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12/09 ISSUE 8<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
The Biannual International Magazine from the <strong>ARRI</strong> RENTAL & POSTPRODUCTION ENTERPRISES<br />
KILLERS<br />
Russell Carpenter ASC on shooting<br />
anamorphic with the D-21<br />
Green Zone<br />
Interview with Barry Ackroyd BSC<br />
Inglourious Basterds<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV work on Tarantino’s<br />
World War II epic<br />
A New Digital Camera System<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> announces a new<br />
generation of digital cameras
<strong>ARRI</strong> SERVICES GROUP NETWORK<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> SUBSIDIARIES<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Australia, Sydney<br />
Cameras<br />
Stefan Sedlmeier<br />
T +61 2 9855 4300<br />
ssedlmeier@arri.com.au<br />
AUSTRIA<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Vienna<br />
Cameras<br />
Gerhard Giesser<br />
T +43 664 120 7257<br />
rental@arri.at<br />
CZECH REPUBLIC<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Prague<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Robert Keil<br />
T +42 025 101 3575<br />
rkeil@arri.de<br />
GERMANY<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Berlin<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Ute Baron<br />
T +49 30 346 800 0<br />
ubaron@arri.de<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Cologne<br />
Cameras<br />
Stefan Martini<br />
T +49 221 170 6724<br />
smartini@arri.de<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Munich<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Thomas Loher<br />
T +49 89 3809 1440<br />
tloher@arri.de<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Services, Munich<br />
Film Lab, DI, TV Postproduction,<br />
VFX, Sound, Studio, Cinema<br />
International Sales<br />
Angela Reedwisch<br />
T +49 89 3809 1574<br />
areedwisch@arri.de<br />
National Sales<br />
Walter Brus<br />
T +49 89 3809 1772<br />
wbrus@arri.de<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Schwarzfilm Berlin<br />
Film Lab, DI, TV Postproduction<br />
Mandy Rahn<br />
T +49 30 408 17 8534<br />
mrahn@arri.de<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Services,<br />
Cologne<br />
DI, TV Postproduction, Sound<br />
Markus Klaff<br />
T +49 221 57165 120<br />
mklaff@arri.de<br />
Schwarz Film<br />
Ludwigsburg<br />
Film Lab, DI, TV Postproduction<br />
Walter Brus<br />
T +49 89 3809 1772<br />
wbrus@arri.de<br />
LUXEMBOURG<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Luxembourg<br />
Cameras<br />
Steffen Ditter<br />
T +352 2670 1270<br />
sditter@arri.de<br />
UNITED KINGDOM<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Lighting <strong>Rental</strong>, London<br />
Lighting<br />
Tommy Moran<br />
T +44 1895 457 200<br />
tmoran@arrirental.com<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Focus, London<br />
Short term lighting hire for<br />
commercials & promos<br />
Martin Maund, George Martin<br />
T +44 1895 810 000<br />
martin@arrifocus.com<br />
george@arrifocus.com<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Media, London<br />
Cameras, Grip<br />
Philip Cooper<br />
T +44 1895 457 100<br />
pcooper@arrimedia.com<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Crew, London<br />
Diary Service<br />
Kate Collier<br />
T +44 1895 457 180<br />
arricrew@arrimedia.com<br />
USA<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> CSC, New Jersey<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Simon Broad,<br />
Hardwrick Johnson<br />
T +1 212 757 0906<br />
sbroad@arricsc.com<br />
hjohnson@arricsc.com<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> CSC, Florida<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Ed Stamm<br />
T +1 954 322 4545<br />
estamm@arricsc.com<br />
Illumination Dynamics, LA<br />
Lighting, Grip<br />
Carly Barber, Maria Carpenter<br />
T +1 818 686 6400<br />
carly@illuminationdynamics.com<br />
maria@illuminationdynamics.com<br />
Illumination Dynamics,<br />
North Carolina,<br />
Lighting, Grip<br />
Jeff Pentek<br />
T +1 704 679 9400<br />
jeff@illuminationdynamics.com<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> PARTNERS & ASSOCIATES<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
Cameraquip, Melbourne,<br />
Brisbane<br />
Cameras<br />
Malcolm Richards<br />
T +61 3 9699 3922<br />
T +61 7 3844 9577<br />
rentals@cameraquip.com.au<br />
CYPRUS<br />
Seahorse Films,<br />
Nicosia, Paphos<br />
Cameras, Lighting,<br />
Grip, Studio<br />
Andros Achilleos<br />
T +357 9967 5013<br />
andros@seahorsefilms.com<br />
GERMANY<br />
Maddel’s Cameras,<br />
Hamburg<br />
Cameras, Grip<br />
Matthias Neumann<br />
T +49 40 66 86 390<br />
info@maddels.com<br />
HUNGARY<br />
VisionTeam, Budapest<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Gabor Rajna<br />
T +36 1 433 3911<br />
info@visionteam.hu<br />
ICELAND<br />
Pegasus Pictures, Reykjavik<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Snorri Thorisson<br />
T +354 414 2000<br />
snorri@pegasus.is<br />
INDIA<br />
Anand Cine Service, Chennai<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip,<br />
Film Lab, DI<br />
Tarun Kumar<br />
T: +91 44 2834 2811<br />
contact@anandcine.com<br />
IRELAND<br />
The Production Depot,<br />
Co Wicklow<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
John Leahy, Dave Leahy<br />
T +353 1 276 4840<br />
john@production-depot.com<br />
dave@production-depot.com<br />
JAPAN<br />
NAC Image Technology<br />
Tokyo<br />
Cameras<br />
Tomofumi Masuda<br />
Hiromi Shindome<br />
T +81 3 5211 7960<br />
masuda@camnac.co.jp<br />
NEW ZEALAND<br />
Camera Tech, Wellington<br />
Cameras<br />
Peter Fleming<br />
T +64 4562 8814<br />
cameratech@xtra.co.nz<br />
Xytech Technologies, Auckland<br />
Lighting<br />
Stephen Pryor<br />
T +64 9 377 99 85<br />
stephenp@xytech.co.nz<br />
ROMANIA<br />
Panalight Studio, Bucharest<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Diana Apostol<br />
T +40 727 358 304<br />
office@panalight.ro<br />
SCANDINAVIA<br />
BLIXT Camera <strong>Rental</strong>,<br />
Denmark, Norway & Sweden<br />
Cameras<br />
Björn Blixt<br />
T +45 70 20 59 50<br />
blixt@blixt.dk<br />
SOUTH AFRICA<br />
Media Film Service,<br />
Cape Town, Johannesburg,<br />
Durban, Namibia<br />
Cameras, Lighting,<br />
Grip, Studio<br />
Jannie van Wyk<br />
T +27 21 511 3300<br />
jannie@mediafilmservice.com<br />
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES<br />
Filmquip Media, Dubai<br />
Cameras, Lighting, Grip<br />
Anthony Smythe, Hugo Lang<br />
T +971 4 347 4909<br />
ant@filmquipmedia.com<br />
hugo@filmquipmedia.com<br />
USA & CANADA<br />
Clairmont Camera Hollywood,<br />
LA, Toronto, Vancouver<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 Representative<br />
Irving Correa<br />
T +1 818 761 4440<br />
irvingc@clairmont.com<br />
Fletcher Chicago, Chicago<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 Representative<br />
Stan Glapa<br />
T +1 312 932 2700<br />
stan@fletch.com<br />
4 RAW ATTRACTION<br />
Russell Carpenter ASC talks about shooting anamorphic feature<br />
Killers with the D-21<br />
6 PLANET TARANTINO<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film Lab and <strong>ARRI</strong> Sound discuss their work on<br />
Inglourious Basterds<br />
8 PRODUCTION DIPLOMAT<br />
Profile on <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV’s in-house producer Christopher Berg<br />
9 THE LAST AIRBENDER<br />
How <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC and the camera crew of The Last Airbender<br />
prepared for the extremes of Greenland<br />
10 GREEN ZONE<br />
Barry Ackroyd BSC on shooting the latest film from director<br />
Paul Greengrass<br />
12 THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL<br />
Interview with director Anno Saul about his feature The Door<br />
CONTENTS<br />
6<br />
24<br />
20<br />
16<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong> would like to thank the following contributors;<br />
Susanne Bieger, Katja Birkenbach, Simon Broad, Mark Hope-Jones, Ingo Klingspon, Judith Petty,<br />
Angela Reedwisch, Prof. Jürgen Schopper, Marc Shipman-Mueller, Michelle Smith, Sabine Welte<br />
Front Cover Photo: Melissa Moseley © 2009 Lionsgate Entertainment<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
14 GOING POSTAL<br />
Gavin Finney BSC discusses working on his third<br />
Terry Pratchett adaptation for Sky<br />
16 DESERT FLOWER<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV posts the life story of Waris Dirie<br />
18 ABOVE SUSPICION:<br />
THE RED DAHLIA<br />
Nigel Willoughby reflects on using the<br />
D-21 with Panasonic’s P2 recorder<br />
20 A NEW DIGITAL CAMERA SYSTEM<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> redefines the future of digital production<br />
with the announcement of a new range<br />
of cameras<br />
22 POPE JOAN<br />
The VFX specialists at <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV resurrect<br />
the historical city of Rome for Pope Joan<br />
24 BRIGHT STAR<br />
Australian DoP Greig Fraser shares his<br />
experiences filming romantic period feature<br />
Bright Star<br />
26 PANDORUM<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Sound create the sound mix for outer space<br />
spine-chiller Pandorum<br />
28 D-21 SHOOTS 3D FILM IN DUBAI<br />
Dubai’s brand new metro system opens with<br />
a 3D film created for the occasion<br />
30 <strong>ARRI</strong> COMMERCIAL – MUNICH’S<br />
CREATIVE HEARTBEAT<br />
A look at the creative and technical services<br />
of <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Commercial<br />
33 CULTIVATING RELATIONSHIPS<br />
WITH DoPS<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>’s Head of Digital Intermediate,<br />
Harald Schernthaner, shares his views on the<br />
current state of the DI<br />
34 HI-MOTION<br />
New V10 software from EVS integrates with the<br />
Hi-Motion at Hickstead<br />
35 <strong>ARRI</strong> RELATIVITY<br />
A powerful suite of postproduction software tools<br />
35 NEW <strong>ARRI</strong> FILM & TV FACILITIES<br />
IN COLOGNE<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> adds postproduction services to its branch<br />
in Cologne<br />
36 PRODUCT UPDATE<br />
38 PRODUCTION UPDATE
RAW<br />
ATTRACTION<br />
Russell Carpenter ASC shares his experiences shooting the anamorphic feature<br />
Killers using <strong>ARRI</strong>RAW with the D-21.<br />
Killers, the first Hollywood motion picture to be photographed with anamorphic lenses on <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21<br />
cameras using <strong>ARRI</strong>RAW in Data Mode, has recently wrapped after shooting in Atlanta, the South of France<br />
and the Bahamas. Directed by Robert Luketic and shot by Russell Carpenter ASC, the $50 million film stars<br />
Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl as young holidaymakers who meet while abroad, fall in love and marry.<br />
After they return home, life becomes complicated when they discover that their neighbours may be assassins<br />
hired to kill them. Billed as a comedy action thriller, Killers will be released by Lionsgate in June 2010.<br />
Four D-21 camera packages were supplied to Killers by <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC Florida, with support from <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC New York and <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Media in London. The D-21 is the only digital cinematography camera with a 4:3 sensor area that allows ‘true’ anamorphic<br />
images to be captured in the same way as they are captured on 35mm film. By using the cameras in Data Mode, the production<br />
was able to output raw anamorphic data to S.two 2K Digital Field Recorders (DFR).<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: Which decision was made first: to shoot<br />
anamorphic or to shoot digital?<br />
Russell Carpenter: The two decisions were made at the same<br />
time really. Robert, the director, wanted to shoot in anamorphic<br />
because he loves the characteristics that anamorphic lenses<br />
give the image. He also very much enjoyed his previous<br />
experiences shooting digitally and felt really good about<br />
knowing what he had before the end of the day rather than<br />
having to wait for dailies. So I did some research and it<br />
became fairly obvious that the D-21 was going to offer the<br />
best of both worlds. In testing the<br />
D-21 we just fell in love with the image<br />
characteristics, especially in terms of<br />
how the image was rendered in the<br />
highlights. We got a beautiful, creamy<br />
rendition of both shadow and highlight<br />
areas, but there was a sort of silkiness<br />
in the way the highlights were rendered<br />
that was different from our experiences<br />
testing the other systems. We basically<br />
thought the D-21 offered a particularly<br />
pleasing image.<br />
VA: How was your experience<br />
of shooting with the Hawk<br />
anamorphic lenses?<br />
RC: I think one thing I would like to have<br />
experimented with more was the degree<br />
to which we wanted to be careful with<br />
the wider anamorphic lenses in terms<br />
of what was happening with distortion<br />
around the edges of the frame,<br />
especially in locations that have a lot of<br />
vertical geometry. We found the lenses<br />
performed better when we weren’t<br />
shooting wide open, so we tried to stop<br />
down at least two-thirds of a stop to one<br />
stop whenever we could. If I’d had more<br />
time to experiment I think I would have<br />
tested the D-21 at different ASA ratings;<br />
I found that there was plenty of<br />
information to be mined in the shadow<br />
areas. Some of the other digital systems<br />
don’t give you any room to move in<br />
terms of printing up, but with the D-21<br />
there’s quite a bit there. Maybe in the<br />
future, using the system again, I would<br />
become more confident in using higher<br />
ASA ratings, but this was sort of a<br />
maiden voyage for everyone concerned<br />
and I think everybody learned a lot.<br />
VA: Did any particular features of<br />
the D-21 system prove useful?<br />
RC: The optical viewfinder definitely<br />
helped our operator. I think one of the<br />
positive points of the D-21 system is that<br />
it is set up very much like <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX film<br />
cameras, so there is certainly an ease<br />
with which people can transition into<br />
working digitally. You’re not having to<br />
learn an entirely different nomenclature<br />
procedure to move into this system as an<br />
operator or as a 1st AC; you’re using a<br />
system that has been perfected with the<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> film cameras. We did have onboard<br />
HD monitors and I found that the<br />
RUSSELL CARPENTER ASC with the D-21,<br />
to the left is Erik Brown (A-camera 1st AC)<br />
GREG LUNDSGAARD (A-camera operator)<br />
at the viewfinder, while Erik Brown pulls focus<br />
ROGER MCDONALD (B-camera operator,<br />
France) lines up a shot<br />
focus pullers came to rely on those<br />
monitors because the image was so<br />
good that they could instantly tell<br />
whether they were in focus or not;<br />
so they added that to their arsenal<br />
of focus-pulling techniques.<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
VA: How did the D-21 handle<br />
bright, sunlit scenes in locations<br />
such as the South of France and<br />
the Bahamas?<br />
RC: I would say that this is an area where<br />
the camera really excels. The ability of<br />
the D-21 to hold very bright detail was,<br />
I felt, stunning. We were in the South of<br />
France on a pure white super-yacht under<br />
the Mediterranean sun and the camera<br />
really did extremely well at holding both<br />
the highlights and the shadows.<br />
VA: Is the postproduction<br />
workflow progressing smoothly?<br />
RC: Although I haven’t really got started<br />
on the postproduction yet, in our initial<br />
test we saw that there was plenty of<br />
room to manipulate the image. Certainly<br />
in comparison with other large sensor<br />
cameras the D-21 comes as close as I<br />
have seen in the digital world to having<br />
the latitude and room to move that you<br />
get with a film negative. It will be<br />
interesting to see how we get on in<br />
post, but my guess is that it will go<br />
rather well. ■<br />
4 5<br />
Photo: Magali Bragard © 2009 Lionsgate Entertainment<br />
Mark Hope-Jones
PLANET TARANTINO<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> SUPERVISES THE DAILIES FOR INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS<br />
In July 2008, after mulling over the Inglourious Basterds idea for nearly 10 years,<br />
Quentin Tarantino finally had a script. Things then had to move quickly because, set on<br />
attending Cannes the following year, he had but a few months to make what he called<br />
his “Spaghetti Western in Nazi garb.” And so Tarantino came to Berlin Babelsberg, with<br />
audience favourite Brad Pitt and a high calibre, multinational cast in tow, to shoot the<br />
World War II epic. <strong>ARRI</strong> Film Lab and <strong>ARRI</strong> Sound provided the production with picture<br />
and sound dailies. Vision<strong>ARRI</strong> caught up with two members of the German crew –<br />
Postproduction Supervisor Christopher Berg and <strong>ARRI</strong>’s Technical Post Supervisor of<br />
Sound, Daniel Vogl – to talk about their work on Inglourious Basterds.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: Working for Quentin Tarantino<br />
is no ordinary experience. What<br />
expectations did you have to meet?<br />
Christopher Berg: It was clear that Inglourious<br />
Basterds would be a very extensive production with<br />
a frighteningly tight schedule and an awe-inspiring<br />
top-notch team of Oscar-winners in the key<br />
positions. The expectations for everyone involved<br />
were extremely high, but to reach that level and<br />
maintain it was a real incentive. We wanted to<br />
prove to the director that we weren’t just as good<br />
as he thought we were, but better.<br />
My task was to organise the film, video and sound<br />
dailies – all of which were generated at <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Munich – and attend to the editing room. The<br />
advantage I brought to this logistical challenge was<br />
the fact that I knew <strong>ARRI</strong> very well; I knew whom I<br />
could call directly to ensure a continuous flow of<br />
information and expedite the process.<br />
In the few weeks of preproduction it was essential<br />
to create a viable workflow and come up with<br />
contingency plans to cover all our bases. The<br />
