Why Movies DON'T Need To Be Shot With Expensive Cameras

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FILMMAKING TECHNOLOGY

Throughout the history of cinema, filmmaking has been inextricably linked to technology. 

Each technical innovation in film gear has unlocked new opportunities for how stories can be told. Early silent films used intertitles in editing as a way of expressing speech without using words. The introduction of sync sound introduced written dialogue to the screen. Colour photography elevated cinema out of a more impressionistic black and white to a more realistic world. Smaller handheld cameras allowed filmmakers to move shots organically like a fly on the wall.

With each and every advance in technology came a new stylistic application.  

One of the largest technical leaps forward came when digital cinema cameras, for the most part, replaced cameras that used 35mm film. Before this, dating back to the start of cinema, movies had been shot on celluloid. 

The widespread adoption of digital cinema cameras on industry film sets happened in the early 2010s after Arri introduced the original Alexa. 

This camera was groundbreaking as it offered filmmakers a digital medium that had great colour reproduction and dynamic range - which, for the first time, rivalled the quality and look of 35mm film. But let’s backtrack a little bit.

GAP BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL & CONSUMER CAMERAS

Before digital cinema cameras, there was an enormous gap between the quality of the image recorded by consumer video cameras onto tape that the average person could buy in a store and 35mm film captured on professional industry cameras. However, renting these high end cameras, and buying and processing 35mm film came at a significant price. 

It costs a large amount of money to make a high end movie. You have to pay a big premium for getting well known actors, hire a large technical crew for weeks or even months at a time, and pay for the construction of large sets. These costs are usually greater than the sum of the gear rental. 

Therefore, although it was expensive to rent a high end cinema camera, it still made financial sense in the scope of the more expensive production, to try to capture the best image possible that could be sold and presented to an audience as more of a spectacle.

The thing is, as time went on and digital cinema cameras replaced film cameras, that enormous gap in image quality between cheap consumer video cameras and expensive high end digital cinema cameras, got exponentially smaller and smaller.  

This trend followed a prediction made by a guy called Gordon Moore in the 1960s, who basically said that computing power would roughly double every two years. Not only would this allow equipment that used computing power, like digital cinema cameras, to get exponentially better, but they would also get increasingly smaller and cheaper on a relative basis. 

This has meant that in the last few years, manufacturers have been able to produce video cameras aimed at the consumer or prosumer market which are affordable, small, yet produce images that are incredibly high quality.

Whereas before the quality of video from a high end camera was many multiples better than that of consumer cameras, now the difference between them is much more difficult to notice for the average viewer - if they notice at all.

THE CREATOR USING A SONY FX3

In this changing technical landscape, news emerged that I think may go down in history in the same way that previous technologies altered the course of filmmaking. It was announced that The Creator - a high budget, sci-fi, Imax distributed blockbuster - would be shot on a Sony FX3: a prosumer video camera.

“For a long time the difference between shooting on film and what you might call consumer or prosumer, the stuff you might buy in a store is getting narrower and narrower. And that gap is getting indistinguishable to some extent.”

“We shot The Creator on a new camera, it’s a Sony camera, it's called an FX3. Pretty much the whole movie is shot on this.”  - Gareth Edwards, Director of The Creator

Shooting with the FX3 allowed them to work with smaller crews and therefore film in 80 real shooting locations, rather than spending truckloads of money on building large sets in a studio and shooting against green screens.

Then in post they basically took the real location footage and used VFX to paint the sci-fi landscapes that they wanted on top. The director, Gareth Edwards, claims this method of working turned a $300 million film into an $80 million movie. 

Shooting with a prosumer camera isn’t new to Edwards as his first film, Monsters, was shot on a Sony EX3 video camera.  

Because so much can be achieved in the grade and created in post production nowadays, you want the footage to be as malleable as possible. What you need from a camera can sort of be boiled down into three main categories: resolution, dynamic range and the bit depth of the colour.

