ARRI Alexa
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2022 in Cameras
2022 was a quiet year for camera technology, thank goodness. The decade plus I’ve been covering camera breakthroughs on this website has been a rocket ride. So much velocity, so little time to stop, catch one’s breath, smell some roses. Ask yourself, who can any longer tell the difference between film and digital origination on the big screen? Be honest. No less than Roger Deakins declared film a dead issue half a dozen years ago. His latest, Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, shot using Arri Alexa Mini LF (large format) and spherical Arri Signature Primes, is a loving paean to […]
by David Leitner on Dec 31, 2022 -
DPs Denis Lenoir and Yorick Le Saux on Wasp Network, Arri Alexa vs Sony VENICE and Dividing Cinematographer Duties
The sunny subterfuge of Wasp Network, about a knotty web of anti-Castro groups and Cold War residuals, is a relief from the blue skin, suits and shadows of heavy political thrillers. It’s an Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction) film after all, shot in Cuba, Miami and the blue sky and ocean in between. As on Carlos, Assayas’ go-to DPs Denis Lenoir (Cold Water, Disorder.) and Yorick Le Saux (Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction) shot their own half of Wasp Network. With Carlos, Le Saux started the film and chose the film stock, lenses, etc. On Wasp Network, Lenoir shot the first […]
by A.E. Hunt on Jul 15, 2020 -
DP Rachel Morrison on Black Panther, Scaling Up for Marvel and 10-Hour Days
I’ve never interviewed a cinematographer who thought they had enough time or enough money — not once, no matter how big or how small the movie. With Black Panther, Rachel Morrison moved from the indie world to the gilded soundstages of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” a land of $150 million budgets and 100-day shooting schedules. So did the recent Oscar nominee feel like she had everything she needed? “No, not even close,” laughs Morrison, who earned the Marvel gig after her work on Fruitvale Station, Dope and Mudbound. “I had the naive expectation that once you get to that level […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 12, 2018 -
DP Jeff Cutter on Shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane in Near-Sequence, Dragon vs. Alexa and Six Specific Shots
Because the wheels of the movie machine turn slowly, timeliness is not among cinema’s primary virtues. Thus when a movie reflects an aspect of the cultural zeitgeist, it’s either an act of Nostradamian foresight or sheer luck. I don’t know which is the case with 10 Cloverfield Lane, but there’s something about this tense three-hander—which finds a paranoid middle aged white man (John Goodman) fighting to preserve his notion of American ideals inside a bomb shelter alongside a young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who refuses to accept his envisioned role—that feels right at home in a world where a President […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 23, 2016 -
Styling the Comedic Horror Film Another Evil like My Dinner with Andre: DP Drew Bienemann
For his feature debut Another Evil, writer/animator Carson D. Mell tackles the risky horror-comedy genre. A husband and wife discover that their vacation home may be populated by malign spirits, bringing in two separate exorcists to deal with the problem. Comedy is courtesy of a cast of familiar TV presences (including Togetherness‘ Steve Zissis and Veep‘s Dan Bakkedahl), horror courtesy of the tone established by Mell and DP Drew Bienemann. Prior to the film’s SXSW premiere, Bienemann talked about being guided style-wise by My Dinner with Andre, getting a recommendation for the job from Jody Lee Lipes and the importance of shooting on an Alexa. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 15, 2016 -
Thinking of Tarkovsky While Making New Zealand Look Russian: DP Tim Orr on Z For Zachariah
The settings for Craig Zobel’s 2012 behavioral experiment Compliance and the director’s new post-apocalyptic tale Z for Zachariah couldn’t be more different. The former takes place almost entirely in the claustrophobic confines of a fast food restaurant’s employees-only areas. The latter unfolds amidst lush, bucolic tranquility. Yet at the heart of both films is a study of group dynamics. Set in an idyllic valley mysteriously immune to an extinction-level catastrophe, Z for Zachariah begins as a two-hander featuring Margot Robbie as a Christian farm girl who believes she’s the last person on earth until the arrival of an atheist scientist […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Sep 4, 2015 -
Hitchcock + Haneke: DP Edu Grau on The Gift
Amongst a summer movie season awash in sequels, remakes and presold tentpole properties, it’s rare to find a sleeper at the multiplex, an unknown quantity with the ability to surprise an audience. Such is The Gift, an unnerving psychological thriller that begins as a post-Fatal Attraction variant before veering into the domain of Roman Polanski and Michael Haneke. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall star as a married couple leaving behind personal tragedy in Chicago to start a new life in Los Angeles. Shortly after their arrival, Bateman bumps into former high school classmate Joel Edgerton, who begins to insinuate himself into […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Aug 27, 2015 -
Watch: DP Roger Deakins Talks LUTs, Sicario and the ALEXA
In this interview conducted by ARRI reps at Cannes, the great DP Roger Deakins talks about his work on Sicario, his (equally fantastic-looking) second collaboration with Denis Villeneuve after Prisoners. This is a fairly technical conversation, as Deakins talks about shooting with an open gate on the ALEXA for the first time, why he prefers to minimize his work with LUTs and his approach to storyboarding.
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 15, 2015 -
80 Kilometers an Hour Through the Desert: DP John Seale on Mad Max: Fury Road
As much as Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where primitive warlords rule the desert wasteland and women are enslaved, Australian filmmaker George Miller had to battle financial difficulties, security concerns, and heavy rains turning the desert location into a landscape of wildflowers in order to bring the fourth instalment of the Mad Max franchise to the big screen. A further complication occurred when veteran collaborator Dean Semler left for personal reasons just before principal photography was to commence on Mad Max: Fury Road, leading to the Oscar-lauded cinematographer being replaced with Academy Award winner John […]
by Trevor Hogg on May 12, 2015 -
Getting Strong Now: Andrew Bujalski on Results
Andrew Bujalski’s first three features — Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax — were all more or less of a piece: illusorily casual 16mm portraits of young people in ambiguously comfortable stasis in, respectively, Boston, Brooklyn and Austin. Computer Chess, released in 2013, was a total UFO both in relation to his work and in relation to just about everything else. Film was out, but instead of clean digital, Bujalski shot on three 1969 SONY AVC-3260 cameras, its unfamiliar type of black-and-white grain making even denser a complicated comedy about a computer chess conference happening sometime in the late […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 28, 2015