infamous sentence: “We’ll fix it in post” was not an<br />
option for us on this job. I knew that important<br />
decisions down the line had to be made based on<br />
our work; consequently our aim and responsibility<br />
was to avoid any kind of delays or difficulties. I also<br />
had to ensure that those who joined the project at a<br />
later time, for example the US team in charge of the<br />
final mix, could quickly find any information they<br />
needed. This was especially important because after<br />
the shoot wrapped in February there was barely<br />
three months to complete the edit and DI in the<br />
United States, and get a finished print to Cannes.<br />
VA: What was the exact workflow?<br />
CB: DoP Bob Richardson ASC ran a lot of tests<br />
during preproduction. Initially, the film was<br />
supposed to be finished the conventional way:<br />
analogue in the film lab, without a DI. For that<br />
reason a lot of effort went into ensuring that<br />
everything was 100% perfect for the shoot. Every<br />
day after we wrapped, we collected the day’s<br />
footage, double checked it against the reports and<br />
sent it with the production sound via overnight<br />
courier to the <strong>ARRI</strong> film lab in Munich. There the<br />
negative was processed, prepared and cleaned for<br />
telecine and prints, since Tarantino likes to screen<br />
his dailies on film.<br />
Normally, a production chooses to either watch<br />
dailies on film or on video. In this case both were<br />
requested. During transfer, a Digital Betacam was<br />
generated as a backup, which remained in Munich<br />
while a Betacam SP went to the cutting room in<br />
Berlin, where all film and sound dailies as well as<br />
the digitally processed sound were<br />
maintained, stored and processed.<br />
Daniel Vogl: In addition, the digitally<br />
recorded production sound had to be<br />
transferred to 35mm magnetic stock,<br />
because the director wanted to hear<br />
analogue sound while watching the<br />
analogue dailies. Tarantino’s mantra is<br />
‘production sound at any cost.’ That’s<br />
why there are hardly any ADR takes in<br />
the film. Of course that was a great<br />
challenge for the production sound<br />
mixer, but also in terms of managing the<br />
sound data. After all, the best sound isn’t<br />
worth anything if you can’t find it again<br />
during post.<br />
So we had a number of tasks that<br />
included making analogue sound<br />
available for the screenings and providing<br />
the video edit with digital files. Plus, we<br />
had to find a way to make all the useable<br />
sound tracks for each individual take<br />
available at any time through the dailies<br />
and post process. We developed a<br />
workflow that allowed us to link the film<br />
dailies with the video dailies, thereby<br />
enabling the editing room to create a link<br />
between the two worlds if needed.<br />
We also had to do some preliminary<br />
work for the sound post to ensure that<br />
they could get straight to work based on<br />
the data we provided. All sessions<br />
therefore had an itemised structure and<br />
nomenclature. Each day of shooting was<br />
minutely documented in metadata files<br />
and we had two people working eight to<br />
ten hours every day just on the sound<br />
dailies. This meticulous structure meant<br />
that the dailies and postproduction<br />
process could proceed on schedule.<br />
CB: We basically had two cutting rooms<br />
in Berlin. Sally Menke ACE, who has<br />
edited all of Tarantino’s films, was<br />
working on an Avid. She had two<br />
assistants who worked exclusively for her<br />
digitising the pictures, laying back the<br />
processed production sound and sorting<br />
the footage accordingly. In parallel, we<br />
had three additional assistants working<br />
on the film dailies. Based on the<br />
metadata generated by <strong>ARRI</strong> Sound in<br />
Munich and the picture from the <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
film lab, we compiled an enormous<br />
database in Berlin, linking these<br />
elements. Another assistant was put in<br />
charge of maintaining this database.<br />
It was our goal, even during<br />
preproduction, to do anything we could<br />
to make things as easy as possible for<br />
the final postproduction in the United<br />
States. This included delivering<br />
everything with technical accuracy so<br />
that the team responsible for the final mix<br />
could use the data we had compiled and<br />
save a lot of time. This was very<br />
important to me because I was the one<br />
who had to pass the project on to Tina<br />
Anderson, the post supervisor in LA, and<br />
I knew that she had to get the film ready<br />
in time for Cannes.<br />
VA: What other aspects were<br />
particularly critical?<br />
CB: A special challenge was the film<br />
within the film – Nation’s Pride – which<br />
was shot, edited and finished during<br />
principle photography. It’s a seven-minute<br />
parody of a Nazi propaganda film with<br />
about 100 setups and Daniel Brühl in the<br />
lead role.<br />
Sally Menke<br />
Editor<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
I have edited all of<br />
Quentin’s movies within<br />
a four-mile radius in<br />
Hollywood, so when we<br />
decided to begin editing<br />
Inglourious Basterds on<br />
location in Berlin, I wondered<br />
how we would do it.<br />
Luckily I hired and organised an<br />
exceptionally qualified team<br />
of assistants: Toska Baltruschat and<br />
Etienne Boussac, who spoke <strong>English</strong>,<br />
French and German; languages that<br />
were all to be spoken in the film, and<br />
two of which needed to be translated,<br />
line for line, in a script program, so I<br />
would know what I was editing.<br />
The movie was skilfully coordinated<br />
by Chris Berg, our Berlin<br />
postproduction supervisor, who held<br />
my hand through the many steps<br />
needed to smoothly and efficiently<br />
edit a complicated film like<br />
Inglourious Basterds on location. Not<br />
only was it an accelerated schedule,<br />
but I was in a country in which I did<br />
not know the language, the labs, the<br />
vendors, the mixing studios, the<br />
optical houses…nothing, not even<br />
where to get lunch. So all I can say is<br />
thank goodness I had the team I had,<br />
and <strong>ARRI</strong> lab, who worked diligently<br />
and quickly to get everything correct<br />
for us within our crazy, crazy schedule.<br />
6 7<br />
Photos: Francois Duhamel © 2009 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS<br />
8<br />
Eli Roth, who also played one of the Basterds, directed the<br />
movie, which had to be ready at a specific date because the<br />
footage was needed for the remaining shoot.<br />
VA: Tarantino is considered a purist who prefers to<br />
work with just one camera and who forgoes digital<br />
effects. Was that the case on Inglourious Basterds?<br />
CB: Tarantino isn’t a fan of VFX or CGI shots. There are around<br />
20 VFX shots in the final film, which were only necessary<br />
because of problems with the weather; none of them were<br />
needed for storytelling purposes. All of the special effects for<br />
Inglourious Basterds were made under the supervision of the<br />
legendary John Dykstra and were actually shot. Getting to work<br />
with Dykstra was a childhood dream come true for me.<br />
VA: What was the production’s feedback on the<br />
work <strong>ARRI</strong> had completed?<br />
CB: Bob Richardson and Tarantino liked Traudl Nicholson’s<br />
colour timing of the dailies so much that Yvan Lucas, the<br />
colourist at EFilm, could mostly just work from her grade.<br />
Coming from a DoP of Bob’s stature, this is a great compliment.<br />
But the final proof that we had done a good job was the fact<br />
that we didn’t get any calls after we handed over the project. It<br />
was the most transparent preliminary work, as far as we were<br />
concerned, that we could have done.<br />
DV: In terms of sound dailies this was the most involved and<br />
meticulous project I can think of. The greatest recognition came<br />
from production sound mixer Mark Ulano, who said that the<br />
service he received from <strong>ARRI</strong> Sound was among the best he<br />
he’d had over the last 25 years. But I’d like to make a final<br />
personal comment: Tarantino has finally made a war movie that<br />
uses the almost Babylonian mix of languages and dialects the<br />
actors speak in a dramaturgically meaningful way. Inglourious<br />
Basterds plays with the accents, the various foreign language<br />
skills and even the body language typically associated with<br />
He sees his place in international film<br />
production as a problem solver, liaising<br />
between the set and postproduction,<br />
between DoP, film lab and editing room.<br />
He also knows his way around the DI and<br />
VFX. Christopher Berg says he owes part of his talent as a<br />
communicator to his upbringing: born to a French mother and<br />
an American father, he was raised in Munich and grew up<br />
speaking three languages fluently.<br />
In 2001 Berg applied for an internship at <strong>ARRI</strong>; after<br />
completing his basic training in the film lab and the transfer<br />
department, he got started as a telecine assistant with the goal<br />
of becoming a colourist. His career, however, took a different<br />
turn. When the feature film Underworld came to <strong>ARRI</strong> in 2002,<br />
Berg served as the film’s technical coordinator, supervising the<br />
dailies and supporting the sound department. Two years later<br />
Germans, French, Americans and the <strong>English</strong> in a very subtle<br />
way. This gives the film an unusual intensity and to me that’s<br />
what a globalised cinema should look like. ■<br />
Ingo Klingspon<br />
Colourist Traudl Nicholson<br />
Telecine Colourist Lee Bennett<br />
Dailies Supervisor Clemens Schmid<br />
Sound Dailies Supervisor Daniel Vogl<br />
Sound Dailies Operator Michael Huber<br />
Sound Dailies Operator Fabian Schenk<br />
Line Producer Lab Christian Littmann<br />
Project Coordinator Lab Monika Krinke<br />
Production Diplomat<br />
Christopher Berg, In-house Producer, International Projects<br />
he was the dailies supervisor on Aeon Flux: “It was the first<br />
project I supervised in that capacity,” he says, explaining that<br />
his role involved overseeing the dailies as well as telecine and<br />
editing. Since then, Berg has continuously worked on<br />
international productions, including Perfume: The Story of a<br />
Murderer, Valkyrie, The International, The Reader and, most<br />
recently, Inglourious Basterds. “I was lucky,” he says, “to<br />
always have another project waiting for me.”<br />
In May 2009 he returned to Munich to take on the role of inhouse<br />
producer at <strong>ARRI</strong>. In that capacity he is currently working<br />
on the Tony Goldwyn film Betty Anne Waters, starring Hilary<br />
Swank. “The demands, the approaches and most of all the<br />
people involved are different on every film,” says Berg. There is<br />
one thing, however, that is essential to his job: “To create a<br />
good working environment.” ■<br />
Ingo Klingspon<br />
The Last Airbender<br />
Based on the American animated<br />
television series Avatar: The Last<br />
Airbender, Shayamalan’s film is set in a<br />
fantasy world where a young boy named<br />
Aang must battle the warmongering<br />
Firebenders to secure peace among the<br />
four great nations. The last of his kind,<br />
Aang can manipulate the air to do his<br />
bidding, just as the other three nations<br />
control earth, water and fire. As the story<br />
progresses, Aang discovers that he is<br />
more than just the last Airbender: he is<br />
the Avatar – the physical reincarnation of<br />
the spiritual world – and can bend all<br />
four elements to his will.<br />
1st AC Bobby Mancuso and 2nd AC<br />
Scott Tinsley, who are frequent<br />
collaborators, worked closely with <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
CSC to prepare their equipment for the<br />
extreme temperatures they were expecting<br />
in Greenland. Tinsley took time out to<br />
answer questions about the shoot on<br />
behalf of both Mancuso and himself.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: What camera equipment<br />
did you take to Greenland?<br />
Scott Tinsley: Our package consisted of<br />
three <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lites, a 435 and a 235.<br />
We were basically operating under the<br />
concept of two Lites for A and B-cameras,<br />
with a third body as a backup. The 435<br />
was for second unit photography and<br />
the 235 was for handheld and specialty<br />
shots. We used a set of Angenieux<br />
Optimo zooms: 17-80mm, 24-290mm,<br />
28-76mm and 15-40mm, as well as<br />
Master Primes. Most of our work was<br />
done on the zooms, for the sake of<br />
expediency. We also used Anton Bauer<br />
block batteries.<br />
VA: What challenges were you<br />
expecting on location?<br />
ST: We weren’t sure how the equipment<br />
would behave in Greenland’s extreme<br />
weather conditions. Our mornings<br />
usually began around 5:30 a.m. with<br />
the temperature at -14 °F, rising to<br />
around +6 °F by 9 a.m. and between<br />
+16 °F to +21 °F by early afternoon,<br />
if the sun was shining. Then it would<br />
quickly drop down again after 4 p.m. as<br />
the sun began to set – the sunset lasted<br />
about three hours. Our main goal was to<br />
warm the gear up overnight and keep it<br />
as warm as possible during the course of<br />
our shooting day. The other problem was<br />
transporting the gear to our shooting<br />
locations: modes of transport included<br />
helicopter, fishing trawler and a<br />
container on a sled towed by a snowcat.<br />
VA: How did you prepare for such<br />
extreme conditions?<br />
ST: With the excellent support of the staff<br />
at <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC New York, we were able to<br />
gather information from valuable sources<br />
in Denmark – from people who had<br />
experienced cold-weather shooting in<br />
Greenland. Phil Gosiewski worked<br />
directly with Thomas Kristensen, who runs<br />
a rental house in Denmark, and arranged<br />
for us to have heating equipment that<br />
had been used on previous shoots in<br />
Greenland. The barneys and heating<br />
packs he provided proved invaluable to<br />
us, as well as several other departments<br />
that needed to warm up their electronics.<br />
Lee Kazista, of Monster Remotes,<br />
suggested the Anton Bauer block<br />
batteries. He had dealt with an assistant<br />
in Winnipeg who basically said: “I throw<br />
‘em in the snow and they last all day.”<br />
VA: How did the equipment<br />
perform in the end?<br />
ST: The equipment was exceptional<br />
given the cold climate and rough terrain.<br />
The camera bodies themselves had no<br />
problem whatsoever functioning in the<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
The Last Airbender is the latest project from director M. Night Shyamalan, whose previous films include<br />
The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Working alongside him on a shoot that encompassed locations in<br />
Greenland and Philadelphia was Andrew Lesnie ACS, ASC, the Academy Award-winning cinematographer<br />
who shot Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.<br />
temperatures we experienced; we never<br />
even had to use the camera barneys we<br />
brought. The Master Primes were not<br />
affected by the cold temperatures at all,<br />
though the Angenieux Optimo zooms<br />
became difficult to drive with the regular<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> LCS motors. Luckily Phil Gosiewski<br />
had arranged for us to have the latest<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> prototype remote focus system – the<br />
WCU-3 with CLM-3 high torque motors –<br />
and it worked beautifully. As we had a<br />
lot of work on a jib arm with a Libra<br />
head this focus system was a lifesaver.<br />
The Anton Bauer batteries were<br />
unbelievable; we would use only one to<br />
one-and-a-half batteries per camera, per<br />
day. This was a huge help as we never<br />
had to worry about our power source.<br />
VA: What challenges did you<br />
personally face working in such<br />
an environment?<br />
ST: Fatigue and hydration were the main<br />
issues; the company had provided us with<br />
excellent technical clothing so the cold<br />
was not a real factor. The days were long<br />
and many times we were transporting up<br />
to 75 pieces of gear via helicopter or sled<br />
container. Often when it is cold you forget<br />
to drink water; proper hydration and<br />
nutrition were critical when working in<br />
these strenuous conditions.<br />
VA: The unit then relocated to<br />
Philadelphia. Did you make any<br />
changes to your equipment<br />
packages coming back to the<br />
United States?<br />
ST: The gear remained the same in<br />
Philadelphia. The batteries, which we<br />
had mainly for cold weather, had proven<br />
so effective that we kept them. Cameras<br />
and lenses were the same.<br />
The Last Airbender is due for release in<br />
July 2010. ■<br />
Simon Broad<br />
9
Barry Ackroyd BSC discusses the influence<br />
of YouTube on his latest feature<br />
REEN ZONE Photos:<br />
Director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon are enjoying a run of success having worked together<br />
on the two most recent Bourne films, both of which were blockbusters the world over. Their latest<br />
collaboration, Green Zone, is another action film, but this time one that takes place within the context of a<br />
real war rather than an imagined government conspiracy. Working alongside Greengrass on the new film<br />
was cinematographer Barry Ackroyd BSC, who also shot United 93 for him in 2006.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Media supplied the production with <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM and <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235 cameras, and a lens package that<br />
included lightweight Nikon zooms, re-housed by <strong>ARRI</strong>. The extensive lighting kit was provided by<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Lighting <strong>Rental</strong>.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: What can you tell us about the story of<br />
Green Zone?<br />
Barry Ackroyd: The film is based on a book (Imperial Life in the<br />
Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran) but it’s become quite<br />
a loose adaptation. It’s about the first days of the American<br />
occupation of Iraq, at that stage where Bush was on the<br />
