James Leckey Q + A about 5D, RED and Alexa

Since the funding campaign entered its final fortnight, myself and the rest of the production crew have started to source the various things we need to make the shoot happen. Our priorities at the moment are locations and equipment.

I discussed shooting format with DOP Azul Serra a few months ago as I was originally going to shoot on the Canon 5D Mk II, partly because it kicks out a great picture, partly because its cheap (both in that we know people who own them and the grip kit related to them) and partly because it would be easier to use for the ambitious set pieces we have planned. Azul's point was that because the 5D is so widely used, it had a certain ‘look’ which people are now used to seeing and to get the full cinematic effect of the film and push the colours as much as we want to, we should look to RED, 35mm or the new ARRI Alexa. Having never worked on the Alexa before (and being the kind of film-maker that likes to try new things!) as well as seeing examples of the footage both on Vimeo and from two other friends projects, this sounded exciting and the way to go.


However, as with every project I do, when it comes to the real technical side of workflow, image compression and logistics I always ask

my very good friend and camera assistant James Leckey for his opinion. I have worked with James on about a dozen shorts since we met in 2007 on my film “Parental Control” (www.vimeo.com/12881846) and he has a ridiculous amount of knowledge on such matters so thought I would ask him some questions about the benefits of the various formats and share the answers with you.

James, first of all what are the pros and cons to shooting short films

on the Canon 5D?

The 5D has always been a great little camera to shoot short films on. The camera is cheap, (around £2000) so many people can simply buy one and make lots of great stuff.

It also has a full 35mm stills frame sensor so it has a high mega-pixel with no modification to the camera. The codec is decent (H.264) and can be used with many different editing systems and it has the ability to shoot 1080p video. It uses

35mm stills lenses so smaller budget productions can produce what we would call ‘cinematic’ material; that is images that have shallow depth of field (when necessary), good contrast and vivid colours.

I’ve assisted on this camera on both low budget short films and high end must say how

ubiquitous this camera is nowadays and I have always been impressed with its capabilities and the quality of image it produces. Unfortunately with something that is that cheap and produces great video there is always a catch and the 5D does have a few flaws that are worth mentioning. Firstly the image itself has some problems. The camera scans the frame progressively. This means that it collects the information from the pixels horizontally from left to right from top to bottom. In theory it does this twenty five times a second to get a moving image. This is in contrast to 35mm film where the entire image is exposed for the same amount of time. The result is an image artefact called ‘rolling shutter.’ If anything in the frame is moving too quickly for the progressive scan to pick up (like a fast pan or tilt) the image appears to slant or shear in the frame. A prime example of this can be found here. (http://vimeo.com/6894404). This is somewhat fixable in post but it is a time and labour intensive process and it doesn’t always work well.

The camera unit itself suffers from some drawbacks. The LCD screen on the camera is not quite up to the task of judging critical focus and since the shutter on the camera has to be up to shoot video the eyepiece cannot be used for judging focus. There are also two outputs on the camera for monitoring externally. One is a Standard Definition composite output and the other is a mini HDMI port. The HDMI port does not output full 1080p image which has always been somewhat disappointing to me. It is above Standard Definition but not full HD. If you use either of these monitoring options you lose the onboard LCD monitor. This means that in order for the DoP and the director to look at a monitor you must mount the camera on some sort of rig with a small onboard monitor feeding out to a larger direcor’s monitor. Many companies, most notably Zacuto, have made unfathomable amounts of money making enormous rigs for these cameras, the most ostentatious of which can be found here (http://bit.ly/pMhOaw)
All in all the 5D is a stills camera that has a full HD video feature built into it. It is great for making something like a small short but for anything more ambitious (like ‘Clowning Around’ in my very humble opinion) it’s limitations start letting it down.

Is there a psychology to shooting on a bigger ‘proper’ camera, rather than a DSLR?

As a Camera Assistant I love playing with toys. The bigger the toy the better I feel! A good camera is nice enough but a good camera on a dolly is better and two good cameras in a 3D rig on top of a massive jib is truly a sight to behold! But that might be just me… There is most definitely a psychology to shooting with a bigger, ‘proper’ camera. As a Camera

Assistant you have clearly defined roles. If the camera is such that it requires assistants then you get on with the job you have to do and everyone works as a team to make sure that the camera is in the best position to shoot

at all times and the image is sharp. Because the 5D is

somewhat a one-man show the assistant’s role is somewhat

reduced to loading batteries and clapping boards. Because the camera can be held in one hand the operator can do quite a lot of the focus pulling and working the menu settings.

I also believe that the atmosphere on set is a lot more concentrated when you have a larger camera there. I think people (myself included) think more of being on a ‘proper’ shoot if there is a Panaflex G2 (which is huge) standing there as opposed to a 5D slung casually over the Cinematographer’s shoulder.I also think that it helps the performers as well, especially on short films where the 5D is king. If they think that they are on a film that is being serious about what it is shot on then they might just give a better performance. That is just my own opinion however.

