New film that's shot with a medium format Rental ARRI Alexi 65 movie camera

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Steve M.

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I saw some clips yesterday from the winner of the Venice Film Festival, and was impressed by the imagery. Here's a clip below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BS27ngZtxg

and here's some info on the camera

https://variety.com/2016/film/awards/arri-alexa-65-camera-hollywood-1201708452/

The clarity of the images is amazing. If you pause the youtube trailer on certain frames you get a sense of how clean and crisp they are. Although it lacks the deep blacks and bright whites of traditional B&W film, it's still a an impressive piece of machinery.
 
The film is sumptuous and lensed by the director who did double duty. However, it's kinds cheating since looking at the specs the base ISO is an incredible 800 with this camera and has a remarkable 14 stops of dynamic range.

It is in a way a cheat as the film is visually sumptuous but it has more to do with the technology. It was shot, pert much, using natural light documentary style. However, a camera with these kind of specs can't help but crank out gorgeous images in any manner of light -- and it does.

As for the film it's very good -- but not for everyone. Has a minimalist plot and is "meditative" in its pacing but manages to be engaging thanks largely to the immersive imagery, audio (which is great and overlooked) and pitch perfect performance.

Definitely worth a watch but somewhat overrated.

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ARRI Alexa 65 digital large-format camera. "I didn't want this to a be a vintage black-and-white — a black-and-white that would look like something done in the '60s or the '50s," he says. "I wanted a digital black-and-white that would embrace digital, not try to hide the digital quality of it, with amazing resolution and amazing dynamic range and amazing definition."


'Roma' - Alfonso Cuarón
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...-cinematography-behind-screen-podcast-1169293
 
Film? Not so much. Sounds like an interesting digital motion picture though. I'll have to take a look. I think it's terrific that a great old company such as Arnold and Richter can still cut it with the best in 2018.
 
You are right, it is a movie. But, I think film is the popular definition for movies nowadays. I notice that they still call it the Venice Film Festival, which is good, because for a while they could have called it the Venice Festival for Movies That Were Shot With a Canon 5D. That just doesn't sound, or look, the same. Whenever I talk to people about photography and mention that I'm a film shooter, 99% of the time their response is "Ohhh, which directors are you working with now?". This is usually followed by "Where do you get film these days?"

I think all the films these days are highly over rated. People have discovered that they can spam sites like IMDb with fake user accounts and suddenly a lousy film is getting 8.2 rankings. My solution to that is to watch mostly films from people like Kubrick, Huston, Wilder, Fellini, etc.

We did see a new biography last week called Maria by Callus and I highly recommend it. I don't even like opera (except for Pagliacci), but this woman's voice had me in tears nearly the whole movie. My girlfriend kept saying, you really ARE Italian aren't you? Here's a link to the trailer, and the second link is to the complete film by Tony Palmer that was shot over 30 years ago. Normally women opera singers are big gals but Callas was trim and slender. It's a miracle to hear her sing with such power and clarity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xmsGzhhDGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o6YRJ4VimY
 
More interesting to me is the little bit in there about doubling production and the fact they are working with IMAX to create a new mod of the 65.

I’ve seen a lot of the Alexa65 this year especially on Instagram.
 
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