Technical stuff

Lucy, the latest film by Luc Besson, featuring Scarlett Johansson and Norman Freeman, will be released in France on 6 August and was filmed with the Sony F65. Thierry Arbogast, AFC, and director of photography on this film and on many of Besson’s other films, shares his experience of shooting with the F65.

Having shot with John Toll, ASC, and the Wachowskis on Cloud Atlas, it was a pleasure to be asked to shoot on Jupiter Ascending. ACS France provided the complete aerial shooting solution in Iceland and recently in Bilbao including helicopter, Aerial DOP, Film Pilot, crew and low level flying permissions. All the logistics involved in getting that perfect shot.

A great team for Supercondriaque, Dany Boon’s latest movie, photographed by Romain Winding, AFC. Our team worked at night in Paris streets during Christmas time, and in Budapest also at night time in order to follow car pursuits with the Ultimate Arm and with Jean Baptiste Jay as a camera operator.

A beautiful project with Nils Tavernier photographed by Laurent Machuel, AFC. We worked within the Nord Ouest camera team (7 cameras to cover the event) for the Ironman competition in Nice.

ACS France has just moved into new premises a few hundred metres from the old address – we’re still in Buc, a town that was once a hotbed of aviation and aerobatics – and now Louis Blériot has his own Airpark.

After Coldplay and Andrea Boticelli’s concerts in 2012, Muse’s concert in July 2013 4K Live records by United, a dutch subsidiary of Euro Media Group, Euro Media Group was on BNP Paribas Tennis Masters in Bercy (Paris). On the 4 Sony F55 cameras were used 2 PL mount Angénieux zoom lenses : the Optimo 28-340 and the Optimo 15-40. Ronald Meyvisch, New Technology Officer by Euro Media Group gave Angénieux his feedback.

Some specials memories of the filming... Touching and exciting! With the mountain theme as the color changes of November were beginning. It was a wonderful opportunity to work on two great projects where the action took place in the mountains. ACS France conducted its aerial shots in the Maurienne Valley and Mont-Blanc for two feature films which are currently showing at this time.

After working on the film Les Petits mouchoirs, ACS France has rejoined much of the same team around Christophe Offentsein who just finished making his first film, En solitaire. He made the film with the duo Canet-Cluzet, photographed by Guillaume Schiffman, AFC, all on a boat for the race Vendée Globe in Lorient Bay and the Canary islands.

Since their last meeting at Camerimage 2012, Philippe Ros, AFC, and Roberto Schaefer, ASC, AIC, have an ongoing conversation about what really makes up the look of the captured image from various digital cameras, and how people in all disciplines of the industry are overlooking other important elements to be concerned with, other than 4K, or2K, or 8K capture or which camera to use, such as:
- How and when the debayering is implemented after the recording of the files
- The curves implemented in the camera (i.e. Arri Alexa or Sony F35), or those implemented in post (i.e. Lin to Log with the Sony F65)
- Which system to use to transcode and intake those image files.

With its perfect ergonomics, its bright reflex viewfinder, its low noise, and, above all, with its chromatic finesse and its skin tone rendition never before seen in digital images, the Penelope Delta camera has shown that it is the worthy descendant of the Penelope film camera.

During our first meeting with Jean-Pierre Améris, I understood that this film would have a very distinctive graphic universe because of its story and historical setting and because of the visual references from films and paintings that were given to me (Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd, by Tim Burton, Dracula, by Francis F. Coppola, etc.).

Lumex launches the "Energy Center", a new generation of secure power source. Already at the forefront of new technologies such as the “Agilight” lighting crane and the “Twin Pack” mobile secure power sources, Lumex adds the “Energy Center” to its range of innovative products now available for rent.

Before our meeting with Didier Diaz, CEO of Transpalux – an associate member of the AFC –, regarding the recent opening of the Studios de Paris at the Cité du Cinéma in Saint-Denis, he took us on a tour of the new facility that he directs.

For several months we’ve been talking with Irena Gruca from FilmPRO Magazine about the qualities of Digital Intermediate and connected issues. In this article I have the opportunity to recap the discussion.
Special thanks to Irena Gruca who gave authorization to AFC to publish this article released in “Intermediate” european magazine launched by CineArte (Germany) & FilmPro (Poland).
This article has received some more inputs after the last Camerimage and the Micro Salon 2012.

The first publicly available images filmed with the new Delta-Penelope camera were shown by Eclair on November 17, 2011 with Catherine Athon, Aude Humblet, Thierry Beaumel, Caroline Champetier AFC, and Jean-Pierre Beauviala in attendance.
This camera is the first “4K” with an optical viewfinder and an internal SSD recorder for full resolution uncompressed images that are totally open to whomever wants to debayerize them in their own way.

Yves Cape, AFC, SBC, signal us an interesting aricle wrote by our Belgian colleague Louis-Philippe Capelle, SBC, about RAW Mode published on Belgian Society of Cinematographers web site.
In the article, he gives details on this uncompressed pictures recording format and ask questions about the advantages, consequences and drawbacks.

• Read the article on SBC web site.

Announced a few months ago, the Technicolor 3D system (developed for 35mm projectors) will be installed in 25 of the 150 screens of the New York Bow Tie chain...

I met Philippe Parain during the presentation of the new Fuji film, on the 24^th of September last year.

In discussing the quality of the Angénieux zooms, I told him of my "doubts" about the historical flaws, particularly distortions.

On Thursday, November 26, after giving a presentation at the Architectural School of Saint-Etienne, I took advantage of the proximity of St. Héand, and visited Angénieux.