure ‘The Wahlmark’ build order was in place, which involves a couple dry line feeds to the front of the room for those beautiful podium and crowd shots, along with an audio patch from, and to, house sound, and the projector hookup.

We want to thank Penn State Alumni Development for inviting us back to support this event, and we look forward to doing it all again in 2025!