aircraft carrier saying “mission accomplished”, yet nothing was<br />
really known. Matt Damon plays the leader of a team of<br />
specialists who are going out to look for the weapons of mass<br />
destruction and he very quickly discovers that there obviously<br />
aren’t any. Then there’s this struggle between the different<br />
intelligence agencies that are supplying information to fit the<br />
needs of the politicians. It’s just about that era, when we were<br />
using people and false information to hoodwink the<br />
whole world.<br />
VA: Were there any particular influences on the look<br />
of the film?<br />
BA: YouTube was a big influence on the look we wanted and a<br />
lot of the images of the American troops out in Iraq that you<br />
find on YouTube are low-res or night-vision shots. They have a<br />
particular look – an immediacy – that helped us decide on the<br />
final look of the film. The brief was that Baghdad is unlit, in<br />
curfew, without any source. We developed shots through acres<br />
of alleyways; I underexposed the film to get the rough-and-real<br />
feeling. Our night-vision shots, from helicopters, were shot<br />
during daylight and then graded to add the green nightvision<br />
look. Overall, the chase sequence that takes up most<br />
of the last act was shot this way.<br />
VA: You were shooting with <strong>ARRI</strong>CAMs and<br />
the <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235; how were you tending to use<br />
the cameras?<br />
BA: I have a particular way I have the camera configured,<br />
because for me the camera should be part of your body. It’s<br />
in the tradition of Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers, who<br />
actually designed cameras that were ergonomic, which is<br />
what <strong>ARRI</strong> has done with the 235 and 416. The <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM is<br />
superb – you can keep most of the accessories like the focus<br />
monitor on there and just put it on your shoulder; it’s never<br />
that heavy. But I have this handle that brings my elbow into<br />
my body and my hand underneath the camera; it’s the only<br />
piece of equipment I own now, because <strong>ARRI</strong> very kindly<br />
gave it to me. I had this revelation that a lot of cameramen<br />
hold the camera away from them in an effort to stay steady.<br />
My method is to become one with the camera – it goes<br />
where you go and you go where it leads you as well.<br />
I know it sounds airy-fairy, but it’s just a method; maybe it’s<br />
old-fashioned – something from the documentary influence.<br />
VA: Klemens Becker was also operating a camera;<br />
did he have a similar approach?<br />
BA: Klemens was A-camera so his role was to go and find<br />
the shot, then I would work around him. He rarely uses an<br />
eyepiece and that’s his technique. Using his method he could<br />
run down an alleyway with the camera at knee height, so<br />
Klemens would do that, but if you wanted a shot at shoulder<br />
height then my method was better. We would shoot<br />
simultaneously and with all the longer takes we would<br />
overlap the cameras like we did on United 93. At other<br />
times we would have Florian (Emmerich) or John (Conroy)<br />
operating alongside us. Our second unit, with Dan Bradley,<br />
grew towards the end of the shoot and started shooting in<br />
parallel with our main unit. We would often have three or<br />
four cameras running, which helped us pump over<br />
1,000,000 feet of film – faultlessly – through the cameras.<br />
VA: With a background in documentary, you have<br />
a lot of experience shooting 16mm. The 235 is<br />
almost as small as a 16mm camera; does that<br />
mean you can shoot with it the same way you<br />
would on 16mm?<br />
BA: I don’t consider the two formats to be much different.<br />
16mm will always be slightly easier and you can do longer<br />
takes, but I certainly don’t adjust my approach according to<br />
whether I’m shooting 35mm or 16mm. The real skill is being<br />
in the right place and capturing the moment, and it should<br />
always feel like a dangerous thing to be doing – that’s why I<br />
enjoy it; you want to feel a bit on the edge. Klemens was<br />
joking with me one day and said “you always seem to<br />
punish yourself by making things difficult!”<br />
Green Zone is due for release in March 2010. ■<br />
Mark Hope-Jones<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
DoP BARRY ACKROYD BSC prepares a shot with director Paul Greengrass<br />
10 11<br />
JasonBoland © 2009 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved
12<br />
The light at the end<br />
of the tunnel<br />
DIRECTOR ANNO SAUL<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: For your new film, The Door, you<br />
surrounded yourself with many familiar faces.<br />
How did the project come about?<br />
Anno Saul: Ralph Schwingel, Jan Berger and I always<br />
wanted to do a follow-up project to Kebab Connection,<br />
which Jan and I had co-written. At some point Jan<br />
pitched a project to me that Björn Vosgerau – a<br />
producer at Wüstefilm – had approached him with. That<br />
project was The Door, based on the novel Die Damalstür<br />
by Akif Pirinçci, and I immediately responded to the<br />
material. Now all we had to do was convince Ralph<br />
Schwingel at Wüstefilm, who had some concerns.<br />
Among other things, he thought that the main character<br />
in the novel wasn’t likable. But we made the necessary<br />
changes and also altered the ending of the film.<br />
VA: What is The Door about?<br />
AS: It’s the story of a man who has made a big mistake<br />
in his life. He had a beautiful home, a lovely wife and<br />
an adorable daughter. But returning from the house of<br />
a neighbour with whom he has just had a sexual<br />
encounter, he finds his daughter dead in the pool; she<br />
has drowned. In the events that follow he loses his wife<br />
and their home, and then we fast-forward: four years<br />
later he’s completely washed up, very unhappy and<br />
wants to die. During one of his futile attempts to take his<br />
life, he by chance discovers a tunnel behind a bush and<br />
goes into it. He walks towards a light at the end of<br />
tunnel and finds a door. Opening it, he steps into a<br />
world that looks very much like his old life – a time<br />
when he was still very happy. He watches the younger<br />
version of himself walk over to the neighbour’s house<br />
and realises that he has a chance to make up for his<br />
mistake and rescue his daughter. Then, in a fatal turn of<br />
events, he encounters his younger self.<br />
VA: So, the basic theme of The Door is<br />
redemption; the opportunity to revisit one’s<br />
past and alter the course of one’s destiny?<br />
AS: Exactly. The film contains two separate yet parallel<br />
worlds. The characters in both are the same, but<br />
displaced by four and a half years. One of these worlds<br />
– that of the older, suicidal character – is a wintery,<br />
extremely cold and dark world. The world that existed<br />
the day of his daughter’s death is a bright and sunny,<br />
summery world.<br />
VA: Did you create the bright and the dark<br />
worlds in-camera?<br />
AS: No, we could only create this duality during<br />
grading. The wintery world was graded normally but<br />
the summery world we cross-processed, to get more<br />
contrast. The light parts came out even lighter and the<br />
dark parts even darker. Overall, the colours came out<br />
more desaturated; we got a grittier look that way, an<br />
effect we increased the further we got into the story.<br />
That was our visual concept. We also picked up the<br />
pacing. The Door’s structure escalates; everything in<br />
the film escalates over the course of time.<br />
VA: Florian (Utsi) Martin was your colourist on<br />
The Door. What do you consider an ideal<br />
collaboration during grading?<br />
AS: Ideally, the colourist makes an effort to understand<br />
what it is the director and the DoP want to accomplish,<br />
and then implements that vision technically and<br />
creatively. Grading is an important part<br />
of the creative process and therefore of<br />
the language of film. This language, as<br />
well as the entire range of technological<br />
possibilities, has to be put to use in the<br />
service of the story the film is trying to<br />
tell, not in the service of current trends in<br />
terms of what is ‘hip.’ The collaboration<br />
with Utsi Martin was fantastic and<br />
mutually enriching. Colour matching was<br />
very important on The Door. First came<br />
the broad strokes, then we went in and<br />
worked out the details.<br />
VA: Was this your first<br />
collaboration with<br />
cinematographer Bella Halben?<br />
AS: Yes, and I enjoyed it very much. Bella<br />
is an extremely competent DoP – highly<br />
talented and a great person; very<br />
creative and effervescent. Hundreds of<br />
her ideas made it into The Door.<br />
VA: After directing comedies such<br />
as Where is Fred? and Kebab<br />
Connection, how did you end up<br />
in this genre and with such a<br />
serious story?<br />
AS: Prior to the two comedies, I made<br />
Green Desert, which is also a drama.<br />
When Ralph Schwingel submitted<br />
Kebab Connection for funding, he was<br />
asked why he had chosen me to direct<br />
the film because they considered me to<br />
be a drama director. Now I’m only good<br />
for comedies? No, I like to dabble in<br />
different genres and to play with their<br />
parameters – that’s what’s challenging.<br />
VA: Have you ever shot digitally or<br />
are you planning to?<br />
AS: In the last couple of years I’ve<br />
watched several student films that were<br />
shot in HD and I was impressed by how<br />
great they looked. But students have a lot<br />
of time to fiddle with things and to work<br />
on the look they are going for. Personally,<br />
I still feel that film has an imperfect yet<br />
vibrant quality. And there is something<br />
else that’s essential for me: I have to be<br />
able to rely on the equipment; for<br />
example, I shot three TV movies in<br />
Sweden and learned that cameras can’t<br />
ever malfunction – period! It’s a<br />
catastrophe when they do. You’ll lose<br />
three days of shooting if you are in<br />
Gotland or somewhere in the backwoods.<br />
To me, that means taking equipment that<br />
has been refined over the last 30 years;<br />
that just keeps running and won’t quit<br />
when water gets in or when it gets<br />
extremely cold; equipment that won’t let<br />
you down – like the <strong>ARRI</strong> cameras. Sure,<br />
when I’m in Cologne I can get another<br />
camera within an hour, but not in Gotland.<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
VA: Why do you like working<br />
with <strong>ARRI</strong>?<br />
AS: When I was in film school I worked<br />
with <strong>ARRI</strong> and I made my first feature<br />
there. I went to <strong>ARRI</strong> whenever I could.<br />
It wasn’t always possible, but if I had a<br />
say, I chose <strong>ARRI</strong>. I prefer it because it’s<br />
where I get the best support. At <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
you’re surrounded by people who not<br />
only know what they are talking about<br />
and support the filmmakers and their<br />
projects, but they also love cinema! The<br />
people at <strong>ARRI</strong> always do everything<br />
possible to ensure that your film comes<br />
out as good as it possibly can and the<br />
size of the budget never matters – their<br />
dedication is always equally high!<br />
VA: We wish you the best of luck<br />
and a great turnout for the fall<br />
release of The Door.<br />
The Door is a Wüstefilm / Wüstefilm Ost<br />
production co-produced with Senator Film<br />
Produktion. The film was released<br />
theatrically on November 12, 2009.<br />
For more information, please visit Senator<br />
Filmverleih (www.senator.de). ■<br />
Katja Birkenbach<br />
13<br />
Photos © Senator Film
14<br />
GOING<br />
POSTAL<br />
Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal set for broadcast on Sky<br />
Following the hugely successful adaptations of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, Sky has<br />
brought yet another novel from Terry Pratchett’s popular Discworld series to life. Produced by<br />
The Mob Film Company, Going Postal tells the story of con-artist Moist Von Lipwig, whose crimes<br />
finally catch up with him in the town of Ankh-Morpork. This latest feature-length television special<br />
will air in two 120-minute parts on Sky1 HD and Sky1 next Easter. Camera equipment was<br />
supplied by <strong>ARRI</strong> Media, while the lighting kit came from <strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Germany.<br />
Going Postal was shot on location in Budapest, Hungary,<br />
where the city’s architecture provided the backdrop for<br />
Pratchett’s famed fantasy town of Ankh-Morpork. Behind<br />
the camera once again was Gavin Finney BSC, making<br />
this the third Discworld adaption for both the<br />
cinematographer and The Mob, and also the third to be<br />
shot with the <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX digital camera system. Although<br />
Finney had a history with the D-21, it was not a forgone<br />
conclusion that it would be used again when the project<br />
started. “This production had a new director, Jon Jones,<br />
and Jon had a free say in how he wanted his show to<br />
look,” explains Finney. “So we looked again at what was<br />
available to shoot on, but in the end it really became an<br />
aesthetic call. The D-21 does have a particular look that<br />
we liked, and I think for me the camera does have a<br />
slightly more organic, less electronic look than the others.<br />
They’re all good cameras, across the whole field, but<br />
some do look very, very clean and can be a bit too<br />
revealing. The D-21 is slightly more forgiving and digs<br />
less into the detail. It’s gentler on make-up, wigs and<br />
prosthetics, all of which are used a lot in these shows.”<br />
Having shot the previous productions in Linear mode,<br />
Finney selected Log C 4:4:4 RGB (extended range) for<br />
Going Postal, a decision largely driven by conversations<br />
with the visual effects department. “I think there’s a clear<br />
benefit in Log,” he says. ”It does seem to give more detail<br />
in the shadows and extended range gives you slightly<br />
more capture in the highlights, so the whole combination<br />
just gave us a bit extra.” The signal, which has to be<br />
processed through a look-up table (LUT) before it can be<br />
displayed, was previewed on set using sophisticated<br />
Cine-tal monitors, enabling Finney to monitor his image and<br />
make corrections or alterations by applying different LUTs.<br />
One of the key advantages for Finney was being able to<br />
capture Log DPX frames from the camera via the Cine-tal<br />
monitor, while filming. Using a grading programme called<br />
SpeedGrade OnSet by Iridas, he was able to establish looks<br />
by adding LUTs to the frames on his laptop. By using the<br />
SpeedGrade LUTs in combination with <strong>ARRI</strong>’s own LUTs<br />
and storing them on his computer, Finney created a visual<br />
reference for the entire production. The LUTs were also given<br />
o the editor to apply to the dailies. “The idea is that you get<br />
rushes that are closer to how you want them to look,” says the<br />
cinematographer, “and everyone else involved can see how<br />
you want them to look.<br />
“Those LUTs will be very useful when I come to do the online<br />
grade,” he continues, “as I’ve got an entire library of reference<br />
images and LUTs which I can share with the person doing the<br />
grade. That information is also very useful for the visual effects<br />
team, because they need to know how my material is going to<br />
look as well. They will have the Log material and I can give<br />
them a LUT that can be applied to the footage to show my<br />
intent in the grade. They can then be more confident when<br />
creating 3D animation or plates that their work is ultimately<br />
going to fit in with how things are going to look.”<br />
The Log signal from the D-21 was generally recorded onto<br />
Sony SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorders, but for Steadicam and<br />
handheld situations Finney chose to use <strong>ARRI</strong> Media’s newly<br />
acquired Panasonic P2 HD recorders, which can be mounted<br />
directly onto the D-21 with a simple bracket. “In the past we’ve<br />
run a cable to the SRW-1, but it can be a bit inhibiting if<br />
you’re on Steadicam, as you want to be free to move around,”<br />
he recalls. “We knew that the sort of shooting we were going<br />
“THE D-21 DOES HAVE A<br />
PARTICULAR LOOK THAT<br />
WE LIKED, AND I THINK<br />
FOR ME THE CAMERA<br />
DOES HAVE A SLIGHTLY<br />
MORE ORGANIC, LESS<br />
ELECTRONIC LOOK THAN<br />
THE OTHERS.”<br />
to be doing on this production was often going to involve 360s<br />
in large areas and the Steadicam operator didn’t want to have<br />
a cable on him because he felt it would pull the camera.<br />
“The P2 system looked like a great solution because with two<br />
32GB cards you can record up to an hour,” continues Finney.<br />
“It has its own lightweight power supply and as there are no<br />
cables, the camera becomes completely self-sufficient.” The<br />
cinematographer’s only concern was the fact that it records at<br />
25 fps in 4:2:2 and Going Postal was going to be shot in<br />
4:4:4, but it soon became clear that this would not be an issue<br />
for the handheld and Steadicam scenes. “The P2 was great for<br />
the operator,” asserts Finney. “It meant he was completely free<br />
and it worked flawlessly throughout the whole shoot.”<br />
DoP GAVIN FINNEY BSC using the D-21 Hand Crank<br />
Within the story, a series of flashbacks plague the main<br />
character, ultimately forcing him to realise the consequences of<br />
his past actions and change his ways for the better. After initial<br />
conversations about how the flashback sequences should look,<br />
it was decided that giving them the appearance of old film<br />
footage would make the audience instantly realise that the<br />
events had happened in the past. “We talked about how we<br />
were going to achieve the desired effect, whether it should be<br />
done in postproduction or whether it should be done incamera,”<br />
recalls the cinematographer, “and we’re always very<br />
keen to do as much as we can in-camera.”<br />
Finney researched footage from the archives of the British Film<br />
Institute, including some very old films produced by Mitchell &<br />
Kenyon – pioneers of early British cinema. It was initially<br />
