GO LARGE | FEATURE
Don’t pull everything out of the bag just because you have it, you can run up your budget
ABOVE Director of Outlaw King David Mackenzie directing a shot with Panavision’s DXL camera over the shoulder of star Chris Pine.
more sensor size to play with as well, and ultimately more resolution.” MOVIES FOR LARGE-FORMAT DOP Remi Adefarasin recently shot with ARRI’s new Alexa LF and also used Cooke S7i lenses. “Defining the look of the LF is very difficult using words. Obviously there is more definition but not in an ugly crisp/ harsh way. The image is more rounded and smooth. It looks better even on a small monitor but the larger the screen you see it on, the richer the experience. This is the opposite to smaller sensors where more magnification seems to break down the image. The LF simply holds it together. Large-format isn’t just about resolution, it’s a different relationship between the audience and the image. With the Alexa LF we’re able to capture all the beauty of longer focal lengths but with a wider field of view. This lends itself to capturing images of truly cinematic quality. “The director Dan Friedkin and I wanted a European aesthetic and had already decided on 1.85:1. We had also decided not to go very close to faces, so having a clear image with pleasantly
soft backgrounds was to our advantage. Because the image engulfed you, the need to cut frequently was greatly diminished. It wasn’t an action movie so constant cutting just would have got in the way of the story. “Having a large sensor does make the depth-of-field appreciably more shallow and you really have to bear that in mind when lighting. The sensor is capable of giving remarkable images with almost no light but if the actor is moving around, you need a little bit of aperture to stop it looking annoying. Also, a very good focus puller who has a very good monitor and measuring systems. In the film world it’s rare to wait for the First AC to be totally happy. They have to be good. “The Alexa LF is incredibly similar to the Alexa XT family so very simple to set up and adjust. For example, we had set up for a shot in an attic in Amsterdam on our first day in Holland. We then heard on the walkie-talkie that a new camera was on its way up. Within 20 minutes it was rigged and shooting, brand new camera, brand new lenses. All lined up to our LUT, aspect ratio and everything else. In the whole shoot, not one problem.
cameras, with maybe a little slice of sci-fi for which Netflix is well known. “You can mix up the glass, including some very characterful anamorphic choices, and this is what happened for our trailer. We had full-frame shooting with Canon CN-E primes, then for Super 35 shooting we used the Canon 30-300 zooms, which were our go-to zoom lenses. Then I did a whole lot of anamorphic as well, so it has a 2x squeeze from Cooke with its 35-140mm, and then a load of Cooke anamorphic primes. There was also some 2K high-speed footage as well. The main characters in the trailer were shot in full-frame Raw but the different glass was spread around in different scenes. “The choices that the C700 FF gives you are a huge advantage, as you can change your aesthetic from, say, the classic shallow depth-of-field that the full-frame gives you to anamorphic, and then cropped settings. It was important for the trailer that we tried all the settings, which give you all these choices of look. “For portraiture and people the full-frame look is stupendous. Obviously, if you’re doing CG work you just have
NOVEMBER 20 1 8 | DEF I N I T ION 51
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