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New James Bond will not be EPIC. :(

Miltos Pilalitos

Miltos Pilalitos

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I was browsing some photos from the set of the new 007 film when I saw this:

02.jpg


Now... I know that Alexa is a good camera but I can't help thinking that it is not good enough for Bond's usual 2.35 : 1 aspect ratio.

Roger Deakins is so good. It is so sad we will not see what he could do with an EPIC.


:(
 
Regardless of what it was shot on, I will still watch it. Not every movie in the world needs to be shot on Red.
 
Im sure the reason it's being shot on Alexa is because Roger shot his last movie on the Alexa.

Probably just comfortable with it.
 
noahvolek said:
Regardless of what it was shot on, I will still watch it. Not every movie in the world needs to be shot on Red.
Click to expand...

Being a huge Bond fan I would still watch it even if it was shot on VHS! But still... I am very disappointed. I was so certain they would go EPIC for this one.
 
Paul Russell said:
Roger Deakins could shoot with a Kodak instamatic and it would still look great.
Click to expand...

Word.

Roger has been an Arri guy for a while hasn't he? He's one of the greatest out there, it doesn't matter what he shoots with, you know it'll be fantastic.

Top level pianists are top level, whether they play on a Steinway or a Bösendorfer. Respect the masters is my motto.

Interesting tidbit from his site :

I get very confused and, frankly, irritated by all the pronouncements about 'K', bit depth, latitude etc.. In the past it was often stated to me by visual effects supervisors that there was no noticeable difference between a 2K scan and a 4K scan of the same negative. Does film really have a dynamic range of more than 13 stops? What film stock would that be and under what conditions? I don't see it.
In the final analysis you can only judge picture quality by eye and make a personal decision as to what you like and what you don't like. Perhaps some people really can not see a difference between a 2K scan and a 4K scan of the same negative and I am sure some people really do prefer the look of an image produced by the Red Camera to one shot on film. The choice of a camera system is no different than the choice of a lens set, a camera position or where to put a lamp.
The downside to any digital camera right now lies, for me at least, in it's viewing system. I am probably 'old fashioned' in this respect but I want to see the image that is in front of me, the way light falls on a face and it's true colour, not the degraded image provided by electronic viewfinders regardless of their manufacturer. I have no interest in standing by a high res. monitor at a distance from the action. But that's me!

[...]

When I talked to the people at Red they would not entertain the idea of an optical finder. They were very dismissive and told me it was just not necessary. I imagine they have had enough experience of shooting films to be able to say this!
Click to expand...


From here :

http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1440&sid=6ca1fdd9eaf81ff24c6f826df4672bc9

(please omit some of the fanboys on that page, loudly irrelevant as they often are)
 
This film will look great. For one, it's Roger Deakins, for another it is Alexa Studio with 2160 vertical Res. and Hawk Anamorphics. It will fill out the 4K raster in DI. The vertical res of Epic in 2:40 mode is also 2160. Of course Epic in ana mode with Hawks would look great as well.
 
Great news in fact...
i really like RD work.
Alexa M in this shot...seem the other guys M is in the wild.
Cheers
 
Really, you think the Alexa is not good enough? You think a camera designed by a company that's been designing camera's for almost 100 years is not good enough to shoot a Bond film on, especially when that camera is in the hands of a master of cinematography.

It's not the end of the world if a production doesn't shoot on Epic.........
 
This should surprise no one. Deakins doesn't like the RED, and he does like the Alexa. Epic hasn't changed his mind.

I'd be shocked if he doesn't shoot some stuff with the 4:3 Alexa with the rotating shutter and optical viewfinder (assuming it's available, I don't know the ship date on that one).
 
It's already been mentioned, Roger Deakins is just brilliant. So be it Alexa, RED EPIC or super 35mm you have to admire the guys talent. And I love the concept of it has to look good to the naked eye without looking/counting the pixels.
 
It's Deakins' choice. He prefers the native dynamic range of the Alexa. I happen to think the film should be shot at 4K, to increase its value and future-proof it, but Roger Deakins is so far beyond any of us here on this forum that I think we should respect his opinion.

It's fair to assume that with Deakins going digital and essentially putting out recent statements about the end of chemical film, digital has now surpassed film for cinema. And it's also fair to say that Jim Jannard deserves significant credit for that.
 
Im sure that no matter what format it is shot in or what equipment is used, it will be good ...

and P.s. I justed wanted to take a moment to say a big hi to everyone here at Red forums, had some trouble getting an account started, but im glad im finally here :)
 
Oh no, a movie is not being shot on Red, what is the world coming to?

But seriously, I get a little tired of the Alexa bashing here. Arri made a brilliant camera that can shoot wonderful images in the right hands. At the end of the day, all this talk of k's, latitude, noise ect, goes out the window when you become engrossed in the film. If you are able to critiquing the image quality throughout the film, than the film is doing something wrong.

I will admit that I was analyzing the image quality out of the Alexa when I started watching Drive but that lasted all of five minutes. It looked great on a 4K projector and it was recorded to Sony HDCAM in 1080p since the Arriraw and codex was not yet out.

Deakins is probably the best in the bis and while In Time was not a great movie, it looked great and Deakins really made the Alexa shine. Different artists pick different tools. Soderbergh, Jackson and Fincher like the high resolution and the flexibility that the Epic's small size offers. Richardson, Deakins, Scorsese and many others like the softer look of the Arri, as well as it's stunning low light capabilities, highlight roll off and dynamic range. Some guys like Aston Martin's and others like Lambo's. I'm glad we have options.

And let's not kid ourselves, 99% of moviegoers could not tell the difference between the footage produced by these cameras if they were projected side by side. I will say that while Epic beats out the Alexa in terms of resolution, price, size and frame rate options, I still think the Alexa has the edge in terms of low light, highlight performance and reliabillity but really, these cameras are more similar than they are different.

I'm sure Skyfall will look spectacular and I frankly could not care less if it was shot on film or Red, or the Alexa, or the F65 or Fruit By The Foot.


I for one am not surprised at all that Deakins went with the Alexa. He has always been an Arri guy and used their film cameras for most of his career. He is praised the camera on a number of occasions. He has been a critic of the Red in the past and has said something to the effect that he found the footage out of the camera to be sterile and unflattering (When speaking of the original Red One). He has also said that he is curious about the Epic but is comfortable with the Alexa and more the pleased with the image quality. I actually would have been shocked if he had went with the Epic considering his love for Arri and their Wundercam.
 
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