Warm Springs Productions Taps Panasonic P2 Cameras for Mountain Men, Making Monsters

Warm Springs Productions, a rugged reality television production specialist located in Missoula, MT, recently utilized Panasonic P2 HD to shoot the highly-rated History series, Mountain Men, and the Travel Channel’s hit, Making Monsters, with the AJ-HPX3100 and AJ-HPX2000 2/3-inch shoulder-mounts. Warm Springs also deploys a number of AG-HPX370 P2 HD shoulder-mounts, AG-HVX200A P2 HD handhelds and AG-HCK10 POVCAM HD cameras as B cameras and for specialty shooting.

Warm Springs has also produced a number of current and past series with these Panasonic cameras, including Zombie Apocalypse (upcoming on the Science Channel); past seasons of Duck Commander and Buck Commander for the Outdoor Channel, as well as that network’s upcoming Friends of NRA 3; and Brotherhood Outdoors and Guns and Gold for the Sportsman Channel.

The company is currently in production for the second season of Mountain Men, which follows several individuals living in various mountain areas and shows viewers what it is like to live “off-the-grid” in the wild. Making Monsters, which just concluded its second season and is in pre-production for a third season, profiles Distortion Unlimited’s Ed Edmunds and his staff, who create some of the scariest animatronics and “frightronics” the haunt industry has ever seen.

“As our calling card is outdoor programming, we place a serious demand on equipment and require cameras that are durable and solid,” says Chris Richardson, President/Executive Producer, Warm Springs Productions. “Solid-state P2 HD has delivered rugged performance for more than four years, with our original investment in the HPX2000s and HVX200s followed by the addition of HPX3100s and HPX370s. We’re typically producing several series simultaneously, and the cameras turn quickly from shoot to shoot.

“We shoot all our flagship series in AVC-Intra 100,” Richardson continued. “Mountain Men is shot in 1080/30p and Making Monsters, a highly visual show, is shot in 1080/24p.These are both three-camera shows; we usually take out at least two of the larger-imager cameras—the HPX3100 and HPX2000 cut together seamlessly—and one handheld for maneuverability. We’ve actually attached the HKC10 POVCAMs to a gun and recorded travel shots in swamps and duck blinds.”

“We take full advantage of P2’s solid-state, all-weather resilience. We shot the first eight, one-hour episodes of Mountain Men in the mountains of Montana, North Carolina and Alaska, where we encountered temperatures as low as -55 F, and routinely dealt with rain, wind and high altitudes.

Richardson said the company is transitioning to Avid editing, which will “allow us to import all the footage in native form.” He plans to shortly add wireless metadata input capability to the HPX3100s.

“We are definitely sold-state advocates,” he said. “P2 HD affords us a seamless workflow, and we love the color and clarity of the end product.”