GREY

[Scott McIntyre]

Just finished off coloring this short film shot on ARRI ALEXA. Truely amazing files to work with in Color, incredible latitude and depth. Now doing a project with RED MX so I'll do a comparison blog shortly for post.

 

"GREY" 720p on VIMEO

 

 

 

 

A hitman at the end of his rope, Grey lives the only way he knows how - by the gun.

 

Cast

 

Grey - Drew Zeran

 

Crew

 

Writer l Director: Andre Rehal

Cinematographer: Michael R. Brazeau

Editor: Drew Stevenson

Sound: Nadia Awad

Colour Correction l VFX: Scott McIntyre

1st AC: Cameron Stoltz

 

Tech Specs

 

Camera - ARRI ALEXA

Lensing - Cooke S4's

ASA - 800 (interiors), 1600 (night exteriors)

Gamma - Log C

Edit - FCP

Grading - Apple Color

 

Links

 

andrerehal.com

michaelbrazeau.tumblr.com

drewstevenson.tumblr.com

smakstudios.com

arridigital.com/alexa

cookeoptics.com/

simvideo.com/

[Phil Rhodes]

Pardon me for asking, but an Alexa presumably costs about eleven million pounds a second to rent at this point; how does a short budget for that?

[Scott McIntyre]

Magic of the film business.

[Ari Davidson]

That looked bad ass.

[Rob Vogt]

That was not as expected. I feel like this was just meant to emphasize the shallow dof of the camera, which that combined with the shakiness really distracted from the story (I get it though and I get what the director wanted- he's at the end of his rope make it edgy dark, shaky, but he should've known when to tone it down a bit. Also fwiw the bad audio doesn't help) This, I hope, was just recorded off the sxs cards and not onto an SRW1 deck b/c it seems like an HVX or EX1 with an adapter. I didn't really notice the great latitude you mentioned and I would like to know about the ASA settings used because the grain in some of the shots look really nice and really noisy in others.

[Scott McIntyre]

I've done a case study on what the footage from the ALEXA is like with Apple Color.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zg53PXmgo

[Kieran Scannell]

I've done a case study on what the footage from the ALEXA is like with Apple Color.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zg53PXmgo

 

That's some nice colour correction! I am surprised however at how thin the the original raw files were in terms of colour depth and contrast. I've shot with the RED a few times now and the raw footage was not as flat and required minimal tweaking in post.

Is this normal for the ALEXA?

[Kieran Scannell]

Sorry! I just read your ASA ratings that explains a lot! For a 1600 ASA rating that's very impressive!

[Stephen Williams]

That's some nice colour correction! I am surprised however at how thin the the original raw files were in terms of colour depth and contrast. I've shot with the RED a few times now and the raw footage was not as flat and required minimal tweaking in post.

Is this normal for the ALEXA?

 

Hi,

 

Recording a flat 'Log' image will preserve the max dynamic range, I think you will find more usable DR than your used to with R1.

[Kieran Scannell]

Hi,

 

Recording a flat 'Log' image will preserve the max dynamic range, I think you will find more usable DR than your used to with R1.

 

Thanks Stephen! I guess I'm just not used to shooting this way. So rating 800 ASA for interiors and 1600 ASA for night exteriors gives the best DR for the ALEXA?

[Scott McIntyre]

Thanks Stephen! I guess I'm just not used to shooting this way. So rating 800 ASA for interiors and 1600 ASA for night exteriors gives the best DR for the ALEXA?

 

I believe the DP was using a monitor on set with waveform, and was trying to get me a solid amount of information between 0-100. Not sure if he would always shoot with these settings.

 

The log file really opened up well as I stated. Not a whole bunch of noise added, and I myself do really like the grain structure of this footage. I would have to say its a touch more cinematic than RED MX footage. But every project requires something different from the camera.

 

I'm just glad there are so many too choose from now.

 

I've graded F23, F35, D21, ALEXA, RED, RED MX, 5D "HATED", PHANTOM, VIPER

 

All amazing cameras, but each one offers its own unique style and flow to digital cinema.

[Guest]

I was at Deluxe last week and a senior colourist was raving about this camera so I decided to have a look around. He claimed it was the closest to 35mm he's ever seen.

 

Hmmm, not sure what he's looking at? The output doesn't look a thing like 35 to me, looks like very nice video, but certainly no match for film.

 

The post work flow certainly looks convenient being able to plug direct into the Mac and edit the Apple Pro Res in FCP. That's nice.

 

And Phil Simvideo in Toronto where I assume the camera was rented from is known to make nice deals for people with no money that want to shoot a short. Plus if you know them, even better. :)

 

I assume that if I brought this camera out on set I am locked into 24fps? No 150 fps shots?

 

R,

[Alex Nelson]

What was the recording medium on "Grey"? Until Arri actually enables the SxS recorder, it seems like your options are limited to the SRW-1 deck, a P2 deck, or a Nano Flash. I know the Weisscam DM-2 will also work, but virtually nobody has access to that. Anyway, the compression resulting from any one of these would certainly have an effect on the post process.