ARRI Alexa Mini
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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 -
Hard Light and Shadows: Passing Cinematographer Edu Grau
Five weeks is not an unusually truncated preproduction period for a cinematographer on a modestly budgeted independent film like Passing. However, the interval between landing the gig and starting that work is typically longer than the time needed to pack a suitcase. That’s the extent of the notice Spanish DP Edu Grau had before hopping aboard the project—and a flight to New York—after a last-minute crew change left Passing director Rebecca Hall without a cinematographer on the eve of prep. “Rebecca called me on a Saturday, and I jumped on a plane the next day to start prepping the movie,” […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 18, 2022 -
Surveying Inner Landscapes
In the current climate of conglomerate studio entertainment, the Holy Grail is no longer the summer tentpole or the once fabled franchise. It is now the “shared universe,” a property capable of infinite expansion across an ever-enlarging landscape of consumption platforms. No outfit has embraced this new paradigm more than Marvel, whose television and film empire spans multiple networks and studios. As a product of FX and Marvel Television, Legion belongs to that universe, yet the new series from Fargo creator Noah Hawley feels like its own creature — not an offshoot or a spinoff or a cog in a […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 13, 2017 -
DP Toby Oliver on Get Out, Cheating the Sunken Place and Color Grading Trailers
Sometimes you have to go where the market pushes you. And after nearly twenty years behind the camera, the market suddenly wants Toby Oliver to shoot horror films. The Australian cinematographer lensed three fright flicks last year alone, all for the low-budget genre juggernaut Blumhouse. He’s practically become Blumhouse’s version of Hammer’s in-house DP Jack Asher. The most recent of Oliver’s horror efforts to hit screens is Get Out, a Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?/Stepford Wives hybrid in which black New York photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) travels upstate to meet his white girlfriend’s family (Allison Williams and parents Catherine Keener and […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 7, 2017