thought that the flashbacks would be shot on a film camera,<br />
but after carrying out tests at <strong>ARRI</strong> Media, which included<br />
Super 8, Finney settled on the D-21 Hand Crank. “It worked<br />
remarkably well when we tested it,” he says. “You can literally<br />
set the camera up so when you turn the handle fast the camera<br />
goes quicker and when you turn the handle slowly the camera<br />
goes slower – just like an old film camera.” Once the decision<br />
was made to go with the Hand Crank Finney then looked at<br />
various lenses. “We tried it with modern lenses and then old<br />
lenses and finally chose the Lensbaby,” he continues. “It’s a<br />
neat, cheap little lens on a plastic bellows which you can use<br />
for quite unusual effects. It added a very realistic effect of<br />
poorly registered film along with an out of focus vignette.”<br />
Finally, to complete the look, Finney developed a black-andwhite<br />
LUT. “The whole combination – the Hand Crank with<br />
the Lensbaby and then going to black-and-white – looked<br />
amazingly like footage from the early 1900s,” he states,<br />
“which was exactly the effect we wanted to achieve.<br />
And it was all done on the D-21.” ■<br />
Michelle Smith<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
15
16<br />
Desert Flower<br />
The extraordinary journey of Waris Dirie<br />
Desert Flower, the powerful adaptation of Waris Dirie’s autobiographical bestseller of the same name, had<br />
its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. The film speaks out, as did the book, against the<br />
practice of female genital mutilation still common in many cultures around the world. Vision<strong>ARRI</strong> sat down<br />
with writer/director Sherry Hormann, producer Peter Herrmann and DoP Ken Kelsch, shortly after they<br />
completed postproduction at <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV in Munich.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: What were the key<br />
elements of your visual approach<br />
to the adaptation?<br />
Sherry Hormann: One doesn’t often come<br />
across a character that has experienced<br />
such extremes in their life as Waris Dirie.<br />
She grew up as a nomad in the<br />
Somalian desert and became a top<br />
model in London. She was illiterate when<br />
she addressed the UN. These are<br />
enormous contrasts and they are what<br />
make this story so cinematic. Think of the<br />
images: desert vs. skyscraper, poverty<br />
vs. wealth, cleaning lady at McDonald’s<br />
vs. top model on glamorous catwalks.<br />
Ken Kelsch: The look of the film in the<br />
African scenes is mostly a result of<br />
adjusting to the limited technical<br />
possibilities down there. At those<br />
locations we were confronted with<br />
extreme contrasts between the brightness<br />
of the daylight and low details in the<br />
shadows. I didn’t want to make a<br />
documentary; I didn’t want vacant eyes<br />
in dark faces against an overexposed<br />
sky. There is so much natural beauty in<br />
the faces of these people and I wanted<br />
to capture that.<br />
VA: Did you encounter many<br />
problems filming on location<br />
in Africa?<br />
Peter Herrmann: Initially, we intended to<br />
shoot in northern Kenya. I sort of know<br />
my way around there and many Somali<br />
nomads live in the area. But the situation<br />
in Kenya quickly proved to be too<br />
unstable and we couldn’t shoot in<br />
Somalia for obvious reasons. We were<br />
left with the option of shooting in<br />
Djibouti, a small – by African standards<br />
– yet relatively stable country. Many<br />
Somalis, fearing for their safety, moved<br />
there even before the war broke out,<br />
which meant we were able to shoot our<br />
film in the desert among nomads. In the<br />
end it was much harder than we had<br />
imagined. The war had traumatised<br />
people and things could escalate quickly,<br />
creating precarious situations; in<br />
retrospect I’m not sure I’d shoot<br />
there again.<br />
SH: We actually shot in a region near the<br />
border with Ethiopia and Somalia. In<br />
other words, we filmed in a conflict area<br />
under civil war like conditions; luckily,<br />
it was during a rather calm period.<br />
We met people who had never seen a<br />
camera in their entire lives: not just a<br />
35mm film camera, but even a regular<br />
stills camera. Others rubbed our skin to<br />
see if, underneath it, we were dark after<br />
all; I didn’t know this could happen in<br />
the 21st century. We really were in a<br />
region that is still one of those blank<br />
spots on the map. For Ken, that was a<br />
real problem, because he had to bring<br />
every single piece of equipment in from<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Munich.<br />
PH: Including the <strong>ARRI</strong> generator, which made its way there<br />
by ship.<br />
KK: Initially, we had planned on taking up to one ton of<br />
equipment, but in the end the cables alone weighed that<br />
much. I took an <strong>ARRI</strong>MAX 18/12 because I needed at least<br />
one light source that was powerful enough for the extreme<br />
conditions. As it turned out, this 18kW spotlight was barely<br />
enough to light the area around the eyes - that’s how bright<br />
the sun is down there. I had a gaffer, a key grip, a dolly<br />
grip and one assistant to operate the crane, which we used<br />
almost every day because we wanted to show how vast the<br />
landscape is. For the interiors we shot pretty much wide open<br />
to maximise the light, which was a real challenge for our focus<br />
puller. We also had to deal with the heat, and the days were<br />
very long. As time went on, I kept shooting more and more<br />
handheld footage with the <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite, as a change from<br />
using the Studio on the crane.<br />
COLOURIST TRAUDL NICHOLSON, DoP Ken Kelsch,<br />
writer and director Sherry Hormann<br />
VA: How did the footage find its way to the lab<br />
each day?<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
WARIS DIRIE, whose international bestseller Desert Flower has been adapted into a film<br />
“WE MET PEOPLE WHO<br />
HAD NEVER SEEN A<br />
CAMERA IN THEIR<br />
ENTIRE LIVES…”<br />
KK: We put a security officer at the airport on our payroll and<br />
he would get me around the x-ray machines. The film was then<br />
sent to Paris and from there to the <strong>ARRI</strong> lab in Munich. The<br />
next day, the dailies would be colour-corrected and burnt on a<br />
DVD, which would be sent back via Rome to Djibouti. All of<br />
this took 72 hours and we did it for everything we shot.<br />
VA: What was your experience working in <strong>ARRI</strong>’s<br />
Lustre suite?<br />
KK: Traudl Nicholson is the best colour grader I have ever<br />
worked with; she put her entire heart and soul into this project.<br />
We didn’t want to ‘lecture’ audiences, but our film does have<br />
a message. It’s a film about people who have to cope with<br />
one major ordeal after another and who have been brought<br />
together by these trials. Traudl managed to bring out the eyes<br />
and the faces in a way that would have required three 18kW<br />
spotlights on set, when I only had one. To be honest, the eyes<br />
in the footage we shot were just narrow slits and Traudl<br />
literally saved us in the Lustre suite. I do think that, overall, our<br />
film now has a very natural look, with subtle nuances and<br />
shading, especially in the darker sections, and that’s Traudl’s<br />
doing. I’m certain it’s the best film I’ve made as a DoP and<br />
I’ve been in this business for 30 years. ■<br />
Ingo Klingspon<br />
© 2009 Majestic / Walter Wehner<br />
17
18<br />
TheRedDahlia<br />
Nigel Willoughby discusses being the first cinematographer to shoot with the<br />
D-21 and record to P2 cards.<br />
Above Suspicion:<br />
Following a highly successful first series, British crime drama Above Suspicion recently completed<br />
production of a second season that will air in early 2010. Although La Plante Productions shot the first<br />
series on Super 16mm, the decision was made to shoot digitally second time around. Director Gillies<br />
MacKinnon and cinematographer Nigel Willoughby, who had collaborated on several previous projects,<br />
were more used to shooting on film and needed a digital system they could trust. Willoughby’s established<br />
relationship with <strong>ARRI</strong> Media gave him the confidence to make Above Suspicion the first production to<br />
shoot with <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 cameras and Panasonic P2 on-board recorders.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: You’re extremely<br />
experienced with shooting TV<br />
dramas on film. How confident<br />
were you about shooting this one<br />
digitally and what testing did you<br />
do with the D-21?<br />
Nigel Willoughby: To begin with I was<br />
very apprehensive when I was informed<br />
that we were shooting HD. Production<br />
wanted me to use a different camera but<br />
I insisted on going with the D-21, partly<br />
because of my long association with<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>. I knew Russell Allen at <strong>ARRI</strong> Media<br />
would bend over backwards to help us<br />
and he did, because the whole thing<br />
became possible when he suggested<br />
we take the P2 route; using the P2<br />
recorders made the D-21 affordable on<br />
our budget. I tested the D-21 against a<br />
couple of other HD cameras and it was<br />
way out in front. It’s very film-friendly, it<br />
has a simple menu and it’s easy to use.<br />
I had three days of testing so I took it<br />
to one of the locations and just put it<br />
through the whole gamut of lighting<br />
scenarios, and I was very<br />
pleasantly surprised.<br />
VA: When you shoot on film, you<br />
often use a variety of film stocks,<br />
for example on The Last Enemy<br />
(2008) you used eight different<br />
emulsions. Did that make it<br />
more difficult adjusting to<br />
filming digitally?<br />
NW: Well, with the D-21 you can equate<br />
that in a way by just changing the ASA<br />
rating on the camera, which is what I<br />
did, and I stuck with my light meter<br />
rather than looking at the monitor. It<br />
worked out very well and I’m delighted<br />
with the results. I know that a lot of<br />
BEN CHADS (operator) hand-holds the D-21 as John Webb (1st AC ) mans the P2 recorder<br />
people can’t tell the difference between<br />
what we’ve achieved on Above<br />
Suspicion and film. In fact the people at<br />
La Plante are now convinced that they<br />
want to go with HD for evermore,<br />
despite the fact that Super 16mm is<br />
making a comeback thanks to <strong>ARRI</strong>’s<br />
Relativity software.<br />
VA: You had two D-21 camera<br />
kits; were you usually shooting<br />
with both at the same time?<br />
NW: I operated the second camera when<br />
it came out, but I was quite busy with the<br />
lighting; this being my first HD job I<br />
really wanted to concentrate on lighting<br />
the set. I suppose we used the second<br />
camera for about 20% of the shoot and<br />
the cameras matched very well; there<br />
was no difference in colour, saturation<br />
or resolution.<br />
VA: Given that this was your first<br />
digital shoot and you were doing<br />
some operating yourself, were<br />
the film style elements of the<br />
D-21 a comfort to you?<br />
NW: Well I think the optical viewfinder is<br />
crucial and I personally couldn’t operate<br />
looking at a video image. I might get<br />
used to it if I had to, but part of the<br />
reason I handed over the operating to<br />
Ben Chads was because I originally<br />
thought we weren’t going to be able to<br />
use the D-21. I risked losing the job<br />
altogether by saying that I wasn’t<br />
prepared to go with another camera, but<br />
[producers] Chris Clough and Liz<br />
Thorburn were supportive throughout.<br />
The whole setup of the D-21 is very film<br />
technician friendly and my crew got on<br />
top of it very quickly.<br />
VA: The P2 recording system<br />
obviously helped with your<br />
budget, but what was your<br />
experience of using it on set<br />
and how successful was the<br />
overall workflow?<br />
NW: Once we’d overcome the initial<br />
problem of overloading the system<br />
because the sound department plugged<br />
into it, which we weren’t expecting to<br />
start with, I think it worked very well.<br />
I was initially nervous about putting all<br />
those rushes onto a card, but I guess we<br />
do that with film stock anyway so I got<br />
over it pretty quickly. We always had<br />
rushes back the next morning, as per<br />
usual, and I have to say that I didn’t<br />
need as much grading time as they<br />
normally give us because what I saw in<br />
post was so close to what I’d seen on<br />
set; the grade was very simple.<br />
VA: You were using the D-21<br />
with older Cooke Speed Panchro<br />
lenses. Where did that idea<br />
come from and what look did<br />
it give you?<br />
NW: I had previously shot with a set of<br />
Series One Cookes for a drama and<br />
they have quite a warm, gritty, soft look<br />
on film. I thought that if I used older<br />
Cooke lenses, they might just iron out<br />
some of the harsh edges I associated<br />
with HD. I tested them together with a<br />
set of Cooke S4s and a Zeiss set, and<br />
the Cooke Speed Panchros did exactly<br />
what I thought they would, so I went<br />
with them. My focus puller wasn’t very<br />
happy because they’re not synonymous<br />
with modern equipment so he had a<br />
hard time, but I assured him it was worth<br />
it and it was! Ultimately it was because I<br />
was a complete novice with HD and it<br />
was sort of a security thing for me to go<br />
for a filmic look. I now realise how<br />
completely different they are as formats;<br />
it’s almost like comparing a watercolour<br />
with an oil painting. I’ve learnt that if<br />
you shoot to the advantages of the<br />
medium you’re working in, you’ll get the<br />
right results. On this show we shot in all<br />
manner of lighting conditions and the<br />
D-21 responded very well. ■<br />
Mark Hope-Jones<br />
What is P2?<br />
First introduced by Panasonic in<br />
2004, P2 is a professional digital<br />
video storage format that permits<br />
a range of data streams to be<br />
recorded to a solid state flash<br />
memory card. At <strong>ARRI</strong> Media the<br />
P2 format is offered as a costeffective<br />
recording solution for<br />
productions shooting with the<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 and is proving<br />
especially popular on television<br />
dramas. The compact AG-HPG20<br />
P2 recorder weighs only 1.1kg<br />
and can be mounted directly onto<br />
the D-21, allowing untethered<br />
operation of the camera. Utilising<br />
the AVC-Intra 100 codec, the<br />
recorder takes a 25 fps 4:2:2<br />
signal from the D-21 and can<br />
record half an hour of footage<br />
onto each 32GB card.<br />
What are the advantages?<br />
• Small, on-board<br />
recording device<br />
• Solid state, file-based, tapeless<br />
image pipeline<br />
• Economical format that can<br />
make shooting with the D-21<br />
more affordable<br />
• Easy to use and more<br />
time-efficient than other<br />
recording options<br />
• Streamlined workflow from<br />
production through<br />
postproduction<br />
• Ideal for television productions<br />
• Each 32GB P2 card stores half<br />
an hour of material<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
19
ALEXA<br />
20<br />
A New <strong>ARRI</strong> Digital<br />
Camera System<br />
At IBC 2009, <strong>ARRI</strong> announced a new range of digital cameras that will redefine digital production.<br />
While our engineers have developed a new and unique technology platform, we have carefully looked at<br />
current market requirements for digital motion picture cameras, analysed our experience with the D-21<br />
and discussed future applications with prominent industry insiders. The result is a comprehensive digital<br />
camera system based around a new CMOS sensor with unsurpassed sensitivity and dynamic range.<br />
The Camera Line-up<br />
The new range of cameras will provide a compact, lightweight<br />
and affordable toolset to address every level of the broadcast<br />
and feature film markets. The two entry level models utilise a<br />
16:9 area from the sensor and are complemented by the <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
EVF, the most advanced electronic viewfinder on the market.<br />
The high-end camera will continue <strong>ARRI</strong>’s tradition of offering a<br />
4:3 sensor and rotating mirror shutter linked to an optical<br />
viewfinder. A number of recording options, including several<br />
unique and innovative on-board solutions, have been designed<br />
specifically with modern workflows in mind to provide the<br />
greatest versatility both on the set and in postproduction.<br />
Camera Features<br />
As a result of our extensive market research, we have identified<br />
image performance, workflow efficiency and product quality as<br />
the most important features for our new digital camera system.<br />
First and foremost, all three cameras deliver an unequalled<br />
base sensitivity of 800+ EI (equivalent) and spectacularly wide<br />
exposure latitude. High sensitivity and wide exposure latitude<br />
not only allow greater flexibility and efficiency on the set, they<br />
also reduce effort and cost during postproduction. The three<br />
cameras also share the same gentle, organic look of the D-21.<br />
The use of a single 35-format CMOS sensor provides the same<br />
depth of field as 35mm film cameras while allowing the use of<br />
all 35mm PL-mount lenses.<br />
While image performance is a crucial factor, work speed and<br />
budget are also greatly affected by how well the cameras’<br />
outputs integrate with postproduction. To ensure the most<br />
effective and flexible workflow from the set to post, all three<br />
cameras provide a generous number of output signals and<br />
methods, including on-board recording options, as well as<br />
multiple live HD and <strong>ARRI</strong>RAW outputs. The <strong>ARRI</strong>RAW features<br />
build on the widespread industry support for the <strong>ARRI</strong>RAW<br />
Partner Program.<br />
Last but not least, these new cameras are endowed with a<br />
whole range of high quality characteristics for which <strong>ARRI</strong> is<br />
famous. This includes a first rate viewing system, extremely<br />
robust and reliable build quality, thoughtful ergonomic design,<br />
and simple and safe operation. To ensure that the cameras<br />
