"Skyfall" The Alexa 'Demo Reel' - Credit Sequence Shot on RED?

[Jason Honeycutt]

I was watching the special features of the "Skyfall" DVD tonight, the section about how they made the title sequence and, to my surprise, low and behold, it was shot on an Epic. I paused it just to make sure that was the RED logo I saw on the camera.

Interesting, isn't it?

 

[Ben Scott]

While it's a nice piece with some great compositing, I don't think anyone was referring to the title sequence when they spoke about how good Skyfall looked.

 

[Simon Knight]

Ouch Ben..... But very true...

But then isn't that the way with a great many Hollywood productions now. Footage shot on Alexa and VFX/green screen shot on Epic?

Simon

 

[Ben Scott]

I wasn't denigrating it at all, and in fact I did a bit of BTS stuff with the guys who produced the title sequence a while back, but Skyfall IS a great advert for Alexa.

And Volkswagen, Heineken, Omega,Sony and a million other companies throughout its duration

 

[Simon Knight]

Did you watch the opening sequence and think Daniel looked old? I know a lot of the bike stuff was face-replacement but the HD made him look very old.....

Alexa is very beautiful imaging though as you say.. Is it a frost filter it has built in? and then sharpened in post?

 

[Ben Scott]

Well, he was supposed to be old a borderline 'past it' wasn't he? I thought it worked really well. No idea about its filter system I'm afraid...

 

[Jesper Sichlau]

Did you watch the opening sequence and think Daniel looked old? I know a lot of the bike stuff was face-replacement but the HD made him look very old.....

That looked horrible. It took the action out of the scene and made it clumpsy. It would have been so much better with a stunt double that looked like him.

 

[Simon Knight]

ahh, don't get me wrong Ben, the cinematography was very well done..

I just thought Daniel looked almost plastic - like a Hollywood-has-been with tons of makeup on. Later on he looked, well, like Daniel Craig..

It certainly didn't detract from the film... I just was uber-critical of the closeups.....

So is that right about the Alexa? Does it have a soft filter built in or is it just a result of the Arii sensor?

Simon

 

[Bob Gundu]

Alexa has a Low Contrast filter built in.

 

[Simon Knight]

Ahh ok Bob, so what does that do? I read about the image from the Alexa being soft (in a good way) and then sharpened in post. Is that generally what happens?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Alexa is very beautiful imaging though as you say.. Is it a frost filter it has built in? and then sharpened in post?

Haha, well put. I needed a 1/4 Classic Soft to match our Scarlet to an Alexa last week. So yeah, I think you're pretty on the ball. Whatever that filter is they place infront of the Alexa sensor does indeed look like classic filtration.

 

[Simon Knight]

I'm sure on the Arri site when they interviewed Sam Mendes, he said something about the filter that the camera has over it, initially to "soften" the image and then in post it is "unsharp marked"

Anyone?

 

[Vadim Bobkovsky]

You should be very careful with post-sharpening. Sometimes it looks fine, other times... not.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Ouch Ben..... But very true...

But then isn't that the way with a great many Hollywood productions now. Footage shot on Alexa and VFX/green screen shot on Epic?

Simon

Jupp, It's quite clear epic beats the alexa for blue/green screen work. The difference is quite huge. Even an alexa with a codec raw uncompressed recorder does not stand a chance. Even scarlet 4k 7:1 beats the arri stuff by far.

The non sharpening in camera is a great gift for composting. Also the much lower noise levels from red makes huge difference.

 

[paulherrin]

Skyfall IS a great advert for Alexa.

more like roger deakins is a great advert for alexa... give that man any camera that exists and he'll give you beautiful images.

course that's not to say the alexa doesn't make exceptional imagery.

 

[paulherrin]

I'm sure on the Arri site when they interviewed Sam Mendes, he said something about the filter that the camera has over it, initially to "soften" the image and then in post it is "unsharp marked"

Anyone?

yeah pretty much - 'unsharp mask' is the technique

 

[Simon Knight]

I didn't know you could Unsharp Mask a video stream.. thought it was a PhotoShop image thing.. But then I suppose a film is just a relentless stream of images!

And very true about Roger D.... I do love his photography

Simon

 

[paulherrin]

bingo