FEATURE | GO LARGE
J ames Neihouse ASC has worked on more than 35 IMAX films during his career, seven of which have been shot in space in association with NASA. He’s received awards for Best Cinematography from the Giant Screen Cinema Association for Space Station 3D (2002), and Hubble 3D (2010). For A Beautiful Planet (2016) he trained the astronauts how to film in space, in addition to his DOP duties. Who else to comment on the use of large format cameras than someone who has been shooting this way for years? “I’ve been shooting IMAX which requires the big negative to get to a screen that is 30m or more across. It’s like the old days of shooting 35mm still film or medium-format; if you wanted a big print you needed a big negative. As a result, you get that shallower depth-of-field which is key. Of course, the image quality is really important. Because of the look, because of the quality and because of the depth-of- field and with lenses that nearly match the resolution, you get a different look – one that people more equate to film than video. “The cameras aren’t going super high resolution, the RED Monstro is 8K, it’s not as if they’ve gone 10K or 12K with smaller pixels, they went with bigger pixels. That just gives it a better look. The same can be said of the ARRI Alexa 65, that’s a 65mm sensor but only about 6.5K. Resolution isn’t everything, it’s the quality of the photosites, it’s the colour science behind them – is it 8-bit, 10-bit or 12-bit – and then
the way you bring that material out of the camera with the different algorithms the camera manufacturers use. There is so much involved that I think now resolution is another way to sell cameras, as everyone wants the highest resolution camera, but it doesn’t mean anything. Instead, you start looking at the amount of drive space you need for these high resolution cameras. When you start adding colour-bit depth to that you start talking TeraBytes instead of GigaBytes, and PetaBytes not TeraBytes.” GOING BACK TO SUPER 35MM James mostly shoots in large format or IMAX but when he goes back to Super 35mm he has to remember some basic maths. “My biggest problem after so much large format or IMAX is that I pretty much started my career shooting large format. One of the first Super 35mm films that I did was strange as I was having to do this maths in my head, like 40mm equals a 20mm for the lenses and the coverage angle, and also getting used to the depth- of-field. Also, shooting wider and faster, some of the large format lenses are not the fastest. You’re spreading that back circle out so thin to cover the image that the light goes away. You go from a lens that you’re used to shooting with at T4 but now are able to shoot T1.4 and thinking how much fun it is and how you don’t have to carry so much light around. “But large-format has a different look. When Emmanuel Lubezki shot The Revenant on the Alexa 65, I think you can
see a big difference. Everyone has cottoned on to the 65 with the Alexa and now you have the SONY Venice, the RED Monstro and the Canon C700 FF. I just did a whole camera evaluation test for the Giant Screen Cinema Association where we compared the ARRI Alexa 65, the SONY Venice, RED’s Monstro, Panavision’s DXL2 and the new Canon C700 FF. Some had more noise than others but for a giant screen they were pretty equal. But they do have a different look to each other, contrast-wise and their ‘cinema feel’. I like the Alexa 65 but the Monstro and the DXL2 looked good, actually I wouldn’t throw any of them out. “A lot of people have been using the new large format cameras for giant screen; for sure the Venice and the Monstro
You get a different look – one that people more equate to film than video
ABOVE SONY’s Venice will be used to shoot the upcoming Avatar sequels. RIGHT DOP James Niehouse trained all the astronauts for the IMAX movie A Beautiful Planet .
46 DEF I N I T ION
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