withstand even the most extreme environmental conditions, our<br />
unique thermal concept includes completely sealed electronics.<br />
ALEV III SENSOR PROTOTYPE A first test image taken with the ALEV III<br />
sensor prototype and, for comparison, with “competitor A”.<br />
ALEV III SENSOR PROTOTYPE An enlargement shows the differences in the<br />
image structure. Higher sensitivity and a wider exposure latitude provide<br />
significantly cleaner images when shooting in low light.<br />
The ALEV III Sensor<br />
At the heart of the cameras is the new ALEV III sensor, which is<br />
used in all three cameras. It is a 35-format single sensor, Bayer<br />
mask CMOS device with a 3.5K pixel count, the same film-like<br />
look and image sharpness as the D-21, a spectacular base<br />
sensitivity of 800+ EI (equivalent) and unprecedented exposure<br />
latitude. To create a sensor with such qualities, a number of<br />
novel approaches had to be invented by <strong>ARRI</strong> engineers on the<br />
pixel, sensor and signal-processing levels.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Imaging Technology (AIT)<br />
The demands on digital motion picture cameras are unique<br />
and in order to achieve the best in image performance,<br />
workflow efficiency and product quality, we have developed<br />
a comprehensive collection of new high-tech components.<br />
Having full control of the imaging chain, down to the smallest<br />
detail, allows a perfect optimisation of the whole system.<br />
The <strong>ARRI</strong> Imaging Technology (AIT) platform consists of the<br />
new, custom-designed ALEV III CMOS sensor, a high<br />
performance optical low pass filter pack, a powerful hardware<br />
imaging engine, advanced image processing firmware and<br />
a number of unique image processing steps.<br />
COMPETITOR A<br />
COMPETITOR A<br />
The <strong>ARRI</strong> Electronic Viewfinder<br />
While an optical viewfinder still provides the best operating<br />
experience, it comes at a price and adds weight. For the entry<br />
level cameras, we have developed the high resolution <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) – a viewing system that combines<br />
a state-of-the-art F-LCOS micro display with an innovative<br />
auto-calibrating LED light engine, high-quality coated glass optics<br />
and robust mechanics. The system offers much more than a<br />
conventional electronic viewfinder; it has been specifically<br />
designed to meet the needs of professional camera operators<br />
by offering high resolution, accurate colour reproduction, great<br />
ergonomics, overscan and extremely low latency.<br />
Dependable <strong>ARRI</strong> Quality<br />
By combining state-of-the-art digital technology with more than<br />
90 years of optical and mechanical expertise, <strong>ARRI</strong> products<br />
continue to offer features that other manufacturers cannot equal.<br />
Incorporating ergonomic design and top product quality – values<br />
on which <strong>ARRI</strong>’s worldwide reputation is based – the new digital<br />
camera system continues to define the standard in imaging<br />
performance, usability and reliability. ■<br />
Marc Shipman-Mueller<br />
21
The Story<br />
Donna Woolfolk Cross’s bestseller is based on the legend<br />
of Pope Joan, who is mentioned not only in historical but,<br />
interestingly enough, also in church records dating from the<br />
13th century. The highly anticipated adaptation of this<br />
remarkable novel is considered by many to be one of the<br />
year’s cinematic highlights. In addition to the 150-minute<br />
theatrical version, Pope Joan will also make it to the small<br />
screen as a two-part miniseries (2 x 90 minutes).<br />
The Eternal City<br />
For the film, VFX Supervisor Dominik Trimborn and his team<br />
completed a total of 150 VFX shots and got to resurrect the<br />
historical city of Rome. “Several establishing shots of the city<br />
were needed and so we decided to create a 3D computer<br />
model of Rome which would work from all camera angles,”<br />
explains Trimborn, who was on hand throughout the entire<br />
shoot. “We used photographs of a historical model of the<br />
Eternal City, which I shot at a museum in Rome, as our<br />
templates. We could also count on production designer Bernd<br />
Lepel, who had many helpful suggestions and layouts for us.”<br />
The final versions of these establishing shots were created as<br />
3D matte paintings. A collage, consisting of photos and digital<br />
paintings, was projected onto the geometry of the virtual<br />
model to get the textures right. As a final touch, extras and<br />
several burning fires were added to the streets, and boats<br />
added to the Tiber, to perfect these shots of Italy’s largest city.<br />
Digital Locations and Extras<br />
POPE JOAN THE<br />
With Pope Joan, Constantin Film brings yet another accomplished adaptation of a bestselling novel to the<br />
big screen. Johanna Wokalek, David Wenham and John Goodman play the lead roles in this European<br />
co-production directed by Sönke Wortmann. The opulent historical drama was shot in Germany and<br />
Morocco, and was released in October. <strong>ARRI</strong> not only provided the sizable production with lab services<br />
and camera, lighting and grip equipment, but also completed the visual effects, the DI grading and the<br />
DCP and HD mastering at its Munich facilities.<br />
VFX Producer Katja Müller explains that “our efforts to give the<br />
film a feeling of historical authenticity included a number of set<br />
extensions, such as a small mountain village – the protagonist’s<br />
hometown, an establishing shot of the city of Dorstadt, a<br />
number of well known sites within the walls of Rome, the<br />
scenes taking place in a Roman market – which, incidentally,<br />
were shot in Morocco – and several shots of the old St. Peter’s<br />
cathedral. For parts of the monumental basilica we did have to<br />
create a 3D model.”<br />
One particularly elaborate undertaking was a military camp,<br />
for which hundreds of tents had to be created digitally.<br />
To convincingly depict the Roman legion – a deployment of<br />
10,000 soldiers – various takes of 500 extras wearing<br />
historical costumes had to be duplicated. The producer and the<br />
director were particularly impressed with the VFX team’s work<br />
on one of the film’s key scenes: a complex crane shot from a<br />
dolly showing the newly elected female Pope being greeted by<br />
cheering crowds. Initially, the plan was to simply duplicate the<br />
extras, but the early results didn’t capture this momentous<br />
event. And so, in order to fully realise the filmmakers’ vision,<br />
the entire St. Peter’s square was digitally enlarged and<br />
populated with four times as many extras; plus, the silhouette<br />
of Rome was added in the distance. Impressed by the result,<br />
the production company instructed the VFX team to complete<br />
all additional setups of this scene in the same way.<br />
Additional Effects<br />
The VFX assignment also included adding rain and snow<br />
as well as traces of blood, which the production was not<br />
permitted to use in the historical locations during filming.<br />
In addition, certain historically inaccurate details had to be<br />
removed from buildings and greenery had to be added to<br />
the sequences shot in Morocco because they actually take<br />
place in Latium.<br />
Digital Colour Design<br />
It took three months to create the visual effects and integrate<br />
them into the film before the project was colour graded at<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>’s DI facility. In the Lustre suite, Lead Digital Colourist<br />
Traudl Nicholson gave the historical drama its distinct look,<br />
which suits the story and has a sophisticated aesthetic. Harald<br />
Schernthaner, Head of Digital Intermediate at <strong>ARRI</strong>, put it this<br />
way: “Pope Joan was another wonderful project for us and DoP<br />
Tom Fährmann was a great partner during colour grading. He<br />
knew exactly how each frame had to look. Traudl Nicholson, a<br />
highly creative mind, came up with a look that supports Tom’s<br />
lighting design – starting with gloomy colours and ending with<br />
very bright ones – and carries us through the film.“<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
22 23<br />
© 2009 Constantin Film Verleih GmbH<br />
Teamwork<br />
DoP Tom Fährmann calls Pope Joan yet another successful<br />
collaboration: “Once again we were able to do the entire<br />
postproduction at <strong>ARRI</strong>,” he says. “The digital intermediate, the<br />
colour correction and all visual effects were created here by an<br />
extremely competent team whose work meets the highest<br />
standards. Traudl Nicholson, Dominik Trimborn and Harald<br />
Schernthaner, all of them experts in their own right, delivered<br />
exceptional work and it was a great joy to collaborate with<br />
them and their teams during the six months of postproduction.<br />
It is rare to encounter this many competent and pleasant<br />
people on a project. Hopefully, we can do this again soon!” ■<br />
Prof. Jürgen Schopper<br />
DIGITALLY ENLARGED and populated St. Peter’s Square (before and after)<br />
VIEW OF ROME, actor Johanna Wokalek against a greenscreen and then<br />
composited with a 3D digital matte painting<br />
<br />
DoP TOM FÄHRMANN and Dominik Trimborn (<strong>ARRI</strong> Head of VFX)<br />
ON SET in Morocco<br />
DIRECTOR SÖNKE WORTMANN<br />
VFX Crew<br />
Head of Visual Effects: Dominik Trimborn<br />
Visual Effects Producer: Katja Müller<br />
Team: Abraham Schneider, David Laubsch, Stefan<br />
Tischner, Christian Wieser, Mathis Lex, Tobias Wiesner,<br />
Marco Ringler, Patrick Zentis, Ines Krüger, Andy Alesik,<br />
Alisa Wimmer, Christoph Schmidt, Marcel Knüdeler,<br />
Ruth Delattre<br />
DI Crew<br />
Head of Digital Intermediate: Harald Schernthaner<br />
Digital Intermediate Producer: Christian Herrmann<br />
Team: Traudl Nicholson, Andreas Lautil, Maike Jahn,<br />
Markus “Mac“ Erl<br />
Film Lab<br />
Head of Lab and Postproduction:<br />
Martin Schwertführer<br />
Line Producer: Christian Littmann<br />
Team: Beate Trathnigg, Franz Rabl, Steven Stueart,<br />
Markus Mastaller, Federico Umetelli, Sascha Stiller,<br />
Willy Delgado, Peter Vit, Andreas Thomas, Yvonne<br />
Tran, Ingo Adam, Günther Bornkessel, Ulrich<br />
Hochleitner, Viola Maag, Anja Senckpiehl, Sven Eulert,<br />
Erich Harant, Angelika Hoppe, Marius Arendt
BRIGHT STAR<br />
Bright Star<br />
24<br />
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest…<br />
Australian DoP Greig Fraser on adjusting to the subtleties of <strong>English</strong> sunlight while shooting<br />
the romantic period drama Bright Star.<br />
The story of John Keats’ short life is in most part a sad one: continually beset by poverty, ill-health, critical<br />
disdain and grief, the struggling poet knew much unhappiness before succumbing to tuberculosis at the<br />
age of 25. He also knew great joy, however, and his love affair with Fanny Brawne, a neighbour from his<br />
Hampstead days, was so intense and passionate that his letters to her have shocked and inspired in equal<br />
measure since their publication in 1878. Director Jane Campion’s new film Bright Star, named for a sonnet<br />
Keats wrote after becoming secretly engaged to Brawne in 1819, charts the doomed three-year<br />
relationship and stars Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in the lead roles.<br />
Bright Star was shot by DoP Greig Fraser on a 3-perforation <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite hired from <strong>ARRI</strong> Media, as well<br />
as his own <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235. The lighting package was supplied by <strong>ARRI</strong> Lighting <strong>Rental</strong>.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: What were the challenges of shooting a<br />
period drama in England?<br />
Greig Fraser: The hardest thing, first and foremost, was that the<br />
quality of light in England is extremely different to the quality<br />
of light in my native Australia. I hadn’t worked in England<br />
before and when I arrived at Heathrow the cloud cover was<br />
really low; I looked at it and wondered how I was going to<br />
make it interesting. I then started studying the light; I would go<br />
out early in the morning in February and watch the sunrise. In<br />
England it isn’t really a sunrise - it’s just a lightening up of the<br />
landscape because when there’s cloud cover the sun takes a<br />
long time to break through. But what I discovered was that the<br />
subtle variations of the light in England are extremely beautiful.<br />
VA: How did you go about capturing those<br />
subtle variations?<br />
GF: I arrived in England a good 10 weeks before we started<br />
shooting and was able to spend time with my gaffer Mark<br />
Clayton finding ways to mimic the light. One of the ways I did<br />
it was to use gelled tungsten sources rather than HMI sources.<br />
The story runs across three years, so it was quite a challenge<br />
to make our lighting match every season, especially because<br />
we were shooting everything out of sequence. We used large<br />
tungsten sources and changed the quality of the diffusion or<br />
the gel to give the impression of summer or winter; we also<br />
changed the height of the lamp according to the season. The<br />
low sun in winter has an extremely beautiful quality coming<br />
DIRECTOR JANE CAMPION<br />
through the clouds at an angle and you get more contrast. In<br />
summer the sun is higher, so there’s less contrast in the light<br />
coming through the clouds.<br />
Photos: Laurie Sparham © 2009 Pathé Productions<br />
VA: Did you and the director discuss any<br />
specific references for the use of colour or the<br />
visual approach?<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
GF: Jane and I studied Monet’s Haystacks series, where he<br />
painted the same haystack over a period of different seasons;<br />
even though it’s slightly desaturated, that’s actually quite a<br />
colourful series. One of the things Jane wanted to avoid was<br />
giving the film a typically period look; she actually didn’t want<br />
to give it any particular look because she felt that the story<br />
had its own life and she wanted to tackle each scene as it<br />
stood. So you’ll find that happier scenes in the film tend to<br />
have more colour; it’s quite an obvious thing to do, but if it’s<br />
subtle it works well.<br />
VA: Was your collaboration with Jane Campion a<br />
fruitful one?<br />
GF: Very fruitful: Jane is an extremely visual director, but she’s<br />
also an intuitive director. Sometimes she couldn’t put her finger<br />
on exactly why she didn’t like things, or why she did like them<br />
– she just either didn’t or did. For example I’d offer a frame<br />
and she’d love it, but she didn’t know why, and when we tried<br />
to find that frame again we weren’t able to. But the thing is<br />
that her intuition is extremely powerful, so she was able to<br />
make decisions for both conscious and subconscious reasons.<br />
VA: Were you generally shooting with two cameras<br />
at the same time?<br />
GF: No, we only had one-camera setups. We had an<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite and also my own <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235, but that was<br />
used for cutaways and for second unit stuff. It was also useful<br />
for a few little handheld scenes we did as the relationship<br />
[between Keats and Brawne] starts to take shape and they<br />
start to feel the pangs of first love; the 235 was instrumental in<br />
capturing that mood. Jane called the handheld camera her<br />
“feeling camera” because it would just give a bit more feeling<br />
to a scene.<br />
VA: You had Cooke S4 lenses, but also your own<br />
Russian Elite lenses; what were they used for?<br />
GF: We were using those Russian lenses because they are<br />
T1.3 and we used them for the occasional sequence where<br />
minimum depth was absolutely required; for example there<br />
were scenes in fields full of flowers where we wanted the<br />
foreground out of focus. They just gave us a lot more focus<br />
fall-off. We used the Cookes primarily for the actors.<br />
VA: What route did you take through postproduction?<br />
GF: Well we went through a DI, which was handy because it<br />
meant we were able to shoot 3-perforation. We had originally<br />
planned on an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, but after watching some<br />
wardrobe tests Jane and I realised that it would look much better<br />
in 1.85:1. Luckily we were able to make that change only a few<br />
days before shooting because we had chosen 3-perforation,<br />
but part of the beauty of 2.40:1 with 3-perforation is the<br />
latitude above and below the frame and you don’t have that<br />
with 1.85:1; so there was a bit more pressure to get the<br />
compositions right on set. When it came to the DI grade we<br />
worked with an amazing colourist at EFILM in Australia named<br />
Olivier Fontenay, who did a wonderful job. ■<br />
Mark Hope-Jones<br />
25
26<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Sound create the sound mix for the outer space spine-chiller of the year<br />
PANDORUM<br />
Pandorum, a gritty science fiction<br />
thriller starring Ben Foster and<br />
Dennis Quaid, is a German-<br />
American production (Constantin<br />
Film, Impact Pictures) directed by<br />
Christian Alvart. The 40-million<br />
US dollar production, shot at<br />
Berlin Babelsberg by DoP Wedigo<br />
von Schultzendorff, opened in the<br />
United States in September.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Germany supplied<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>CAM and <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 435<br />
cameras as well as the lighting<br />
package, while digital<br />
postproduction and the final<br />
Dolby EX sound mix were<br />
completed at <strong>ARRI</strong> Munich.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Sound came on board during the<br />
early stages of preparation. The sound<br />
design crew in Berlin was consulted<br />
during numerous brainstorming sessions<br />
in an effort to generate new ideas. <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Creative Leader of Sound Tschangis<br />
Chahrokh explains: “Sound for film is a<br />
team effort, not the work of an<br />
individual, especially not in a case like<br />
this. Pandorum was a project that relied<br />
heavily on the communication that went<br />
on beforehand; we had to be clear from<br />
the beginning what the outcome was<br />
supposed to be.”<br />
In these early stages the burden rested<br />
