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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters promol/additional photography... Epic trumps Alexa

Christopher Probst

Christopher Probst

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Here is a montage of a part of my work on the recent Hansel and Gretel feature from Paramount. Last October I was brought in to work with director Rich Lee to create a series of "Sizzle" images for the marketing campaign. Rich's storyboards and animatics so excited Paramount, that it sparked the idea of integrating some of the ideas into the movie itself, this also prompted Paramount to kick in a little more money to shoot an additional ending "Coda" for the film. As these ideas expanded, I suddenly was working with TWO directors. Rich and the film's narrative director Tommy Wirkola. I helped Tommy flesh out a few additional sequences in the movie and shot the new ending for him. Below is only images I created with Rich Lee that he had cut together. Rich and I shot 99% of our material on Epics with Master Primes. There is 1 shot in this montage that was from a Phantom Flex. For the ending narrative material I shot with Tommy, we elected to shoot with Alexas in ArriRaw to match the rest of the film. I wasn't as opposed this as I normally would be because much of that material was shot in a blinding hot desert location...

Here is the Epic shot Rich Lee material:

 
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This material was shot a year after the principal photography wrapped in Germany. Several sets were constructed on stage at Red Studios (coincidentally) in Hollywood as well as some greenscreen shots that were also planned to integrate into a previously shot sequences. The ending desert material was shot partially on stage and then the desert exteriors were captured in Trona, CA, about 3-4 hours north of LA.

A few shots in the montage blur the line between the two directors. Like the witch down backflips with tracers of her hanging in the air... that was shot with an array of 4 Epics and one master dolly move. That desert interior scene was all shot on Epic and cut directly from Alexa footage in the desert in the main movie. I saw this in the DI and feel that the Epic material clearly blew away the feel of the Alexa, the sharpness, the resolution just jumped off the screen.
 
Great stuff guys ! I went to filmschool with Tommy where Haensel & Gretel started out as a short film, good to see that crazy norwegian guy made it like that. I was surprised to see that the whole movie didn't originate on RED to start with, given how VFX driven it is ?
 
Very nice all of it.

Agree with the difference between red/alexa. We just did some BW interview stuff and the Director (that does not have to much experience got worred about the fan noise when he was shooting 40 minute takes on a scarlet... So he called for an alexa, just to realize that he could not do such long takes. But that resulted in us having material from scarlet and alexa, in the exact same light.... anf they wanted it to look the same. The lighting conditions where all controlled so no challange for any of they cameras. (it was blue screen studio with 5600k lights. But when the stuff was graded the scarlet picture stood out as much cleaner than the alexa that had a grain like noise all over and especially in the lows. So to match them (in Hd) we put on a slight softnes on the scarlet stuff and also a BW film grain.

I was actually supriced that the scarlet 4k downsampled to HD has such much higher qualities in the noise pattern than the alexa. For chroma key stuff it's really crucial and when keying on the stuff I would prefere the scarlet over the alexa any day. Will show pix of this when I get the time....

Any way, did not mean to steal the thread..
 
Great stuff! Unbelievable, actually.

Coincidentally, all month I've been working on Christopher's footage he shot for Lifetime's promo for Devious Maids. Easily some of the best looking promo footage I've ever seen, also shot on Epic.

The feeling is Devious could become a smash hit: and Christopher's launch materials will be one of the reasons why.
 
Thanks Nick, looking forward to seeing it air.

Björn, I know exactly what you are talking about, which is why I usually swing my jobs away from Alexa to Epic 95% of the time the "A" word comes up... Hansel and Gretel's director told me that they had tested several camera platforms for the movie but he just liked the Alexa the best... Now I always tell producers and directors the same thing. I cannot account for how someone ELSE shot on an EPIC or this or that camera. I can only explain how I shoot on it and that they are hiring me based on the love of what I show them on my reel, which is 80% Epic and 99% Red-shot.

Hansel and Gretel was shot about 50% with true stereo rigs and 50% intended for post stereo conversion, for things like Steadicam, ect... This of course added time and expense to the post production schedule... but also weight and impracticability during the main shoot. Couple that with them shooting ArriRaw and having to strap on those heavy Codex recorders and their choice not to shoot it all in stereo becomes obvious.

Going into the DI for Hansel, I got to see the two cameras smashed against each other and I didn't want to say "I told you so" but for me the difference was obvious. Arri has made a fine camera with the Alexa that is built solid and ergonomically for the lowest common denominator of situations and cinematographers. It's basically user friendly, easy to use and hard to fuck up. For me, I'm not aiming to be the "lowest common denominator" in my work. I feel to make Epics shine, you have to know your shit. You have to know how to properly handle digital cinematography in all of its manifestations and workflows. When you do understand it and control those factors, you can produce images that are truly unequaled. If you don't know what you are doing, you can produce utter crap.

Learn your shit, and reap the rewards. This was shot on my Epic and I'm sticking to it.
 
Just found this online... It's an excerpt of the ending "desert-witch" sequence I shot for the film's director Tommy Wirkola, primarily on the Alexa, except for the interior shots inside the witch's lair which was shot on stage at Red Studios on Epics...

 
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