PHILADELPHIA—As senior producer for the Philadelphia Eagles, our team is responsible for everything from game footage to features to high-production value content. The Eagles have a great history of storytelling and in 2014, we began looking for cameras that could streamline what we were doing and bring that storytelling to modern cinematic life. Our work is heavily “run-and-gun” and we needed a way to be more efficient.

At the time, it was hard to match footage as we were using different cameras from a variety of brands. Luckily, with our facility being located near NFL Films in New Jersey, we were able to easily stay in the loop about new technology. This is how we discovered ARRI.

OUR ARRI ROSTER

At the time, NFL Films was moving a lot of their infrastructure over to ARRI’s AMIRAs. With our content being aligned with theirs, we knew this camera would work for us as well. We purchased three AMIRAs based on customizable switches on the side, the intuitive menu and the overall look of the ARRI footage. Other cameras tend to be too menu-oriented, which makes them difficult to use during a high-paced game. These features allow us to quickly capture more slow-motion and other stylistic footage. Also, by switching to the same platform as NFL Films, we could use their footage interchangeably with ours, knowing it would match.

My favorite feature often flies under the radar—an interchangeable native lens mount on the AMIRA and ALEXA Mini. We have a large inventory of lenses in PL, B4 and EF mounts that we’ve gathered over the years. The ARRI mount system lets us utilize all of these lenses on any given shoot, with only a minute needed to swap out camera mounts.

As a department responsible for producing multiple forms of content, we need to utilize the cameras in a variety of ways. For example, our game day content is the most prominent and arguably the most important that we produce. We use all of our ARRI cameras on game day in more of a post-production capacity.

Our ALEXA Mini shoots at a high-50 (referring to the 50-yard line) angle, which covers whichever player we have wired for sound. One of our AMIRAs shoots high framerate game action as an alternative to the typical broadcast style. We use our other two AMIRAs on the ground, splitting them up as multipurpose cameras capturing stylistic game action, fan and atmosphere shots.

Outside of game day, our ARRls are our main camera for short stories or features, whether it’s local or on the road, sit-down interviews and shoulder-based handheld work with players. This allows us to use our best cameras in as many situations as possible in order to produce and maintain overall high production value.

MASTER CONTROL AT OUR FINGERS

ARRI Master Grips also help us get the most out of our cameras. These hand grips allow us to assign and control complex camera and lens features with fingertip control. In the field, if we are shoulder-mounted, it gives us so much flexibility in the moment when you’re trying to dial in multiple settings to get the shot. In our world, we do not get a lot of second chances to shoot a moment. Instead of turning the camera on its side and trying to figure out what’s what, you’ve just got it all at your fingertips.

As a content team, we strive to create the best content—simple as that. Viewers sometimes may not notice the cinematic quality we aim for, but they do recognize and appreciate when it has the same look and feel as movies or big brand commercials. The ARRls allow us to achieve that goal, while also helping us operate efficiently day in and day out.

Nick Rotondi is a senior producer with the Philadelphia Eagles. He can be contacted at NRotondi@Eagles.nfl.com.

For additional information, visit www.arri.com.

LOS ANGELES—After working with music concert and festival company Goldenvoice and the Coachella organizers for years, we wanted to do something special for this year’s Coachella music festival in Palm Springs, Calif. I’ve always felt that the way traditional broadcasters capture and live stream music festivals is flat—they use the same camera and equipment to capture a music festival as they would a baseball or football game. But music needs more artistic elements as well as more style and more of a cinematic feel.

That’s what led me to propose a new approach to Coachella this year: Take over one of the stages, shoot it with cinema cameras, lenses and DPs, and livestream to YouTube. Our goal was to improve the look, feel and style of the live stream and give the audience a stream that’s more representative of live music.

Goldenvoice allowed me to take over the outdoor stage and work with the Springboard broadcast company to give the show a whole new feeling. We wanted to improve the artistic expression and feel of the shots, to bring back that cinematic element to the live cast. To achieve this, one of the most dramatic changes we made was to replace traditional broadcast cameras with true cinema cameras from ARRI.

BROADCASTING CINEMA QUALITY

For me, the ARRI look is more representative of film and the great concert films of the past that were captured on film, including the dynamic range, highlight control and the deep blacks. We used a combination of the ARRI AMIRAs and the ALEXA Mini in a multicamera format.