on the shoulders of sound design experts<br />
Jürgen Funk and Oswald Schwander.<br />
One of their main tasks was to give the<br />
Hunters – dangerous, non-human<br />
creatures that play a key part in the<br />
story – a sound that was believable.<br />
“Collaborating closely with the director<br />
and the producers over the course of<br />
several months, they had to find a way<br />
to give these unpleasant co-inhabitants of<br />
the spaceship a sound,” recalls Michael<br />
Hinreiner, who as Re-Recording Mixer<br />
was responsible, together with<br />
Chahrokh, for the final sound mix<br />
of the film. In addition, Adrian<br />
Baumeister, ADR Supervisor and<br />
Supervising Sound Editor, assisted<br />
the audio crew during the extensive<br />
language synchronisation until the final<br />
mix was completed.<br />
“For Pandorum, a different and unique<br />
sound had to be created,” explains<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Head of Sound Bernd Clauss. “But<br />
what does a spaceship sound like? Most<br />
importantly, what does a spaceship<br />
“THE SOUND CREATES DOUBT<br />
IN THE AUDIENCE’S MIND<br />
ABOUT WHAT THEY SEE.”<br />
underwater sound like? Initially, the<br />
spaceship isn’t in space, which the<br />
audience doesn’t know at that point, and<br />
only the sound provides certain clues<br />
with regards to that by purposely<br />
creating a dissonance between image<br />
and sound as a dramaturgical device.<br />
The sound creates doubt in the<br />
audience’s mind about what they see.”<br />
Michael Hinreiner notes that “at the<br />
same time we had to adhere to the<br />
sound structure Hollywood cinema calls<br />
for. We couldn’t create something<br />
entirely eccentric; we had to achieve a<br />
certain balance between what audiences<br />
are used to hearing – in order not to jar<br />
them – and setting new accents that we<br />
wanted to use creatively.”<br />
In order to create this distinctive sound,<br />
vintage effects were used, which haven’t<br />
been heard in a long time and therefore<br />
would seem new and interesting to the<br />
audience. For example, an EMT 140<br />
echo plate was used for two scenes.<br />
“That created the great feeling of<br />
something pure and real,” says<br />
Hinreiner. “We suggested sounds for the<br />
distant future with a 50-year-old device.”<br />
In addition, a Roland Space Echo dating<br />
from the 1970s was used.<br />
“We mixed Pandorum in Dolby Digital<br />
EX, with seven instead of six channels,<br />
something we haven’t done in a long<br />
time,” points out Daniel Vogl, Technical<br />
Supervisor of Sound at <strong>ARRI</strong>.<br />
© 2009 Constantin Film Verleih GmbH<br />
“The additional centre surround offers<br />
the possibility to have signals coming<br />
from very specific places in the back.<br />
The absolute freedom this creates in<br />
terms of the movement of sound<br />
contributes to the nightmarish mood in<br />
the chase scenes.”<br />
Tschangis Chahrokh recalls that “there<br />
were two of us working on the mix.<br />
Michael mixed the effects, atmosphere<br />
and the noise, while I mixed the<br />
dialogue and the music. On a film of this<br />
magnitude you need at least two sound<br />
mixers. We always had to decide what<br />
element was driving the scene forward:<br />
sound design, dialogue or music.<br />
We checked that against the HD images<br />
using the most current material from the<br />
DI and the rough cut. Every visual detail<br />
in the film has its own sound event.<br />
Michael had 120 channels – normally<br />
you have about half of that – and those<br />
120 channels were already mixed down<br />
from about 700. Together with my 80<br />
music channels, we had 200 channels<br />
altogether for the final mix.”<br />
Parallel to the sound postproduction, the<br />
DI progressed as well. “Christian Alvart<br />
is an absolute perfectionist. He’s highly<br />
prepared and always knows exactly<br />
what he wants,” Senior Colourist<br />
Manfred Turek says about the director.<br />
“He had planned out every change of<br />
pace, every frame ahead of time.”<br />
“Pandorum, like most sci-fi films,<br />
required a great number of VFX shots –<br />
about 700 altogether with about 2,500<br />
cuts – which is something we had to take<br />
into consideration during grading,”<br />
explains DI Producer Alexander Klippe.<br />
“In the beginning only a small fraction of<br />
the effects had been approved and<br />
inserted. And so they arrived throughout,<br />
one at a time, which meant that many<br />
edit changes were made close to the<br />
fixed deadlines for the international<br />
release dates. This wasn’t just a challenge<br />
for our grading team, but also for the<br />
sound crew, because the director was still<br />
modifying speed ramps in the Lustre suite,<br />
which meant that the sound had to be<br />
pushed up and adjusted as well.”<br />
Manfred Turek explains that “this was<br />
one of the most challenging projects I<br />
have ever worked on in terms of colour<br />
grading. That’s particularly the case for<br />
the scenes taking place in the reactor<br />
room of the spaceship with the short<br />
circuits and the stroboscopic light<br />
flashes. Also, most of the film takes place<br />
in a dark spaceship where the only light<br />
sources are flashlights and chemical light<br />
beams. On top of that the actors are<br />
dressed almost entirely in black. This<br />
meant that we had to rely heavily on<br />
shapes and other grading tricks to give<br />
the black areas enough detail. The<br />
question we had to address throughout<br />
was: how bright can the DI be, keeping<br />
in mind the audience, and how dark<br />
does the director want his story to look?”<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
For the final stages of postproduction,<br />
all of the teams congregated at <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Munich. “The deadlines could only be met<br />
because we were able to finish the work<br />
in-house, where several services could be<br />
provided simultaneously and in one<br />
location,” says Daniel Vogl. “Just in terms<br />
of the file coordination between the HD<br />
image workflow, the cutting room, the DI<br />
and the sound department, this was an<br />
enormous advantage. This is something<br />
that makes <strong>ARRI</strong> unique in Central Europe<br />
and without it the project could not have<br />
been finished in the time allotted.”<br />
“In terms of the sound design, Pandorum<br />
is, in my opinion, the most extensive film<br />
production that has been completed in<br />
Germany,” says Tschangis Chahrokh. “It<br />
was great that Constantin Film entrusted<br />
us with this Hollywood project. We got<br />
to test our limits and can proudly say<br />
that we accomplished what we set out to<br />
accomplish. The greatest moment for us<br />
was Martin Moszkowicz, the CEO of<br />
Film & Television at Constantin, telling us<br />
after the final approval that the sound<br />
was exactly as he had envisioned it.<br />
And so in the end, it was all worth it.” ■<br />
Ingo Klingspon<br />
DI Crew<br />
Head of Digital Intermediate<br />
Harald Schernthaner<br />
Digital Colourists<br />
Manfred Turek, Andreas Lautil<br />
Digital Intermediate Producer<br />
Alexander Klippe, Christian Herrmann<br />
Sound Crew<br />
Head of Sound Department<br />
Bernd Clauss, Tschangis Chahrokh<br />
Postproduction Producer Sound<br />
Florian von Frenckell<br />
Technical Supervisor Sound<br />
Daniel Vogl<br />
Project Coordinators Sound<br />
Henry Mayr, Michael Huber<br />
Re-Recording Mixers<br />
Tschangis Chahrokh,<br />
Michael Hinreiner<br />
27
28<br />
D-21 Shoots 3D in Dubai<br />
The recent opening of Dubai’s brand new Metro system was marked with a screening of a<br />
nine-minute 3D film. Played to an audience at a specially erected theatre at the Mall of the<br />
Emirates shopping centre, the film provided an immersive experience of what it would be like<br />
to travel on the Metro, which runs the entire length of Dubai, before passengers embarked on<br />
its inaugural journey.<br />
The film was produced by Boomtown<br />
Productions for event management<br />
company HQ Creative, who had<br />
contemplated using 3D several times in<br />
the past. After winning the tender to<br />
undertake the management of the<br />
Metro’s launch, they felt that the project<br />
presented the right occasion to showcase<br />
the potential of 3D. Boomtown teamed<br />
with 3D specialists Vision3 and together<br />
they settled on using the <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21,<br />
a decision driven by the camera’s image<br />
quality and the fact the final film would<br />
be viewed on a large screen. Camera<br />
and grip equipment was supplied by<br />
Dubai-based Filmquip Media, in<br />
conjunction with <strong>ARRI</strong> Media.<br />
To create a 3D effect two cameras are<br />
required to film images simultaneously.<br />
The D-21s, along with matched sets of<br />
Cooke S4 primes, were mounted on a<br />
StereoCam rig (more popularly known<br />
as the Hines rig) - a sturdy 3D mirror rig<br />
where one forward-facing camera records<br />
an image through a beam-splitting mirror<br />
and the other camera angles down at 90<br />
degrees to capture the reflection. This<br />
forward-and-downward arrangement<br />
enabled the cameras to be put much<br />
closer together than would have been<br />
possible with a side-by-side rig.<br />
Shane Martin of Boomtown directed,<br />
while Anthony Smythe, head of Filmquip<br />
Media, served as cinematographer and<br />
operator. It was the size and weight of<br />
the 3D package that presented the<br />
biggest challenge to Smythe. “Because<br />
the rig was so big,” he says, “it meant<br />
I couldn’t actually see the live action<br />
in front of me, so I had to try and<br />
anticipate what was going to happen.”<br />
Once shooting was underway it was<br />
quickly discovered that wider lenses<br />
appeared better suited to 3D than long.<br />
“It was difficult to get a good 3D effect<br />
with a long lens,” says Smythe. “We<br />
mostly worked between an 18mm and a<br />
32mm or 50mm, which seemed to work<br />
the best.”<br />
Another reason for choosing D-21s was<br />
their reliability; the cameras had to be<br />
able to withstand the harsh summer heat<br />
and humidity of Dubai, which reached<br />
over 40 °C on a daily basis. Throughout<br />
the seven-day shoot a number of location<br />
moves and various configurations kept<br />
the crew busy, but on hand to help out<br />
was one of <strong>ARRI</strong> Media’s digital<br />
technicians, Jay Patel. The heat wasn’t<br />
the only problem the cameras had to<br />
contend with – one of the more unusual<br />
locations was an indoor ski slope, where<br />
the cameras were subjected to belowfreezing<br />
conditions. “It was -2 inside the<br />
ski slope,” recalls Smythe, “and then we<br />
went straight to our next location inside<br />
a shopping mall. Everything ended up<br />
covered in condensation because we<br />
had no feasible way of acclimatising the<br />
equipment; we even had to get some<br />
hairdryers to help dry everything off. But<br />
despite that fact we pushed the cameras<br />
to their limits and they didn’t let us down.<br />
They coped with both the cold and heat;<br />
we didn’t have a single problem.”<br />
For the majority of the shoot the signal<br />
from the D-21s was recorded in Lin 4:4:4<br />
at 25 fps onto Sony SRW-1s, with the<br />
occasional sequence shot in 4:2:2 at 50<br />
fps. Vision3 were on set throughout,<br />
carefully monitoring the 3D image. Using<br />
“IN 2D THOSE SHOTS WOULD HAVE<br />
BEEN QUITE ODD-LOOKING, BUT IN<br />
3D THEY WORK VERY WELL.”<br />
a frame synchroniser to sync the signals<br />
from both cameras it was possible to view<br />
a live 3D picture, which was displayed<br />
on a 12” Transvideo monitor. “There are<br />
two sides to monitoring 3D on set,”<br />
explains Chris Parks, stereographer and<br />
partner at Vision3. “As a stereographer,<br />
I have to check that both cameras are<br />
perfectly aligned - that there are no<br />
discrepancies between the two images.<br />
At the same time I need to constantly take<br />
measurements of that picture so that I<br />
know the amount of 3D there will be in a<br />
scene and whether it’s going to work. The<br />
monitoring that the client wants is very<br />
different,” he continues. “They want to be<br />
able to get a feel for the 3D space within<br />
a scene, so we attached 3D glasses to<br />
allow them to take a look. The Transvideo<br />
did both those jobs – it displayed the<br />
overlaid image so we could align and<br />
bring in measuring marks to monitor the<br />
amount of 3D effect, and it also allowed<br />
us to attach glasses for the director and<br />
client to view the 3D.”<br />
In order to get a greater feel for how the<br />
3D was going to look, rushes were then<br />
viewed on a 46” JVC flat screen 3D TV.<br />
“Although the JVC can’t give a completely<br />
accurate representation of what the 3D<br />
will ultimately be like on the big screen,”<br />
says Parks, “it does give a much better<br />
idea of the quality of the 3D.”<br />
When shooting 3D there are many<br />
considerations that have to be taken into<br />
account: “While there are certain things<br />
you should avoid in 3D – like quick<br />
camera moves, which might lead to<br />
strobing and a breakdown of the 3D<br />
image - there are also things that lend<br />
themselves particularly well to 3D,”<br />
states the stereographer. “Aerial views<br />
can be particularly effective in 3D: in the<br />
Dubai film we shot looking straight down<br />
onto a golfer on the golf course and also<br />
some traditional dancers. In 2D those<br />
shots would have been quite oddlooking,<br />
but in 3D they work very well.<br />
The golfer and the dancers come right<br />
out of the screen towards the audience.”<br />
THE TWO D-21 CAMERAS mounted in a forward-and-downward arrangement on the StereoCam rig<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
During postproduction the positioning<br />
of the 3D images was finalised. “We<br />
decided exactly where and how the<br />
scenes would appear within the theatre,”<br />
explains Parks. “Whether we wanted the<br />
whole scene to be behind the screen, or<br />
whether, for instance, we wanted the<br />
head and shoulders of the golfer to<br />
come out through the screen, or the<br />
dolphins to leap out into the theatre.”<br />
After the Metro’s launch on September<br />
9, the Mall’s theatre, which had a<br />
seating capacity for 200 people, was<br />
packed for every 15-minute screening<br />
that was held during the seven days<br />
following the opening. ■<br />
Michelle Smith<br />
29
<strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial<br />
Munich’s<br />
Creative Heartbeat<br />
Located just around the corner from Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts,<br />
right in the heart of the city, <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Commercial offers its<br />
clients all the creative and technical services needed at any stage of the<br />
process – starting with the search for innovative ideas, all the way<br />
through to the development and implementation of these concepts.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Commercial offers its<br />
wide range of services from one<br />
location. Concept creation, consultation,<br />
planning and implementation – along<br />
with quality control and project support<br />
– mesh effectively and without time<br />
delays. <strong>ARRI</strong>’s creative core consists of<br />
lab work, colour grading, online and<br />
offline editing, compositing, 3D<br />
animation and motion graphics. This<br />
department is the bedrock for the<br />
realisation of any project and offers a<br />
comprehensive package that is hard<br />
to find elsewhere. “We were able to<br />
expand our creative potential as a post<br />
house in terms of personnel, as well as<br />
technology,” explains <strong>ARRI</strong> Head of<br />
Commercial, Philipp Bartel. “That’s why<br />
today we can extend the entire range<br />
of possibilities the world of the moving<br />
image has to offer in a creative,<br />
compact and competent way from one<br />
single source directly to our clients, such<br />
as agencies and production companies.<br />
From our pool of services we can<br />
choose what the client’s project, within<br />
their available budget, needs.<br />
“With Rico Reitz, our Creative Director,<br />
our motion graphic designers, our<br />
compositing and 3D artists, as well as<br />
our grading team, <strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial has<br />
a crew at its disposal that holds a<br />
wealth of complementary qualifications,<br />
which they proactively put to use on our<br />
clients’ behalf,” continues Bartel. “Many<br />
of our customers come to us while they<br />
are still in the pitch phase to solicit our<br />
creative recommendations, concept<br />
ideas and design suggestions.”<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial clients have access<br />
to the complete range of production<br />
equipment and all related services,<br />
including rental (camera, lighting<br />
and set), the film lab and <strong>ARRI</strong>’s own<br />
in-house cinema for final approval.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> offers all this from one unique,<br />
central location, where each division is<br />
located just a few steps from the other.<br />
Bartel notes that “proximity and short<br />
distances are still a key factor when it<br />
comes to implementing creative ideas<br />
quickly and precisely.”<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
“MANY OF OUR CUSTOMERS COME<br />
TO US WHILE THEY ARE STILL IN<br />
THE PITCH PHASE TO SOLICIT OUR<br />
CREATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS…”<br />
Workplace environment and quality<br />
of life should not be mutually exclusive.<br />
The pleasant and relaxed atmosphere<br />
at <strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial, with its elegant<br />
conference room, rooftop terrace<br />
and lounge, is conducive to creative<br />
endeavours and the facility is located<br />
in one of Munich’s trendiest<br />
neighbourhoods. Nearby are countless<br />
restaurants, cafés, bars and shops; even<br />
the world famous Marienplatz and the<br />
Maximilianstraße – Munich’s Fifth<br />
Avenue – are only a four-minute taxi<br />
ride away from <strong>ARRI</strong>’s facilities.<br />
31
<strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial In Brief<br />
Project Support<br />
From storyboard drawing to the<br />
