FEATURE | MAK I NG OF A LEGEND
Greig Fraser ASC, ACS DOP Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ARRI ALEXA 65 THIS TIME ON MAKING OF A LEGEND WE REMEMBER A CAMERA THAT’S INTENTION WAS TO SAVE THE CINEMA, BUT DID SO MUCH MORE ESPECIALLY FOR LOVERS OF MEDIUM FORMAT IMAGERY T he Alexa 65’s arrival on the Arri Rental camera list piqued the interest of some major DOPs, including Emmanuel ‘Chivo’ Lubezki who was one of the first to call Arri to get a camera. “When the camera was announced, Jess Hall DOP Ghost in the Shell
“At the time I was doing two films, Lion and Rogue One . Lucasfilm knows what it is doing well in advance and has lots of time for development and preparation,” Fraser says. “So back in late 2014, as Star Wars: The Force Awakens was wrapping up post-production, we had the good fortune to use some of their sets. The general consensus was that we were going to go film, because that’s how the originals were shot. Director J J Abrams had just been very successful with it on the previous movie. But lhe look isn’t just for big films. “I’ve used this format, the Alexa 65, on a film called Mary Magdalene . The format is something that I’m quite passionate about. As a filmmaker, I just think we’re entering into this new world of very interesting technology,” says Fraser.
“I wanted to imitate the anime’s aesthetic. The medium format by its nature compresses the perspective. Compressed perspective is something that exists in traditional Japanese art and to a certain extent in anime,” explains Hall. “But also with my own taste I was interested in using wide angles, which kind of echo manga’s feel. I’m not talking about any kind of exaggerated perspective though, so there’s no keystoning or distortion. The Alexa 65 format is also perfect for other formats like IMAX, 3D, HDR and standard 2D projection. The perspective that you can get in 1.85 framing was, as soon as I saw it, the way that I wanted to go. “A particular type of lens with the limited colour palette added up to something unusual.”
we immediately got a couple of calls,” says Andrew Prior, head of Cameras and Digital Systems at Arri Rental UK. “One of them was from Chivo and he said that he would test a camera for us. He was shooting The Revenant and wanted one on set. We, of course, said yes but kept in mind that it was -25˚C and snowing in deepest Canada and he had a prototype.” The other interest came from Robert Elswit who was shooting Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation . “He was doing an underwater sequence with Tom Cruise that involved Tom holding his breath for a long time. They were doing it in a tank and there was going to be a lot of CGI, so he wanted to use the 65 format’s resolution to be able to reframe,” explains Prior. “They could shoot Open Gate and then they could punch in and move around. Also the VFX team would be happy about the resolution. “There is a famous shot in the [ Revenant ] of Leo walking in this massive area and he is just this small speck. He [Lubezki] realised that he had a camera that is not only for the physical landscape of the Earth, but the facial landscape.” Bradford Young, DOP on Solo describes it as ‘exploring the landscape of the face’.
ABOVE The Arri Alexa 65 camera was originally conceived as a plate camera for VFX
48 DEF I N I T ION | MAY 20 1 9
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