ARRI ALEXA: A Weekend with ALEXA

ARRI Review at Creative COW

Date night.
Alexa was sharply dressed when I picked her up. A smaller and lighter body than I imagined she sported a very compact, bright clear viewfinder, with a crisp onboard monitor. Her eyes this evening would be a set of Cooke S4s along with a set of new Zeiss lightweight compact primes.



ALEXA dressed for a night on the town.



David Battistella with ARRI ALEXA.


Once on the tripod, something I would equate to sitting in the drivers seat, you can really feel the thoughtfulness of the engineering and ergonomics by the engineers, from the perspective of the person who is going to be doing the driving.

From the tactile rubber feel to the placement of the buttons, it seems like everything has been thought out and rethought in advance. When looking through the electronic viewfinder (optical ground glass will be an option) the natural position of your hands reach for and fall in all the right places. It's almost equals the moment you meet your partner on the dance floor embrace and await the start of the music.

The controls are intuitive, simple and elegant. The word efficiency also comes to mind as the user quickly realizes no extra steps are needed to accomplish any task you want to perform. As an example, changing ISO is the pressing and turning of the same button. The menus are as fast and in many cases easier and more intuitive than most any EFP/ ENG camera. ARRI really builds this camera from the operator perspective.


Controls


The viewfinder intelligently lays out the information and makes it easy to access either by a single operator, or on the dumb side of the camera by a trusted assistant. Right away I felt like the intimacy of the machine and the felling that you could take it away alone for a weekend getaway or dress it up in full formalwear for the feature film gala.

This camera, with a small handle and a few batteries would be a worthy competitor to the first lightweight portable 16mm film cameras you may or may not remember. For a breadbox design it shoulders remarkably well and the eyepiece requires little fumbling or adjustment. The balance is excellent for handheld work and the record and viewfinder controls are placed in expected places, right where your hand reaches for them.

We stayed on the tripod for most of the shoot, as with the KiPro attached it would not have been as balanced a handheld rig.



David Battistella with Pierre Branconnier.

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