completed moving image, our producers<br />
assist clients through all stages of the<br />
creative process. In collaboration with<br />
the agency, the production company,<br />
the director and all the creative<br />
departments, we develop, budget,<br />
schedule, plan and implement the best<br />
possible way to execute a project,<br />
ensuring that the client’s ideas are<br />
realised to perfection.<br />
Creative Direction<br />
In meetings with the agency, the<br />
production company and the<br />
postproduction team, all the visual<br />
effects are planned out. Together with<br />
the client we create looks and designs,<br />
style frames, scribbles and animatics,<br />
and supervise the creative process inhouse.<br />
This reduces postproduction time<br />
and leads to the best overall results.<br />
Motion Graphics<br />
Our designers develop looks, animatics,<br />
layouts and typo-animation that will later<br />
be part of completed spots, graphic<br />
packaging and on-air designs.<br />
Visual Effects<br />
To complete complex visual effects in a<br />
quick and flexible manner within a given<br />
timeframe, our compositing artists count<br />
on Flame 2009. A team will assist the<br />
client on set and all the way to the<br />
completion of the film.<br />
Colour Grading<br />
Our colourists immerse themselves in<br />
your world of colours and present your<br />
vision in the proper light. In addition to<br />
Spirit Suite, our colour grading team<br />
currently counts on the software-based<br />
grading tool Baselight.<br />
Planning<br />
Our team can inform you about our<br />
prices and provide customised quotes<br />
for your transfer needs. This office also<br />
oversees the coordination of all transfers<br />
(sound and image), of all scheduling<br />
and broadcast requirements, as well as<br />
all deliveries.<br />
Web Design<br />
We offer our clients the entire range of<br />
web design services. In our web studio<br />
our designers create and maintain<br />
homepages, helping clients meet all their<br />
online publishing needs.<br />
Cinema<br />
Our unique cinema, the <strong>ARRI</strong>-Kino, seats<br />
360 people and features a 10 x 4.2m<br />
screen. Top-notch digital and analogue<br />
equipment allows our clients to watch<br />
their finished film and all other film<br />
materials under movie theatre conditions<br />
Cultivating<br />
Relationships<br />
with DoPs<br />
Harald Schernthaner, <strong>ARRI</strong>’s<br />
Head of Digital Intermediate<br />
When it comes to the digital<br />
intermediate he’s been around from<br />
its inception. Since its early beginnings<br />
in 2004, Schernthaner has made<br />
significant contributions to the<br />
development of DI workflows at <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Film & TV Services. The multimedia<br />
engineer studied film and video<br />
production in Salzburg and worked as<br />
a production and camera assistant for<br />
a production company specialising in<br />
commercials in New York. There he<br />
honed his skills in all areas of multimedia<br />
production before joining <strong>ARRI</strong> Munich<br />
in 2004. Since 2007, Harald<br />
Schernthaner, as Head of Digital<br />
Intermediate, has been overseeing <strong>ARRI</strong>’s<br />
colour grading, online editing, data<br />
management, scanning and recording<br />
efforts at the Munich and Berlin facilities<br />
and, starting in 2009, at the Cologne<br />
location. He has taken the time to<br />
answer Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>’s questions about the<br />
current state of the DI.<br />
Munich, where we can complete colour<br />
grading assignments under cinema-like<br />
conditions, in terms of size and quality,<br />
and where the <strong>ARRI</strong>CUBE colour<br />
management technology allows us to<br />
precisely match the digital projection to<br />
the analogue screen. In addition we offer<br />
services such as generating dailies for<br />
digital productions, scanning and<br />
recording, as well as sound<br />
postproduction.<br />
VA: What synergies exist with<br />
other <strong>ARRI</strong> divisions?<br />
HS: Thanks to file-based workflows,<br />
nearly all areas access the same set of<br />
data. This allows us to work efficiently<br />
and creates a great deal of flexibility for<br />
the client. In some cases we can even<br />
start grading before the scanning process<br />
is completed. This means that the minute<br />
we finish scanning we can begin sound<br />
mixing based on the status of the colour<br />
grading process.<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
and systems, the relationship with DoPs<br />
is of enormous importance to me. There<br />
are still many peculiarities – particularly<br />
in the realm of digital recording – that<br />
we try to eliminate by running the<br />
appropriate tests. This gives the creative<br />
talents the assurance they need not only<br />
during filming, but also later on during<br />
postproduction. Especially when new<br />
technologies become available and new<br />
standards and workflows have not yet<br />
been established, we have to be able to<br />
close that gap in postproduction.<br />
VA: How do you, in the DI realm,<br />
respond to the current trend of<br />
3D feature films?<br />
HS: To successfully handle stereoscopic<br />
3D content in the DI you need, in<br />
addition to 2D processing, extended<br />
tools and experienced personnel to<br />
correct the anomalies, such as the colour<br />
difference of two cameras and the<br />
relative size and rotation, as well as<br />
convergence of the mostly digitally<br />
recorded material.<br />
VA: What impact has the<br />
increased prevalence of digital<br />
Technical considerations such as the<br />
decision whether to shoot parallel or<br />
convergent have a direct impact on<br />
postproduction, which is why we take an<br />
active role in a variety of areas. Stereo<br />
3D still has a long way to go and <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
will support its clients with the necessary<br />
know-how and state-of-the-art technology.<br />
cameras, even in feature film VA: From a DI perspective, what is<br />
Texture Studio<br />
Here we can create special textures<br />
Offline Editing<br />
On a separate floor, the client’s creative<br />
at any stage through postproduction.<br />
The cinema also features a stage and<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: How many people does<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> employ in the DI?<br />
production, had on your work?<br />
HS: First and foremost, we are trying to<br />
your assessment of 2009 and<br />
what challenges lie ahead?<br />
from any desired material, such as 3D team has access to a number of editing can be reserved for lectures and events.<br />
Harald Schernthaner: In the Munich office transfer the different recording formats in HS: Despite the economic situation<br />
animations. Over the last three years suites. Each suite includes a small client<br />
we’ve compiled a picture library of lounge. Our in-house team offers<br />
moving image textures, mostly in 4K technical support, digitalisation services,<br />
resolution, making the studio the perfect sound processing and, of course, service<br />
place to quickly shoot additional<br />
around the clock.<br />
packshots for your production.<br />
Sound<br />
3D<br />
Here we record, select and edit sound,<br />
For the creation of 3D animated images voiceovers or music. We also develop<br />
and worlds, the artist network of<br />
sound designs and compose music for<br />
punchin.pictures is the perfect partner. commercials, as well as offering support<br />
The artists and the 150-square-metre when developing concepts for radio spots.<br />
animation loft, flooded with natural light,<br />
Transfer<br />
are located just a flight of stairs away<br />
from <strong>ARRI</strong> Commercial.<br />
Our transfer department services all<br />
professional video formats in SD/HD but<br />
also offers sound transfer and generates<br />
analogue as well as digital release prints.<br />
For more information: www.arricommercial.de<br />
Conference Room<br />
Our conference room, featuring state-ofthe-art<br />
technology, is located on the top<br />
floor overlooking Schwabing, the local<br />
neighbourhood. It is the perfect place to<br />
discuss your project or to step out onto<br />
the rooftop terrace and enjoy a view of<br />
the Alps on a sunny day.<br />
Refreshments & More<br />
A delicious cold beverage or a caffe<br />
latte? A traditional Bavarian breakfast or<br />
something more international? Flowers<br />
for a wedding anniversary? Something<br />
special to celebrate final approval? We<br />
help you meet any challenge!<br />
Lounge / Terrace<br />
The perfect place to take a break from<br />
the everyday rigors of your project and<br />
meet interesting people. ■<br />
we currently have 23 people working in<br />
the DI, including scanning and recording.<br />
We are a versatile team from diverse<br />
technical backgrounds. That’s a great<br />
asset because the group has broad<br />
knowledge that gets dispersed by its<br />
individual specialists. This sort of versatility<br />
results in a great number of synergies,<br />
which we used to create a powerful and<br />
flexible taskforce for DI projects in Munich,<br />
Berlin and now in Cologne.<br />
VA: What is the focus of the new<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> facilities in Cologne in terms<br />
of projects?<br />
HS: Traditionally, Cologne has focused<br />
mostly on TV productions. But we invested<br />
in a grading suite with 2K projection<br />
capabilities to accommodate ambitious<br />
feature films as well. Our Cologne colour<br />
grading suite therefore is our fourth one,<br />
in addition to one in Berlin and two in<br />
a way that won’t require changes or<br />
only minimal ones to the rest of the DI<br />
workflow. These transfers have to be made<br />
carefully and conscientiously in order to<br />
make the most of the recorded data.<br />
We also try to get involved early on<br />
during preparation, and of course we<br />
like to be present on set as much as<br />
possible to ensure a seamless<br />
postproduction workflow and to<br />
guarantee the safety of all the recorded<br />
data. We have also increased our efforts<br />
to expand our digital archiving system<br />
because digital data on hard drives<br />
cannot be archived like film footage.<br />
VA: How do DoPs deal with these<br />
developments, which pose<br />
challenges for them as well?<br />
HS: In today’s world, with the availability<br />
of the DI and various recording formats<br />
during the first half of the year, 2009<br />
has been a very good year for feature<br />
film production. We have worked on<br />
several interesting, big budget films such<br />
as Pope Joan, Pandorum, Desert Flower,<br />
Henri IV, all of which were highly<br />
involved productions in terms of colour<br />
grading. We also worked on<br />
international productions such as Tony<br />
Goldwyn’s new film Betty Anne Waters<br />
starring Hilary Swank – the first US film<br />
that was shot in the United States but<br />
posted entirely at <strong>ARRI</strong>.<br />
The digital rollout is currently receiving a<br />
major push. This is a development we<br />
are very well prepared for with our new<br />
division, <strong>ARRI</strong> Digital Cinema. One of<br />
the challenges of next year is an<br />
anamorphic 35mm project that will be<br />
mastered entirely in 4K. ■<br />
Ingo Klingspon<br />
32 33<br />
© Caringo Photografix
34<br />
Hi-Motion<br />
New V10 software from EVS integrates with Hi-Motion at Hickstead<br />
Hickstead is a showjumping venue of<br />
international renown and the Longines<br />
Royal International Horse Show held<br />
there every July is one of the highlights<br />
of the equestrian calendar. Since 2006<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Media has supplied Hi-Motion<br />
cameras to Sky Sports for its coverage<br />
of the event; the difference this year was<br />
that the latest XT[2] Multicam software<br />
from EVS permitted full control of the<br />
Hi-Motion cameras without any need for<br />
a dedicated control panel. This meant<br />
that Sky was able to incorporate<br />
stunning, full HD, slow motion images<br />
recorded at 600 fps by the two Hi-<br />
Motion cameras into its live broadcast<br />
with greater ease than ever before.<br />
Director Mike Allen, who has won<br />
awards for sports coverage shot with the<br />
Hi-Motion system, spoke with Vision<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
about how the super slow motion<br />
cameras contributed to this year’s<br />
Hickstead broadcast.<br />
Vision<strong>ARRI</strong>: How important a<br />
role does Hi-Motion play<br />
at Hickstead?<br />
Mike Allen: We brought in one Hi-Motion<br />
camera back when <strong>ARRI</strong> Media first got<br />
the system and it just produced such<br />
fantastic pictures. We now use two<br />
cameras and it’s a wonderful tool for us<br />
because we can slow the action down<br />
enough to see things that you wouldn’t<br />
otherwise see: tight shots of the horses’<br />
eyes when they’re going over a jump, or<br />
how a rider reacts when they hit a<br />
fence. And the detail with the Hi-Motion<br />
is unbelievable; you can really see the<br />
immense stresses and strains on the<br />
horse’s body, and the riding<br />
techniques. It personalises the<br />
coverage and you get images<br />
of expressions and emotions<br />
that you just can’t see any<br />
other way.<br />
VA: What elements<br />
of the coverage is the<br />
Hi-Motion footage<br />
used for?<br />
MA: Basically, we use the<br />
Hi-Motion system for general<br />
replays or for specific<br />
illustrations within the live<br />
coverage. We use it an awful lot in<br />
music pieces, collages and closers. It<br />
actually poured with rain one day, but<br />
the Hi-Motion made horses jumping in<br />
the rain look so fantastic that, despite the<br />
atrocious conditions, we got some of the<br />
best pictures of the week. For us the<br />
Hi-Motion cameras have two functions:<br />
they make visually stunning pictures that<br />
look amazing and they also serve as an<br />
illustrative tool. We’ve put them by<br />
certain fences, for example, to capture<br />
how the horses’ hooves literally brush the<br />
top of the fence and either just rattle it or<br />
knock it down.<br />
“THE INTEGRATION<br />
OF THE HI-MOTION<br />
& EVS SOFTWARE<br />
HAS DRAMATICALLY<br />
IMPROVED THE<br />
WORKFLOW OF<br />
THE OPERATION.”<br />
Senior EVS Operator Rob Leckie<br />
BEFORE (LEFT) AND AFTER (RIGHT) – the EVS integration made<br />
for a less cluttered OB truck in 2009<br />
VA: How is it decided where<br />
the Hi-Motion cameras should<br />
be positioned?<br />
MA: Sometimes we spot something<br />
during a round that might be a talking<br />
point and the great thing with Hi-Motion<br />
is it can be moved. If we are trying to<br />
illustrate a tight turn or the fact that one<br />
fence is proving unexpectedly difficult,<br />
I might talk to the commentator and say<br />
‘we’re going to look at a different<br />
fence’. Also we started to get the<br />
Hi-Motion cameramen to suggest things<br />
to the VT operators, so we’ve made it<br />
a very interactive system where people<br />
can throw their opinions in, and the<br />
integration with EVS has helped that.<br />
These kinds of little changes that make<br />
it work for production help the camera<br />
achieve its full potential and I think with<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Media we’re still finding new<br />
potential – it’s an ongoing process. ■<br />
Mark Hope-Jones<br />
Achieve greater flexibility of look, frame rate and format in postproduction<br />
with Relativity<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Relativity is a powerful suite of software tools that offers versatile control of texture, format<br />
and frame rate through sophisticated motion estimation techniques. Modular and easily<br />
configured to meet the needs of individual customers, the full software bundle currently<br />
comprises three applications, with more coming soon. Relativity allows you to alter shots in<br />
ways that appear as though they were achieved in-camera: digital images can take on the look<br />
of film while film images can be selectively degrained; shots filmed at a particular frame rate<br />
can be expanded or contracted to other frame rates and one format can become another.<br />
Texture Control<br />
• Control the level of grain and noise in images acquired on any film or digital format.<br />
• Mix and match the textures of 16mm, 35mm and digital material.<br />
• Overcome the grain issues that prompted some broadcasters to restrict<br />
Super 16 content on HD channels.<br />
Film Simulation<br />
• Give digitally captured images a natural film look by introducing a granular texture.<br />
• Add the subtle grain of 35mm to 16mm material that has been degrained via Texture Control.<br />
SpaceTime Converter<br />
• Convert any TV or motion picture format into any other with crop/zoom, spatial resampling,<br />
frame rate conversion, de-interlacing and addition or removal of 3:2 pulldown.<br />
• Adjust frame rates and create intervening frames for slow motion or speed ramp effects<br />
without any judder or visual degradation.<br />
New <strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Facilities in Cologne<br />
Cologne is one of the centres of German film and television production, and it is for this reason that<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> has expanded its presence in the city. For many years the <strong>ARRI</strong> facility in Cologne has housed<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong>, but as of April 2009 it also offers postproduction services under the same roof. With the<br />
help of state-of-the-art equipment and in close collaboration with its Munich headquarters, <strong>ARRI</strong><br />
Cologne is now proud to offer customers a full range of services. The Cologne offices are headed by<br />
Markus Klaff, Branch Manager.<br />
MARKUS KLAFF<br />
Branch Manager<br />
A great deal has been invested in the Cologne branch over the last couple of months.<br />
In addition to new administrative offices and postproduction facilities, <strong>ARRI</strong> has built the<br />
largest grading cinema in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – a cinema that features<br />
a truly impressive screen. Branch Manager Markus Klaff is looking forward to the new<br />
scope of duties: “I view myself as the ideal interface between creativity and technology,<br />
