World Cup is a short film that was commissioned for an event at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood, where full details of ALEXA’s recording and workflow options were first revealed. Director Sam Nicholson, ASC was tasked with pushing ALEXA to the limits of digital cinematography in the short, which was produced by Stargate Studios and shot by Dana Christiaansen.

The idea was to try everything from very dark situations all the way to off-the-chart clipped. We were really interested in the dynamic range of this camera, and it’s amazing - better than anything I’ve seen on the market yet.

We mixed the light throughout; we had every colour temperature in the book, just to see it in the same frame. The colourimetry of the ALEXA chip holds everything; the colour balance is enormous to be able to get detail out of the shadows and hold the highlights. This camera clearly sees beyond what you can see with your eyes.

For greenscreen, ALEXA will hold smoke, water and reflections; extremely delicate keys are possible because the blue channel is so quiet.

And with DTE you can drop images right into your laptop and start cutting right away, which is really important. The size, the dynamics, the design and of course, the quality of ALEXA is better than anything I’ve seen; I can’t wait to shoot more projects with it.

Sam Nicholson, ASC - Director
 

The ALEXA is wonderful handheld; it sits right on your shoulder. The eyepiece in its prototype form is comfortable and seems incredibly high quality to me. It has a beautiful, sharp image; it snaps right into focus and seems to have little to no frame lag. We were chasing a soccer ball around and I felt it was really working well.

Dana Christiaansen - Cinematographer

We were lighting with some really small lights and getting stunning images from the camera. When you have a tool like that, it helps the production on so many levels. I think ARRI has made a camera that operators are going to be very happy to work with.

Brad Stonesifer - Camera Operator

 

For a Steadicam operator, the ALEXA is a dream come true: comfortable; precise; well balanced; very well thought out in every aspect of our daily work flow. It's perfectly set on my sled; you couldn't ask for a better camera.

Ari Robbins - Steadicam Operator

We brought in the un-corrected footage in Log C space, applied the Log to Linear LUT and timed all the images. ALEXA is pretty impressive; we see these digital cameras all the time and we’re constantly looking at how they live in the film space - how they resolve on film. From what we’ve seen with ALEXA just in this short period of time, it’s a game changer.

Tom Vice - VP Operations, FotoKem