Personally I love working with larger cameras because I get more toys to play with. A 35mm camera comes in about fifteen different cases when you first get it and you get to build it from the ground up and then play with it all day (professionally of course!) and there is a certain thrill of being in charge of such a beast.

As the 5Ds are so cheap, why bother renting an ARRI Alexa or RED?

Because the RED and Alexa are awesome. That’s why! No, not really but they do surpass the image quality of the 5D and have none of the drawbacks that I stated earlier. The 5D is a stills camera that has a video feature. The RED and Alexa have been designed and built from the ground up to be Digital Cinema cameras. They shoot high quality, above-HD video and have a look and quality that comes close to that of 35mm film. They are designed to interact and work with all of the existing camera and grip equipment that has been around for years and those cameras have already proven themselves in very high-end productions.

I think what scares people off with renting high end cameras is the perceived cost. Yes, they are expensive to hire with all of the accessories that come with them if you wish to pay the full hire rate for them. DO NOT PAY THE FULL HIRE RATE FOR THEM. Not even professional cinematographers with years of high end film production under their belt pay full hire rate for

camera gear. If you talk to the hire companies they can most likely work out a deal for you. I worked on a production with Damien a while ago where we rented a full RED One kit at a fraction of the list price. Hire companies are keen to get a camera out on a hire at any price. It gets them one step closer to paying off the cost of purchasing the camera in the first place. If you have a bit of money to spend then I would always try and be ambitious with your camera kit.

How do the RED and Alexa compare image wise and workflow wise?

The main objective of both of those cameras is to digitally recreate an image comparable to that of 35mm film. That is it. They go about it in different ways.

Like anything that comes out of the United States the RED goes big. It’s got a 4K sensor which gives you a huge amount of information to play with. It also uses some impressive compression to capture the raw data coming off the sensor. This means that things like white balance, colour correction and careful contrast control are not baked into the image. You can do an absurd amount of manipulation of the image in post, even to the point of reframing entire shots. The image quality is very, very impressive but sometimes there is a little noise in the blacks and the highlights can clip suddenly if you aren’t careful. These aren’t nearly as bad as with a 5D or other prosumer models tough.

The workflow with the RED has always been somewhat problematic. The file sizes are quite simply

huge. A 32Gb Compact Flash card only gets you 6 minutes of record time at 4K and getting those files onto hard drives has always been a bit of a night

mare of mine. RED also uses its own codec; Redcode. It uses an R3D file that has all of the raw sensor data on it and then creates Quicktime proxy files that you can use to view the footage with. None of these are suitable for editing and the only software that can use R3D files natively is Adobe Premier CS4 and above and even then you need some massive computing power to work with them. Ultimately transcoding for editing is required and this is a very time and processor intensive on your editing system.

The Arri Alexa is a different beast. It uses two Sony SxS cards and it records 2K in a ProRes 4444 codec. Each card will give you 13 minutes of footage, slightly more than a 1000 feet of 35mm film and you get two in the unit so you get nearly half an hour out of the Alexa before a reload. The camera uses its own version of raw image acquisition called LogC. It hasn’t got quite the same control as RED but it allows for much, much more latitude in the image than any other Digital Cinema camera to date. A recent test put the Alexa against a film camera running Kodak Vision3 500T and the Alexa came out at 13.2 stops of latitude versus films 13.6. That is undeniably close to the range of 35mm film.

Since ProRes is a format that Final Cut Pro can run natively you can view, edit and manipulate the image within seconds of it being downloaded from the camera. I have worked on shoots where the Editor has got a rough cut of the scene we’ve just shot within a few minutes of us finishing it. There is no other system to date that allows that much flexibility.

Do they have any other differences?

The RED One is an amazing camera but it does have its drawbacks. The camera is big, bulky and has to be attended to and taken care of by masochistic Camera Assistants such as myself. As one Focus Puller (who shall remain nameless) said to me; “it’s like taking

care of a rich, elderly relative. You are only doing it for the inheritance.” The camera has its fair share of problems like an agonizingly slow boot-up time and huge power consumption but it is entirely worth it for the final result in all its 4K glory.

It also has its fair share of software problems but it does have a 24 hour dedicated tech support from RED in the form of an online ticket on their website. There is also a huge online community on http://www.reduser.net where you are guaranteed an answer to pretty much every single RED related question you can possibly think of.

The Alexa is a much more elegant camera than the RED. Since Arri have an impressive pedigree of camera manufacture they were able to make the Alexa the most user friendly camera they possibly could. The menu structure is a Camera Assistant’s dream. Everything is laid out so that the most important things like frame rate, white balance and shutter speed are instantly accessible within seconds.