and customer and service providers,” says Klaff, who joined the <strong>ARRI</strong> Team in April.<br />
For more than 18 years, Klaff, who has learned the business from the bottom up, was<br />
in charge of quality control at RTL Television, one of Germany’s largest cable networks.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> Film & TV Services GmbH<br />
Cologne Branch<br />
Heinrich-Pesch-Str. 7, D-50739 Köln<br />
Phone +49 221 571651-0<br />
Original<br />
Degrained<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
35
36<br />
PRODUCT<br />
UPDATE<br />
The LED side of <strong>ARRI</strong>’s lighting business is gathering<br />
pace, with a trio of advanced LED-based products<br />
already making their mark on the industry.<br />
PAX Series<br />
The PAX LED panels provide an outstanding and unprecedented LED light performance by utilising <strong>ARRI</strong> True Match<br />
LED Technology for natural light characteristics, single shadow rendering, consistent light output and absolute colour<br />
stability. The panels are available in two lighting kit configurations: PAX1 provides a single panel with soft and spot<br />
optics, backpack batteries, the <strong>ARRI</strong> Mini Controller and specially selected accessories. PAX2 offers two LED panels<br />
in a stunningly versatile lighting kit with a full suite of control options including the Wireless Light Controller, PC<br />
software that allows for a wider range of colours and a DMX 512 interface.<br />
CASTER Series<br />
With colour temperature settings adjustable from<br />
2.800K to 6.500K and a CRI (Colour Rendering<br />
Index) of 90, the <strong>ARRI</strong> Caster LED fixtures adapt<br />
easily to an existing lighting installation or to the<br />
variable conditions of a location shoot. Available<br />
in two versions – BroadCaster and LoCaster – these<br />
affordable white light fixtures can be used with<br />
a wide range of accessories, including backpack<br />
batteries, power adapters, mounting devices, a<br />
2-leaf barndoor and an intensifier.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> M18<br />
Based on the design principles of the Academy<br />
Award©-winning <strong>ARRI</strong>MAX, <strong>ARRI</strong> Lighting introduces<br />
the new M18, an innovative lamphead that works with<br />
a new power class of lamp: the 1800W SE HMI.<br />
This lamp boasts an average life of 750 hours and<br />
a Luminous Efficacy of 92 Lumens per Watt (L/W).<br />
The Colour Rendering Index (Ra) is<br />
greater than 90 at 6000K (CCT).<br />
The M18 is a lens-less, open face<br />
lighting fixture that combines the<br />
desired light distribution from the<br />
optics of a PAR and a Fresnel<br />
fixture. The unique <strong>ARRI</strong>MAX<br />
reflector design creates<br />
diverging rays to produce<br />
a crisp shadow. With a<br />
beam angle (HPA) of 20<br />
to 60 degrees and a wide<br />
usable field angle, the M18 is<br />
designed to be both intense<br />
and efficient.<br />
Background Lighting<br />
Module BLM<br />
The <strong>ARRI</strong> Background Lighting Module, available<br />
in both RGB and Warm/Cool White Modules,<br />
provides an exciting solution for cycloramas, chroma<br />
key backgrounds and rear illuminated panels.<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>SUN 18<br />
When narrower beam angles are<br />
desired, <strong>ARRI</strong> offers the <strong>ARRI</strong>SUN<br />
18. The AS18 uses common<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> spread lenses and a<br />
PAR reflector in combination<br />
with spot, medium and flood<br />
focus settings. Conversion kits are<br />
available to adapt an M18 to the<br />
AS18 (as well as an AS18 to the<br />
M18). Both the M18 and AS18 are<br />
designed to be highly versatile and to<br />
achieve better lighting efficiencies in a<br />
new performance class. Intense and<br />
efficient, they showcase convenient, costeffective<br />
qualities in addition to the known<br />
characteristics and high standards of <strong>ARRI</strong> HMIs.<br />
These new units also support a 1200W lamp.<br />
Master Macro 100<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> and Zeiss have teamed up again to expand the Master Prime series with a<br />
spectacular macro lens: the Master Macro 100. Featuring a 1:1 magnification ratio and a<br />
maximum aperture of T2.2, the Master Macro delivers phenomenally sharp and contrasty<br />
images for extreme close-ups of the highest visual quality.<br />
Unlike most other macro lenses, the Master Macro 100 has been designed and built<br />
specifically for motion picture cinematography. The optical performance of the lens matches<br />
that of the Master Primes, with which it shares features such as exotic glass materials, special<br />
lens coatings and aspherical glass surfaces that require ultra-high precision in design and<br />
manufacturing. While other macro lenses create images that are visibly darker and softer in the<br />
corners, the Master Macro exhibits remarkably even illumination and resolution across the whole<br />
Super 35 frame. It also benefits from an advanced, multi-bladed iris, resulting in round and<br />
natural-looking out-of-focus highlights.<br />
To view Master Macro 100 sample shots go to www.arri.com<br />
High Definition Video Assist HD-IVS<br />
The HD-IVS is a high definition video assist unit for<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>CAM and <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 435 cameras. With a resolution<br />
of 1920 x 1080 pixels, it facilitates better judgment of<br />
focus, improved dynamic range and more visible detail<br />
in shadow and highlight areas.<br />
A video assist unit records its images from the ground<br />
glass in the film camera; this ensures that framing and the<br />
impression of depth of field are identical between the film<br />
and video assist images. With the HD-IVS, an electronic<br />
compensation reduces the grain structure of the ground<br />
glass in the live feed, generating a noticeably cleaner<br />
image. Software-based image processing tasks such as<br />
anamorphic de-squeezing and dead pixel correction<br />
are also possible. In addition, selected images can be<br />
transferred and stored as standard files on a USB stick<br />
via a USB interface on the HD-IVS.<br />
HD-IVS for 435 Xtreme HD-IVS for <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite HD-IVS for <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio<br />
VISION<strong>ARRI</strong><br />
37
PRODUCTION UPDATE<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> RENTAL<br />
Title Production Company Director DoP Equipment<br />
Faust Ankor Film Alexander Sokurov Bruno Delbonnel <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite, Master Primes,<br />
Lighting, Grip<br />
Die Superbullen Constantin Film Produktion Gernot Roll Gernot Roll <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21, Master Primes, Lighting, Grip<br />
Keiner geht verloren Claussen+Wöbke+Putz Dirk Kummer Johann Feindt <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 416 Plus, Ultra Primes, Lighting, Grip<br />
Filmproduktion<br />
Goethe deutschfilm Philipp Stölzl Kolja Brandt <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation, Lighting,<br />
Grip<br />
Masterworks Fox TV Jeffrey Nachmanoff James Whitaker <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21, <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235, Lighting, Grip<br />
Die Route TV60Film Florian Froschmayer Roman Nowocien <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 416 Plus, Ultra Primes, Lighting, Grip<br />
Ben Hur Drimtim Entertainment Steve Shill Ousama Rawi <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
CSC, BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 435, <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235, Lighting, Grip<br />
Going Postal MID Atlantic Films Jon Jones Gavin Finney BSC Lighting, Grip<br />
Hexe Lilli – Die Reise blue eyes Fiction Harald Sicheritz Thomas Kiennast <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
nach Mandolan Master Primes, Lighting, Grip<br />
Kommissarin Lucas Olga Film Thomas Berger Gunnar Fuß <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 416 Plus, Lighting, Grip<br />
12 & 13<br />
Das Leben ist zu lang X-Filme Dani Levy Charlie Koschnick <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21, Master Primes, Lighting, Grip<br />
Das Ende ist collina Filmproduktion Jo Baier Judith Kaufmann <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
mein Anfang <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 435, Lighting, Grip<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> LIGHTING RENTAL<br />
Title Production Company Director Dop Gaffer Best Boy<br />
Sex and the City 2 Avery Pix, inc. Michael Patrick King John Thomas Steve Costello Paul Stewart<br />
Gulliver’s Travels Fox UK Productions Rob Letterman David Tattersall BSC Eddie Knight Stewart Monteith<br />
Nanny McPhee and Working Title Films Susanna White Mike Eley BSC Paul Murphy Mark Funnell<br />
the Big Bang<br />
St Trinian’s: The Legend More Mayhem Oliver Parker / David Higgs BSC Dan Fontaine Andy Bell<br />
of Fritton’s Gold Barnaby Thompson<br />
We Want Sex We Want S Nigel Cole John de Borman BSC John Colley Kevin Fitzpatrick<br />
Game of Thrones Fire and Blood Thomas McCarthy Sean Bobbitt BSC Brian Beaumont Biran Livingstone<br />
Productions<br />
Tamara Drewe Ruby Films Stephen Frears Ben Davis BSC Dave Smith Sonny Burdiss<br />
Untitled Mike Leigh Untitled 09 Mike Leigh Dick Pope BSC Andy Long Mark Hanlon<br />
Project<br />
Cemetery Junction Point Productions Ricky Gervais / Remi Adefarasin BSC Jimmy Wilson Stewart King<br />
Stephen Merchant<br />
The Special Relationship Trilogy Films Richard Loncraine Barry Ackroyd BSC Harry Wiggins Chis Mortley<br />
Law & Order: UK Kudos Film and Television Andy Goddard / David Luther Mark Clayton Benny Harper /<br />
(Series 2) James Strong Richard Potter<br />
Ashes to Ashes (Series 3) Kudos Film and Television Alrick Riley Adam Suschitzky Chris Bird Toby Flesher<br />
Luther BBC Brian Kirk Julian Court Brandon Evans Colin Powton<br />
Larkrise to Candleford BBC Patrick Lau Mark Partridge Kenny Sykes Craig Hudson<br />
(Series 3)<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> CSC<br />
Title Production Company DoP/Lighting Director Gaffer Equipment Serviced by<br />
The Blind Side Left Tackle Pictures Alar Kivilo ASC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC FL<br />
3-perforation, Master Primes<br />
Killers Lionsgate Russell Carpenter ASC 4x <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21, <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC FL<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong>RAW anamorphic<br />
Burn Notice (Season 3) USA Network Bill Wages ASC 2x <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 416, 16SR 3 <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC FL<br />
Advanced HS, ULTRA PRIMES<br />
Cedar Falls Northland Productions Chuy Chavez 2x <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC NJ<br />
How to make it HBO Tim Ives David Skutch <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & 2x Lite <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC NJ<br />
in America 3-perforation, Lighting<br />
The Next Three Days PGH Productions LLC Stéphane Fontaine 2x <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite 3-perforation <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC NJ<br />
Wall Street 2 Blue Horseshoe Rodrigo Prieto ASC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & 2x Lite <strong>ARRI</strong> CSC NJ<br />
3-perforation, Master Primes<br />
2009 Alma Awards Bob Bain Productions Oscar Dominguez Automated & Conventional Illumination<br />
Lighting Dynamics LA<br />
Lopez Tonight Telepictures Productions Oscar Dominguez Automated, LED, GMA Illumination<br />
with Warner Brothers 2 Consoles Dynamics LA<br />
The Princess and Walt Disney Manny Treeson Lighting Illumination<br />
the Frog Animation Studios Dynamics LA<br />
38<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> FILM & TV - POST PRODUCTION SERVICES - FEATURES<br />
Title Production Company Director DoP Services<br />
BAL – Honey Heimatfilm Semih Kaplanoglu Baris Özbicer Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD)<br />
Betty Anne Waters Innocence Productions Tony Goldwyn Adriano Goldman Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), Sound<br />
Cindy liebt mich nicht av medien penrose gmbh Hannah Schweier Thorge Horstmann Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD)<br />
Der große Kater Neue Bioskop Film Wolfgang Panzer Edwin Horak Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD)<br />
Dinosaurier Constantin Film Produktion Leander Haußmann Hagen Bogdanski Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), DCP<br />
Freche Mädchen 2 collina filmproduktion Ute Wieland Peter Przybylski Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), VFX, Sound, DCP<br />
Friendship! Wiedemann & Berg Markus Goller Ueli Steiger Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), VFX, Sound<br />
Filmproduktion<br />
Jerry Cotton Rat Pack Filmproduktion Cyrill Boss & Philip Stennert Torsten Breuer Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), VFX, Sound, DCP<br />
Nesely Hayat BKM Yilmaz Erdogan Ugur Icbak Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), VFX, Sound, DCP<br />
Rock It! Sam Film Mike Marzuk Bernhard Jasper Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), Sound<br />
Teufelskicker UFA Cinema Granz Henman Jörg Widmer Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD)<br />
Themba Zeitsprung Entertainment Stefanie Sycholt Egon Werdin Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD)<br />
Zeiten ändern sich Constantin Film Produktion Uli Edel Rainer Klausmann Lab, DI, TV-Mastering (HD), DCP<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> FILM & TV - POST PRODUCTION SERVICES - COMMERCIALS<br />
Client Title Agency Production Director DoP<br />
Sony Ericsson Jump ’n’ Walk / Fanwalk Neverest e+p commercial Hauke Hilberg Carlo Jelavic<br />
Medion Wovon träumst Du sonst noch TBWA Düsseldorf e+p commercial<br />
Sky Promo & DRTV Heye & Partner diverse diverse<br />
McDonald’s Wrap Heye & Partner Rapid Eye Movement Ernst Kalff Sebastian Cramer<br />
Stadt München Oper Filmstadt München Helliventures Damian John Harper Dieter Deventer<br />
Ernstings Kuschelwochen Heye & Partner e+p commercial Claude Mougin Thomas Kürzl<br />
MINI IAA 2009 Messeauftritt Meiré und Meiré lucie_p diverse<br />
C&A Mens Week SteinleMelches embassy of dreams John Buché Riego van Wersch<br />
SOS Kinderdorf Valentinas Schicksal Neverest Roman Jakobi & Roman Jakobi<br />
Ewald Pusch<br />
EOFT EOFT 2009 Moving Adventures Niko Jäger diverse<br />
McDonald’s McCafé – Doit/Ober Heye & Partner Hager Moss Commercial Martin Haerlin David Nissen<br />
Ehrmann Grand Dessert & Almighurt Heye & Partner Hager Moss Commercial Maurus vom Scheidt Kristian Leschner<br />
playmobil playmobil Sommer 2009 e+p commercial Reiner Holzemer Peter Aichholzer<br />
<strong>ARRI</strong> MEDIA<br />
Title Production Company Director DoP Equipment<br />
La Mula Gheko Films Michael Radford Ashley Rowe BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite 3-perforation, Grip<br />
4.3.2.1 4321 Noel Clarke / Franco Pezzino <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio 3-perforation,<br />
Mark Davis Master Primes<br />
Nanny McPhee and Working Title Films Susanna White Mike Eley BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
the Big Bang Master Primes, Grip<br />
St Trinian’s: The Legend More Mayhem Oliver Parker / David Higgs <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation, Grip<br />
of Fritton’s Gold Barnaby Thompson<br />
Survivors (Series 2) BBC Jamie Payne / Alan Almond BSC / <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21<br />
David Evans Fabian Wagner<br />
Game of Thrones Fire and Blood Productions Thomas McCarthy Sean Bobbitt BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite & <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX 235 3-perforation<br />
Tamara Drewe Ruby Films Stephen Frears Ben Davis BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation, Grip<br />
London Boulevard London Boulevard William Monahan Chris Menges BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
Master Primes<br />
Cemetery Junction Point Productions Ricky Gervais / Remi Adefarasin BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Studio & Lite 3-perforation,<br />
Stephen Merchant Ultra Primes<br />
The Special<br />
Relationship<br />
Trilogy Films Richard Loncraine Barry Ackroyd BSC <strong>ARRI</strong>CAM Lite 3-perforation<br />
Law & Order: UK Kudos Film and Television Andy Goddard / David Luther <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21, Ultra Primes<br />
(Series 2) James Strong<br />
Ashes to Ashes<br />
(Series 3)<br />
Kudos Film and Television Alrick Riley Adam Suschitzky <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21<br />
Luther BBC Brian Kirk Julian Court <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21<br />
Larkrise to<br />
Candleford (Series 3)<br />
BBC Patrick Lau Mark Partridge <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21<br />
Published by the <strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Group Marketing Department. 3 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1LX United Kingdom<br />
The opinions expressed by individuals quoted in articles in Vision<strong>ARRI</strong> do not necessarily represent those of the <strong>ARRI</strong> <strong>Rental</strong> Group or the Editors. Due to our constant endeavour to improve<br />
quality and design, modifications may be made to products from time to time. Details of availability and specifications given in this publication are subject to change without notice.<br />
39
<strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 A-EV<br />
A-EV Plus A-OV Plus<br />
THE BEST DIGITAL CAMERA AVAILABLE TODAY…<br />
… AND EVEN BETTER TO COME TOMORROW<br />
The secret behind the success of the <strong>ARRI</strong>FLEX D-21 goes beyond the unique, organic quality<br />
of the images it creates; we have developed easy-to-use functions and flexible workflows that<br />
cinematographers and camera crews really value.<br />
With versatile configuration options, including true anamorphic and on-board recording,<br />
the D-21 suits all types of production. From feature films (Killers, Henri IV, RocknRolla) and<br />
television dramas (Bored to Death, Krupp and the award-winning Little Dorrit) to high-end<br />
commercials and promos, the D-21 is your camera of choice.<br />
With <strong>ARRI</strong>’s new digital camera system coming soon, we’ll ensure you continue to be at the<br />
forefront of digital image capture.<br />
www.arridigital.com