If we take these specs from the $3,900 full-frame Sony FX3 and the $75,000 Arri Alexa Mini LF, you can see how small the technical gap between them is. The FX3 can record in 4K resolution, while the Mini LF can do 4.5K. In terms of dynamic range Sony reports 15 plus stops, while Arri claims 14 plus stops. When it comes to bit depth, the FX3 shoots 10-Bit 4:2:2 internally in SLog, whereas the Arri can shoot 12-Bit 4444 XQ in Log-C.

While of course the Arri does outperform visually, especially in the colour department, the point remains that the gap between them is pretty slim when comparing a prosumer and a professional camera - and seems to be closing more and more every year. 

Also, when you have millions of dollars to polish the footage in post production on top of that then the difference in quality between the two cameras becomes even more negligible.

ADVANTAGES OF PROSUMER CAMERAS

So, what are some of the advantages of using a smaller prosumer camera like an FX3?

Firstly, the size of the little Sony means that all the grips gear needed to move the camera cinematically and the supporting accessories are greatly reduced - in both cost, size and crew.

In the BTS, you can see them working with what looks to be a modified Ronin gimbal rig with handles. The operators can use this to adopt a very flexible shooting style, run and throw the camera around, getting stable, smooth movement - while also eliminating the time, manpower and cost of needing a dolly or a Steadicam that would be paired with a high end cinema camera. 

Or, in other shots you can see them using a mini jib arm with the Ronin as a stabilised head. Again, saving hugely on the time, cost and crew needed to run a high budget industry alternative like a Technocrane.

Working with a little camera also downsizes the accessories needed. For example the BTS shows the focus puller using a low cost, little Tilta Nucleus instead of the larger follow focus systems from Arri and Preston that are normally paired with high end cameras.

The FX3 also has the ability to boost the base ISO to 12,800 and shoot in incredibly low light conditions - whereas the Alexa is usually kept at 800 ISO. 

“The Sony FX3 for example: amazing prosumer camera. I’m about to use that on a film that I’m shooting in Thailand. And it’s so ridiculous that it’s so small and it can [record in] such a high ISO for such a small camera.” - Greig Fraser, Co-Cinematographer of The Creator

This high ISO allowed them to work in a very flexible style. For exterior night scenes they could discard the large, high output lighting fixtures that normal cinema cameras require. 

Instead they used battery powered LED carpet lights rigged to a boom pole, that the best boy could use to walk alongside the talent and handhold the source to give enough illumination. 

“The actors had this freedom. If suddenly the shot looked better over here Nancie would suddenly move around with the light and Oren would be talking to Nancie through a little microphone. And we were just really fluid, organic. We’d shoot for like 25 minutes at a time. It was, like, a very liberated experience and it looks like a much bigger film than it cost because of that reason.” - Gareth Edwards, Director of The Creator

SO, WHY DOES HOLLYWOOD STILL USE HIGH END CAMERAS?

Does this spell the end of the Alexa forever and mean that all future Hollywood productions will use the FX3? Well, no, probably not. 

Why are almost all high end movies and series still shot on variations of the Alexa, the Venice and other high end cinema cameras?

For one, many filmmakers and especially cinematographers still like to try and shoot the highest quality image possible - even if the gap between that and a prosumer image is not as big as it used to be.

Secondly, the film industry has been built over many decades with crews, technicians and filmmakers trained to work in a very specific manner. For technicians this means working with production style cameras, grip rigs and high output lighting setups. 

This legacy has also been established on the production side. Studios know what they will get when shooting with an Alexa, and producers are used to budgeting for gear in terms of an Alexa rental fee.

The entire industry is set up around working with high end production cameras and I don’t think that this will change any time soon. 

However, what we may see is that features from these prosumer cameras - such as its high ISO base and smaller form factor - filter into the higher end cameras. And that this prosumer gear will increasingly be adopted across lower budget projects. 

Then, eventually, as Moore’s law continues to take effect, we may find that productions will only need to work with a camera that can easily fit into the hand.