July 1, 2009
 The feature doc depicts the realities of a family under fire, captured with Sony HVR-Z1Us.
By Jon Silberg
As a boy, Jake Rademacher wanted to attend West Point and become an army officer, but when he didn’t get into that uppermost academy, he abandoned his dream of military service and instead pursued acting and voiceover work. Meanwhile, two of his brothers did join the military: Isaac graduated from West Point and is now an Army officer; Joe serves as a Ranger sniper. As the Iraq War continued, Jake sought to document his brothers’ experience overseas and this became the inception of the documentary feature Brothers At War. “I wanted to make a film about the guys in the battlefield,” he explains, “not political pundits or people back in the States talking about what was going on.” 
Jake (right) interviews brother, Isaac. Having two brothers serving in Iraq certainly helped Jake clear some hurdles to gaining access — with video equipment — to the center of the action. He and his two cameramen, Marc Miller and Conor Colwell, taped raging firefights, tense house searches and trained sniper missions in some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq and along the Syrian border. But Jake also wanted to capture the human side of the story through interviews with soldiers and officers, including his brothers, about everything from their motivations for volunteering for war zones to feelings about spending so much time apart from spouses and children. A significant portion of the film also concerns Jake’s experiences getting a taste of the life his two brothers have chosen for themselves. 
Conor Colwell, Jake Rademacher, Marc Miller and Isaac Rademacher.
Rademacher estimates that roughly 80 percent of Brothers At War was shot with the Sony HVR-Z1U HDV camcorder, which had just been introduced when his production began. And while very pleased with the results, he admits he was not at all keen on using what was then the brand-new HDV format. “When Conor suggested the Z1U, we had a very heated discussion,” Rademacher recalls. “As a producer, I was concerned about being a guinea pig for HDV technology.”
“Rugged camera,” says Miller of the Z1U. “It rejected the dust and dirt, and there was a lot of it where we were! I’d clean it at least once a day with camel-hair brushes and canned air and it was covered. It didn’t affect the operation.” 
“HDV was this new thing,” Colwell adds, “which is funny because it was just around for a couple of years before it was replaced by solid-state media. I remember reading in DV magazine about Panasonic cameras that would use P2 cards instead of tape. I’d shot with Sony cameras in the past but I was a huge fan of Panasonic’s DVX cameras and I really wanted to shoot with the P2 cards, but the camera was still six months away from being on shelves, much less being readily available.
“I know P2 works now, but, in some ways, it still might not be the best choice for something like Brothers At War,” he adds. “We shot 250 tapes on our first trip to Iraq alone. Dealing with that much HD footage on hard drives in the middle of the desert could have been a problem.” 
Logging tapes while in Iraq.
“I felt we were getting very artistic stuff in the field with the Z1U,” Rademacher picks up, “but I was extremely nervous about what it would ultimately look like on the big screen until we got through the final film tests. I could show you some film tests that just look awful. Not every facility could handle the 50i and 60i and get it to the way it finally looked in theaters. We were very lucky to have found Ascent Media’s Level 3 Post. I saw some tests that made me want to jump through a window.”
The crew also took along smaller, lighter, Samsung HZ1 camcorders (shooting at 60i). These proved particularly handy for zip-tying to the outside of a Humvee as it drove through the desert, to be used as a second camera, and for use with military-issue night vision scopes while on the front. 
Zip ties proved to be a good mounting solution.
With two trips to war zones, interviews and the home movies Rademacher wanted to intercut through the story, he and editor Robert DeMaio spent many months working out exactly what the story of Brothers At War would be. Ultimately, it weaves together Jake’s arc as he attempts to forge a closer relationship with his brothers, his two brothers’ very different stories and personalities, the sensibilities of the servicemen he interviews, and a dark back story about another Rademacher brother whose life took a very different turn. “There was one day Bob just looked at me and said, ‘What is this movie?’” Rademacher recalls. “But he is an excellent editor and really helped it all to come together.” 
Jake Rademacher demos a Sony Z1U while shooting in Iraq. 
Videographer Conor Colwell in the deserts of Iraq.
DeMaio worked in Final Cut Pro, having imported all the material at its native resolution and frame rate, so the Z1U material was at 50i, the HZ1 at 60i, a small section shot on Panasonic AG-DVX100 in 24p mode and home movies shot on VHS and Mini DV. Rademacher credits Level 3 Post’s senior engineer, Martin Hernandez, with helping them achieve the cleanest digital master possible.
The filmmakers brought their Final Cut project, EDL and original source tapes to Level 3. “They made 24p HD versions of all the material we used in the cut,” Rademacher recounts. “They took those new tapes and used them as source material to rebuild a copy of the entire show in the Avid all in 24p and that became our new master, which we also color corrected at Level 3. We took that finished project to their sister company, Ascent Burbank, and filmed it out.”
Rademacher was pleased with the results: “The wide shots of the desert, the Iraqi sunsets, the definition in people’s faces — it’s all there as I hoped it would be.” See the related story here about shooting Brothers At War.
Additional images from the production: 
   
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