We used the ALEXA Mini on a Technocrane and the AMIRAs for our fixed camera positions as well as with our handheld camera operators. For the handhelds, we incorporated wireless video to transmit the signal, allowing the camera operators to be mobile and not tethered to a cable.

The AMIRAs operated in multicam mode. With a DTS fiber chain, we converted the SDI signals to fiber, brought them back into the broadcast truck and streamed to YouTube live, a remarkable achievement. Even though we were shooting in a film style with DPs, cinema lenses and ARRIs, we were able to incorporate it back into the same traditional broadcast fiber system. So, the AMIRAs with the DTS System worked flawlessly.

It was a real game‐changer and an eye‐opener for the broadcast crew who have never seen anything like this. Because the technology now exists, we can keep moving forward with this live cinema approach.

NIGHT AND DAY

The change of look was definitely noticed by everyone, including spectators. Our stage definitely garnered the most positive reviews and comments. If you looked at the broadcast feed side by side with our feed with the ARRI cameras, it was night and day. It just looked beautiful, especially in daytime exteriors with high contrast situations. I held the highlights and also held the bottom end and the shadow detail with the increased dynamic range.

It just crushed the broadcast cameras so even to the untrained eye it just looked better. To the trained eye, it was a remarkable difference—it looked like you were watching a movie or a Drake concert film or music video live.

It was so remarkable that we were asked to do this again with the ARRI cameras next year on the two biggest stages at Coachella. I’m really looking forward to upping the game for live music broadcast with the ARRI Multicam System.

Kenny Stoff is a director and DP with nearly 20 years of experience shooting live music, concerts, documentaries and more. Based on his experience and feedback at Coachella, Kenny has started a new high‐end multi‐cam production company, wide+close. Contact Kenny Stoff atkennystoff.com.

For more information, please visitarri.com.

LEICESTER, England—The new six-episode miniseries “Catch-22,” which premiered in mid-May, is being shot with two ARRI ALEXA Mini cameras and two sets of Cooke Optics’ S4/I prime lenses, the lenses maker said this week.

The Hulu miniseries, based on Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel “Catch-22,” is directed by Grant Heslov, Ellen Kuras and George Clooney with cinematography by Martin Ruhe.

Unlike the 1970 “Catch-22” film, the miniseries is a dark comedy that conveys the perilous missions of U.S. Army Air Corp. aviators during World War II.

“We all looked at the original film, and the two projects have a different nature,” said Ruhe. “Ours is a dark comedy with a strong look for a strong visual story, as compared to the original, which was more of a straight comedy. The aerial scenes had to show the intense horror of being up in those small tin boxes. It had to be about life and death.”

His goal was to contrast the horror the aviators faced from enemy fire with the absurdity of what transpired on the ground. To make that happen, Ruhe used two identical sets of Cooke S4/iprime lenses—14mm, 18mm, 21mm, 25mm, 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 65mm, 75mm, 100mm and 135mm focal lengths—shooting with the ARRI ALEXA Mini’s Super 35mm (2.8K) sensor in ARRI Raw 16:9 and later be finished in 4K HDR.

“We had two sets of camera/lens combinations as we were cross shooting, as well as having some days with splinter [second] unit shooting,” explained Ruhe. “While I used all of the lenses, the 32mm was my all-time favorite for close-ups inside the planes. Although, to be honest, I did have to move to the 50mm at times due to the limited space within those planes.”

The size of the Cooke S4/I prime lenses was important because Ruhe had to be “very fast and versatile” in close quarters. “I didn’t want to get stuck fighting minimal focus, and thanks to the S4/i’s, I didn’t,” he said.

Production designer David Gropman provided the production team with stills from Heller’s regiment as well as historical newsreel footage to show what life was like in the Allies’ camps.

During camera tests, the team took still images, which were loaded into Photoshop to match the old postcard look from the era. Company 3, which was responsible for digital intermediates, created LUTs for the cameras to match the look.

Both on the ground and in the air, Ruhe created a natural look, which was especially important inside the planes because he didn’t want them to be too perfectly lit. For ground interiors, a 120-foot-by-75-foot soft sail and gray screen were used with a 20K standing in for sunlight.

Episode six offers one of the standout scenes shot with the S4/i 32mm lens, he said. “It’s so close to the faces and so intimate, which I love. You’ll have to see it to understand it, but every DP out there will know what I’m talking about when they watch that episode. It just looks great.”

