The Alexa 65

Arri just made a big announcement; they're releasing a different version of the Alexa, titled the "Alexa 65" and some of its features are very impressive (6K and a 65mm sensor just to name a few).

The camera gets its name from the 65mm sensor that comes with the camera, which is about 3x bigger than a standard super35. They call the sensor the A3X and claim it is "the largest high-performance motion picture sensor available on the market today. The sensor has a 54.12 ,, x 25.59 mm active imaging area, which is even larger than the film gate of ARRI's 765 65 mm film camera." The sensor has a dynamic range of more than 14 stops and the sensor is designed with the same color imaging/interpretation so that the image produced will match well with any member of the Alexa family. 

Just to give some insight as to how impressive the dynamic range of this camera is here's some comparison: 

The Canon 5D Mark ii - 10 stops

RED Epic X - 13.5 stops

Sony FS-100 - 11.5 stops

Sony PMW F3 - 12+ stops

Blackmagic URSA - 12 stops

The Alexa 65 features a similar design and ergonomics as the 35mm Alexa, except a little wider to fit the larger sensor. Arri isn't making the Alexa 65 available for purchase, its going for rentals only. Arri will be sending the camera out with an entire system, including rehoused Hasselblad prime lenses as well as a Codex Vault workflow solution. 

Here are the specific features (provided by "no-film school):

• 65mm Digital Cinema Camera
• ARRI A3X CMOS sensor
• 5-perf 65mm (full camera aperture)
• 6560 x 3102 resolution (maximum recordable)
• 54.12 x 25.58 mm Sensor size (active image area)
• Weight: 10.5 kg / 23.2 lb
• ARRI XPL Mount (64mm diameter)
• 200 - 3200 ISO. Base is 800 ISO
• Dynamic Range: >14 stops
• Uncompressed ARRIRAW
• LDS metadata
• Electronic Shutter 5° - 358°, adjustable in 1/10° increments
• 0.75 to 27 fps (upgrade to 60 fps planned for early 2015)

Here are some links to find out more:

http://www.fdtimes.com/issues/cinec-munich-issue/

http://arrirentalgroup.com/alexa65/

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/arri-reveals-6k-65mm-cinema-camera-alexa-65

While it is so great that cameras are advancing so much with the ability to shoot in high resolutions like 4K, 6K ect, what does it say that the exhibition and distribution of 4K+ projects isn't keeping up with the advances of cameras and that some laptops still feature sub-HD monitors. 

Sony FS-100/ Creative Video

Looking back at the old blog posts I saw a lot of movies being reviewed, I'm going to change things up a bit. In the era we are in online videos and media are becoming more and more popular. In most peoples life they watch some sort of media throughout their day, whether it is a viral video on youtube or a professional short film on Vimeo. I will be posting a few videos for you all to look at some pertaining to class others that are just really cool to analyze from a cinematographers standpoint.

The first video is a review of the Sony NEX FS100 which we will be using in class. I figured I would learn a little bit more about this camera and it's set up so I searched youtube and found this review by ProMotion. The video is done in a professional manner and is a nice beginner overview of some of the features this camera has.

Sony NEX FS100 Overview by Pro Motion


The next video is B-Roll filmed on the Sony NEX FS100. This video really got me excited. The quality of the camera is beautiful, and compared to the camera I used last year ,which is the JVC HM100, it is a huge step up. I plan to take out a camera this weekend and make a similar video and hopefully edit it with Adobe Premiere.

Pacific City Dory Fleet | Sony FS100

The last video is something I found this past summer when I was extremely bored and was on StumbleUpon. I personally think this video is amazing. I ski and I love extreme sports, I really enjoy watching skiing videos and things of that genre. This film shows four mountain bikers riding some hardcore trails, but more importantly the shots the camera man got really make you wonder how they did that. I really enjoyed the editing and content and I hope you take something away from it.

Mountain Biking Madness

I hope you all enjoyed my first post and I look forward to reading all of yours.

Reenactment Shot Shoot- Quiet Riot

After our film shoot last weekend, I realized how important it is know your footage, actors, and location before shooting a shot as detail heavy as our recreation shot. I also learned that it is extremely difficult to find actors if you are not organized and ambitious. Despite all of our efforts we could not find enough actors to do the original shot we chose and had to change our shot at the very last minute, creating a source of stress within the group. I also learned that it is important to know upcoming events and activities dealing with your location to prevent conflicts in scheduling. Because we filmed in the commons for our original shot, we were unable to shoot there for the recreation shot due to a community activity that was taking place on our scheduled shooting day. It was also very difficult to film around the public and to capture the natural state of people with a  camera  present.

For the actual film shoot, I was the Director of Photography and we decided to use the Sony FS-100. I have not really used the camera before and it was much easier to achieve the look of the original shot by using picture profiles. Using profile pictures, allowed me to view the shot through several types of settings and help me achieve the perfect look for our recreation shot. It was also a great challenge to frame the shot the same as the original. I found it to be very beneficial to study the location of the actors in relation to their environment. I used physical attributes of the location, such as lines on the wall and staircases, to frame the shot within the camera.

As far as the directing was concerned, it worked the best to provide our actors with countdowns  for their actions and used verbal cues to move the actors forward in the shot. Using a countdown was very beneficial to our actors. In the end we got a shot that was almost identical to the first shot, concerning the physical and facial expressions of our actors. It was also very important that we used similar wardrobe choices and actors with similar physical features.

Overall,  I am really impressed with myself and my groups's ability to overcome the difficulties we faced during this project. I wished that our shot was much longer than it ended up being but I think we did an excellent job on our recreation shot. This was a very challenging experience but was a great learning experience and tons of fun.