--
Cinematographer Vladan Radovic talks using the ALEXA and SkyPanel on Like Crazy --
Thu, 07 Jul 2016 10:55
--
Director Paolo Virz s new comedy drama film Like Crazy (La Pazza Gioia) tells the story of two women who strike up a friendship at a mental health clinic in Tuscany, from which they abscond, setting out on a road trip together. Cinematographer Vladan Radovic AIC here gives his account of shooting the film with ARRI ALEXA cameras and ARRI SkyPanel LED soft lights.
Radovic: In this movie Paolo and I, as we always do, tried to follow the story with the photography, and in this case it was a big challenge because the girls are crazy and they are running away from a treatment clinic, which means that they go to many different places. We were constantly trying to follow their emotions by means of cinematographic choices.
For the scenes we shot outside, I used the warm sun of Tuscany. But I tried not to use this kind of light - the sun-like warm light - when we were shooting inside the clinic. For the dramatic scenes inside the mental hospital I always used internal sources of cold light or cold reflections of the warm sun coming in from outside, so that you have warm light on the outside and cold reflections on the inside.
Sometimes a characters mood changes within a scene and we wanted to illustrate that with the visuals. For example there is a long single take in which I gradually changed the colour temperature, which I was able to do thanks to the SkyPanel. The scene begins with a quiet conversation between Donatella and Beatrice, our two main characters, and for this you have nice warm light. Then Donatellas mood changes as she hears some bad news, so the colour temperature gets colder and colder until she desperately hits her head against an advertising sign. The initial colour temperature in this scene was 3200 K and by the end it was 5600 K. Mixing SkyPanel light with the sunset meant that the light in the scene changes in a very natural way, so you do not actually perceive what we did with the lamphead.
The ALEXA camera is perfectly balanced and is very ergonomic, so it is well suited to handheld shooting. When we shot this movie, ARRIRAW recording with the ALEXA Mini was not available yet; the ALEXA Mini would probably have been even better for this kind of work. However, thanks to ALEXA our camera operator was able to run after the actresses with a handheld camera, for example in a scene when the girls run for a bus. ALEXA was just perfect and really comfortable. We wanted to be as close as possible to the actors, and this of course influenced our choice of focal lengths as well.
I always shoot using Log C; I never use Rec 709. I think that shooting in Rec 709 with ALEXA is like driving a Porsche really slowly; youre only using a fraction of its potential!
In night scenes I like to explore very high sensitivities, like 1600 or 2500 ASA. With ALEXA, I know that I can choose whatever ASA I want because it will have no bad effects on what I shoot. I know that if a scene is well set, even if I use 2500 ASA, I will have no digital grain at all. If you see grain in one of my movies shot on ALEXA, it is digital grain that has been added in post-production, scanned from original film grain. I have not been able to see ALEXAs grain yet, actually!
You know, I wanted to use film for my previous movie, Black Souls, but the production asked me to give digital a try as well. So we compared a 35 mm camera to ALEXA, and with proper post-production adjustments I could not tell ALEXA footage from film footage! So in the end we shot on ALEXA, and thanks to the camera we were able to explore very dark areas of Calabria, the Italian region in which the movie was shot. I find ALEXA and ARRIRAW perfect for me because I can be more daring in terms of underexposure.
I remember once we were shooting a very dark scene at magic hour and I could not take my eye away from the viewfinder because the light conditions were changing fast and we were repeating the scene continuously. All of a sudden the director asked me, Vladan, are you sure we can keep shooting? and I replied, Why are you asking me? Then I looked away from the viewfinder and the place was so dark that you could see nothing - but ALEXA was still seeing the scene and I could see it too in the viewfinder.
Related Articles
-- --
-- --
-- Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
-- 