The Alexa body itself is also very nice. It is heavy but it is very well balanced. The bottom of the body is curved inwards so handheld is not a problem. They even have a foam shoulder pad that sticks to the bottom of the rig to make it more comfortable. I have worked with the Alexa many times and I have never encountered a single problem with it. The camera starts in seconds and always works when you need it to. No more constantly checking fan temperatures or drive cradles with it.

What are your experiences of working on the ARRI Alexa so far?

The Alexa is by far the most easy to use Digital Cinema camera I have ever used. Arri have put a lot of effort into the design and ergonomics of the camera. It is designed to integrate seamlessly with pretty much every accessory that is around. It’s also ridiculously easy to get to know. Arri put a simulator of the camera’s menu structure online (you can find it here http://www.arridigital.com/technical/simulator/) so every person who wants to work with it already knows pretty much everything they need to before they even meet the camera.

I’ve worked with the thing in the rain, bright sunlight, on 40°C sets and mounted outside on moving vehicles. Not once has anything, ANYTHING, gone wrong with the camera. I am familiar with all of the error messages it gives you but I have yet to see one in over a dozen shoots with it. For a prime example of how much this camera can take please look at the following picture:

http://bit.ly/nRRLJ7

That is a picture of an Alexa that was in a camera truck fire. It was scorched and then soaked with water when the Fire Department arrived. They sent it back to Arri and guess what? They got it working! That is the truest testament to good camera design. I rest my case there.

How does it compare to 35mm?

The Alexa compares to 35mm very well. No Digital Cinema camera has come close to 35mm in

terms of latitude, colour saturation and contrast but the Alexa comes the closest of all other Digital Cinema cameras in my opinion.

Both the RED MX and the Alexa do, however, have one important factor that sets them apart from

35mm though. They are base 800 ASA cameras. The highest rated 35m stock is 500 ASA. I know you can push 500 ASA film to 1000 ASA but you have to be careful about it. The Alexa does nearly the same job because it was designed from the ground up to do it. It does it very, very well.

As someone who has worked on both, what do you prefer... digital or film?

That is a very loaded question! My professional answer would be that I have no opinion; I work with whatever the DoP wants to work with. I will however say this:

We have been shooting films with the same strips of celluloid that have been used for over a hundred years. This is the first big change in medium since filmmaking was born. I was fortunate to get on at the ground floor of digital filmmaking as I was working at the BBC when they got their RED One in. When I figured the thing out I was amazed at the quality of it compared to the older HD cameras that they were shooting ‘Star Wars’ on and whatnot. Since then I’ve been known as a ‘the Digital guy’ who you get on board when you’re working with a Digital Cinema camera. 90% of all of my work is on these cameras. This is compared to when I was starting out in the industry and I was loading S16mm and 35mm all the time. There has been a massive shift in the industry towards digital and that is because of its flexibility. I personally think that this trend will continue and everything from big budget Hollywood productions right down to low budget shorts will move away from film completely. Film won’t go away completely but it will just get more expensive and reach a point where only big die hards like Spielberg will have the money and power to shoot on it. Ultimately I am fine with either. They both present their own challenges and rewards in different ways.

If you were working on an unlimited budget, what would you choose to shoot on?

Haha!!! If somehow I had made my way up the camera team ladder from a lowly Clapper Loader to a professional Cinematographer with all the money, crew and toys in the world I would be more mystified as to how I got there instead of wondering about image acquisition!

If I had all that money right now I would shoot on 35mm film stock. This is for the simple reason that it is still the best thing to shoot on. Digital cameras have come close and they are getting even closer to that holy grail of film stock but nothing has come close to what 35mm gives you in terms of latitude, colour and contrast. It still remains the best format to make cinematic movies.

The thing is; if you gave me an unlimited budget and all the toys and gadgets and gizmos that I wanted I guarantee the film would be terrible, really, really awful. Limitations breed creativity in people. If you have a small budget then you find creative ways around problems. Some of the best times I have had on set are not the highly paid commercials where the camera department’s every whim is catered for. Its when I was working on unpaid shorts, the light was fading, we had five more shots to get and I am tasked with mounting a RED MX camera upside down on a jib on the top deck a moving bus full of extras (yes this is all real! It was an amzing shot!). H

uge budget means you can just throw money at a problem until it goes away. Having a small budget means you can be ambitious, make every penny count and turn £4000 on set into £4 million on screen. That is what filmmaking is all about and that is why I love working in the industry.

James Leckey is a freelance camera assistant working on

“Clowning Around” and a variety of other short and feature projects, please check out his CV and expertise at www.jamesleckey.com

And having made enquiries about the RED and Alexa (which are still very expensive to hire!) please also check out and help us shoot on either of these formats at www.indiegogo.com/clowningaroundfilm