You would be hard pressed to find any Hollywood film or television series that is not shot with an ARRI camera. Recently, DeSales had the opportunity to use the Alexa Mini, a lightweight camera that pulls its weight alongside its bigger brothers. Being the “gold standard” for the industry, the Alexa family of cameras has held our interest as the end result is seen in theatres and in homes.

FEATURES

Available with EF, PL, or B4 lens mounts, the Alexa Mini captures images through a 35mm film-style format Alev III sensor and records to a CFast 2.0 memory card in 16:9 or 4:3 formats. The five-pound body is compact enough to fit most mounts and allows shooting in HD, 2K, 3.2K, and 4K UHD. With an ISO ranging from 160 to 3200, that gives more than 14 stops of sensitivity.

When it comes to recording, the Alexa Mini excels with multiple sensor readout options. Open Gate 3424x2202, MXF/ARRIRAW, is available optionally when both the 4:3 and ARRIRAW licenses are purchased. In addition, ProRes, HD and 2K frame rates from 1–200 frames per second are possible.

IN USE

DeSales students utilized the Arri Alexa Mini capture behind-the-scenes footage for a run-and-gun production.

The students who had access to the ARRI Alexa SXT and Alexa Mini for our one-day shoot, couldn’t be happier with the choice of cameras. The Alexa SXT captured our 90 second film, “I Don’t,” and the Alexa Mini was called into action as the “behind the scenes” camera. The much larger and more robust Alexa SXT had its own crew to help with transport and set-up and was tethered to our 4K-field monitor. With the Alexa Mini shooting in ProRes Log, we filled three 128GB CFast 2.0 cards.

We assembled the Mini camera package in our TV studio and the MVF electronic viewfinder helped with the frequent handheld shots. Tripod mounting needed a much smaller tripod and worked well with our university’s tripod.

DeSales has a large selection of Cinema Series EF mount lenses and the Mini’s PL mount was easily replaced by an EF mount to accept our EF mount prime lenses. Our Gold Mount Anton Bauer batteries helped balance the Mini as most of the time it was shoulder mounted on our Jag to capture all of the action.

As the students took turns behind the camera, most preferred shooting with the Alexa Mini over our flagship 4K camera from another manufacturer. This trouble-free experience with the lightweight camera allowed our students to get unusual angles or to run with the actors during the chase scene. Everyone wanted to actually use the Alexa Mini. That says a lot about the camera.

The action was monitored on location with an Ikegami 4K monitor and the Log footage was easily transferred to our hard drive for editing in Adobe Premiere. The ARRI Color Tool (ACT) was a free download from www.arri.com that gave us an immediate “look” at our footage with various color templates. Each of these presets could be adjusted easily to customize the end result well before color grading. I understand that shooting in Log results in a washed out image and I frequently applied a more saturated preset to each shot because it was so simple to do.

Although the Mini does capture in RAW, we chose ProRes as the recording platform. The ARRIRAW Convertor, ARC, also a free download, easily converted the raw footage we shot on the SXT for the film itself.

One of the main reasons we wanted two ARRI’s for this production was for the behind-the-scenes documentary. In this doc, we showed a Log scene directly from the camera on the left side of the frame, and the final, color-graded scene on the right. We wanted the viewer to realize how much color correction actually occurs with everything shot in a project. What most won’t realize, however, is how simple it actually is to do the conversion.

After post, we had a great short film and an educational behind-the-scenes documentary.

SUMMARY

The Arri Alexa Mini is a cost-effective camera to shoot any sized production. Since our students use the latest technology when shooting their films, there was virtually no learning curve when using the ARRI. The footage will intercut with other cameras in its class and the free ARRI software saves much time in the postproduction phase.

FAST FACTS

Application: Small form factor camera body matching sensors of existing ARRI cameras with superior image quality and customizable looks and user controls.

Key Features: Multiple lens mounting options; built-in lens motor controller; HD, 2K, shooting up to 200fps, 3.2K, 4K shooting and up to 60fps; 4:3 sensor mode or internal Raw recording option available via separate licenses.

Price: ARRI ALEXA Mini (body only) MSRP – $41,040

Contact:
ARRI Inc,
Tel: 845.353.1400
info@arri.com
www.arri.com 

Chuck Gloman is an associate professor and chair of the TV/Film Department at DeSales University. He may be reached chuck.gloman@desales.edu.