Bet Rourich and her experience with the ARRI Alexa in Jordi Mollà's '88'

Bet Rourich has become the first director of photography that, with ’88’ directed by Jordi Mollà, has shot in Spain with the new Alexa de Arri supplied by EPC. Media Films is being a pioneer in the history of Spanish digital cinematography. In addition to producing the first film that is filmed with the Alexa, they have produced ‘Heroes’, the first feature film in Spain with the Sony F35.

Bet Rourich has become the first director of photography that, with ’88’ directed by Jordi Mollà, has shot in Spain with the new Alexa de Arri supplied by EPC. As Rourich has commented on The epc sensor, “For each project he does, the director of photography has to shuffle many and different possibilities. And for 88, the options were also many, among which I would highlight F35 and D21 ″.

Finally, the decision was to roll 88, Jordi Mollà's new film, his second length as director, with Arri Alexa, recently landed at the EPC rental house last June. Bet Rourich, who thus becomes the first director of photography that rolls a film in Spain with the Alexa, gives us some notes of how the choice of the team was, the experience with the camera and its work in this production of Media Films.

"Luis de Val, executive producer, and production directors Carlos González and Ester Velasco are professionals wanting to know the latest advances in cameras and be able to have the best for their films. That was an important factor when deciding on a completely new camera as Alexa was," said the director of photography.

Indeed, as Bet Rourich says, Media Films is being a pioneer in the history of Spanish digital cinematography. In addition to producing the first film that is filmed with the Arri Alexa, they are also behind the heroes, the first feature film in Spain with the Sony F35.

The fact is that when the filming of 88, last July, nobody had worked with Alexa and explains Bet Rourich that no feedback on the Internet was either because the camera had begun to be distributed a few weeks before. "I am lucky to meet Yoshua Berkowitz, an excellent professional who had been the DIT for the last film by Roland Emmerich, Anonymous, the first film shot with Alexa. He helped us in the doubts we could have during the tests and in the filming."

Los Angeles-Barcelona

But, as the EPC sensor collects, before the tests, there was also a fruitful distance work between the director and the director of photography. "88 It is an atmospheric film. Of characters in borderline situations. Jordi Mollà wanted to experiment with colors, with slow, sinuous chamber movements, plans where the characters move. We were doing a very exhaustive referents. Jordi in Los Angeles and I from Barcelona we sent references to be able to define the look we wanted for the film, from the most general aspects to concretions, and thus we created a visual folder where we posted photos for each sequence of the film. It was a very rewarding research work because when the time for the filming came I already knew what we had to get, ”says Bet Rourich, for whom the work of the artistic director of 88, Llorenç Miquel. "He is a great professional and managed to mark with his work many of the things we needed to create the atmosphere that Jordi pursued."

After a few days of evidence in which they defined the workflow for the filming, and after seeing the results, they chose to accompany the Arri Alexa with Cooke S4 T2.0 optics. "I considered that they were those that gave a more interesting texture without having to filter at any time. I like the softness that these optics give in the most digital textures. In the case of Alexa, they were perfect for the most general planes."

Roll in logarithmic

The intention of the director of photography was to roll in logarithmic to have the greatest possible margin in postproduction. "But I was with the problem that logarithmic monitoring was very annoying. Seeing the washed image throughout filming was not an option," he recalls.

"I wanted the director to get a clear idea of ​​the light and the light environment that we would finally have. To achieve it, Stephane Cattan and Nacho Melero, of Image Film, developed a monitoring LUT that we carry so that in the director of the director could capture the images with more density, more similar to how they would remain after the color correction."

This allowed him to check in the luster, during filming, and see how the material in color correction worked. "What margins we had above and below, the colors ... In general, we discovered that Alexa has incredible latitude in the high lights. In the tests we could recover high light lights 3 Stops. In addition, the burns are a step forward in quality. They are the high digital lights that I have seen so far," says Bet Rourich. "The skin tones are beautiful and the reproduction of very reliable colors. The postproduction margin is high and with many interesting options. It is the first digital camera in which it is safer to burn an image than to sub -expire it."

Camera equipment

The filming of 88 It took place between July and August in locations from Barcelona, ​​Sitges and Castelldefels. Together with the director of photography, Joan Lluró as a Foquista, Marta Ayuso as a camera assistant, and the video assistants Jordi Ruiz and Sofía Pérez-Portabella were. "They were a great team. They created the right workflow and adapted to the needs and problems arising during filming. If there is a Alexa thing that is uncomfortable, it is having to work with dual link cables and magneto, but the team got this problem to be imperceptible."

They rolled HD 4: 4: 4, Dual Link cable to Magneto Sony Srw-1 because at that time the 2K option was not yet available. "Fortunately, today, slots for cards in Alexa are already activated, so you can discard the Magneto option if you want. That makes Alexa a much more manageable and light chamber, which makes it even more competitive and interesting," says Bet Rourich, for whom the experience with Alexa has been, in general, very good. "Each project needs its camera and with it I have felt for the first time that a digital camera could approach a competitive quality with the negative."

Bet Rourich

While 88 It arrives at the big screen, Bet Rourich is pending the premiere - on January 21 - from another of his work in Largo, Blog, Elena Trapé raw opera. Also in their filmography they are Ingrid (2009), and co -heads the photograph of Garbo: The spy, which won the best documentary last year. He has participated in Julia's eyes, Spanish movie and The orphanage as director of photography of the second unit, and among its latest projects in short is The astronaut on the roof, which premiered at the 2010 Berlin Festival, in addition to signing the photograph of numerous video clips and spots.

Long or short stories, fiction, documentary, commercial or musical ... Bet Rourich touches all sticks. And it says that what she likes most is "to work closely with a director and be able to contribute, visually, what is necessary to tell the story you want to tell."

Other articles about Alexa, ARRI, EPC, Media Films, Filming, Sony