Hong Kong-made DVD The Eugene Pao Project is in demand around the world because of its high quality production

Hong Kong has for many years been well known as an important centre for movie and television programme makers. Now, it is making its mark in concert films.

Local expertise in film and video production is internationally recognised thanks to industry leaders such as  Centro Digital Pictures, which invests heavily in state-of-the-art equipment to produce special effects for Hollywood directors.

At the other end of the scale, increasingly powerful computers and high quality video cameras have allowed individual operators with creative minds to enter the business at a relatively low cost.

Something else Hong Kong is becoming known for is one of the most vibrant jazz scenes in Asia. At least two of its leading lights - guitarist Eugene Pao and keyboard player Ted Lo - enjoy both critical acclaim and an international following.

To some extent the two worlds overlap. Musicians like Pao and Lo are involved in advertising jingle and movie soundtrack work, and their advanced musical skills are also called upon by Cantopop artists (Cantopop is a Hong
Kong term for Western styled popular songs sung in Cantonese by local artists - it is a massive industry with followings in Chinese communities around the world).

Diverse talents

Video Channel Productions Ltd, established in 1994, is a fully digital production and post production house that undertakes a broad range of corporate and commercial work, and also periodically undertakes self-produced projects.

One of its specialities is filming Cantopop concerts, and recently the company diversified into jazz, recording Pao with Lo and a band of Asian-based star musicians for a high quality DVD.

The idea was to capture the musicians' performances on a disc which would showcase not only the music, but also the high technical standards achieved by the Hong Kong video industry.

"Our primary concern is technical standards," explains Video Channel's chief operations officer, Stone Lee. "We try to do work which is well shot and has very good post production. It's all digital. Nothing goes back into analogue".

For Pao, the video was an opportunity to record his music for the first time in the multi-channel 5.1 surround sound the DVD format allows, giving the listener the impression of being seated in the middle of the band.

The musicians were filmed and recorded live,  without an audience, at the Lyric Theatre of Hong Kong's Academy for Performing Arts. Sound recording was handled by another local company, Logic Workshop, working closely with Video Channel.

Dynamic results

"Normally," explains Mr Lee, who directed, "when you film a concert it's lit for the eyes of the audience. Because there wasn't one this time we were able to light for the dynamic range of the cameras, and you get a very different result."

The combination of digital video, 5.1 sound mixed down from 62 audio tracks, and the creative camera work of the Video Channel Team resulted in the first world-class jazz DVD to be shot in Asia outside Japan.

Entitled The Eugene Pao Project, the DVD has already been released in Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan, and will shortly be released in Japan. An official North American release is planned, but copies are already available there, privately imported by record store operators.

"We try to have no compromise in anything. We hired the best vision director, the best cameramen, and the best sound recording engineers for the ultimate sound," says Mr Lee.

It seems to have worked. Video Channel is already talking to the management of artists interested in coming to Hong Kong to achieve similar results. With more and more musicians internationally now seeking to capture their music definitively for the DVD market, the message is clear: why not try Hong Kong?