Alien: Covenant Not Being Shot on Red?

[Marc Wielage]

Well, depends on the shoot to film ratio really. With a manageable amount of shots and ratio, it wouldn't break budget, but with digital cinema you would not break budget if you choose to film more and let things roll, which you sometimes want to do.

Exactly. In truth, another $20K per day is not a lot of money. If you shot (say) 4 hours of film per day, that would be about 20 x 400' rolls of 16mm negative; Kodak 7219 is $175 per roll, so that's $3500. Processing is another $3K (give or take), and I would guess scanning would be another $3000 and dailies would be maybe $2000. That would be about $12K or so. So if it was just one camera, and you shot no more than 8000' of Super 16mm, then that would be only $12K a day or about $60K per week. But if you added a second camera, these expenses could double. You'd have to weigh the lower expenses for 16mm camera rental compared to a top-flight digital camera; last time I saw an Arri 416 -- which is what they use on Walking Dead -- they were going for over $1000 a day. Lens packages and mounts are basically the same price.

I totally agree that many filmmakers tend to roll far too much with digital, which can create headaches for the post crew and the editor.

I can tell you when much of American television switched to digital from film in 2008-2009, I was told that the cost difference for pilots didn't change that much because the producers "absorbed" some of the cost savings from digital. But I think the speed difference of going directly from camera right into editing is hard to argue with.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

I can tell you when much of American television switched to digital from film in 2008-2009, I was told that the cost difference for pilots didn't change that much because the producers "absorbed" some of the cost savings from digital.

HAHAHAHHAHA

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

Dariusz is a master filmmaker, the movie looked pretty great, even though I prefer more dark grey and blue-ish look of Prometheus. If only the script were as good.

 

[Diana Welch]

We have the same thing in mind :yesnod:

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

This issue of ASC mag had an article on Alien.

From reading it, it seems like, as soon as production moved away from 3D capture, they also moved away from RED and towards Arri.

 

[Jordan G]

I looked it up on IMDB and it says they shot with the XT. Which makes sense to me but I think RED would have been a fine choice for the film, the subject matter could have fit very well with the types of images the camera produces

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2316204/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I looked it up on IMDB and it says they shot with the XT. Which makes sense to me but I think RED would have been a fine choice for the film, the subject matter could have fit very well with the types of images the camera produces

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2316204/technical?ref_=tt_dt_spec

Things is that it's a bit weird if the first film is shot on Epic MX to not continue with Red. If choosing a camera is like choosing film stocks, it's like choosing another film stock between films in the same trilogy/franchise, which feels a bit odd. Having continuity between films seems more important. Although cameras today are so close I don't think people notice any real difference between the two, it would have been nice to have another Alien shot on Red to promote our own use of the camera :tongue_smilie:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

"Alien" and "Alien 3" were shot in 35mm anamorphic, "Aliens" was shot in 35mm 1.85 spherical, and "Alien Resurrection" was shot in 2.40 Super-35. And "Alien" was all shot on slow-speed stock while the rest were shot on different generations of Kodak high-speed stock. So there have always been some visual differences between the movies of the franchise.

I'd also point out that the sequel to "Predator", "Predators" (2010) was shot on the Genesis camera... does that mean that for here on out, all Predator movies have to be shot on the Genesis camera to maintain visual consistency? One of the "Underworld" movies was also shot on the Genesis, as was the first "Captain America" movie but that didn't stop them from switching to other cameras on sequels (Alexas in the case of "Captain America", Red cameras in the case of the last Underworld movie.)