We Cover the First Demo of ARRI’s Alexa Studio

(Image: AbelCine’s Mitch Gross is covered with a polka dot projection as he demos the new ARRI Alexa Studio during the launch at AbelCine headquarters. Photo credit: Mark Forman)

NYC Production & Post News recently attended the first demo of ARRI’s Alexa Studio at AbelCine’s snazzy new presentation room.

ARRI’s Guenter Noesner spoke about key features that differentiate this top of the line Alexa Studio model from the other cameras in this popular new line. These include a 4:3 sensor (a key component for shooting wide-screen with anamorphic lenses), mirror shutter, optical viewfinder with anamorphic de-squeeze, and behind the lens ND filter (you’ll need this both because of the camera’s sensitivity of 800 EI and the optical viewfinder, which would darken with standard slide-in NDs).

According to AbelCine’s Moe Shore, the majority of TV shows this year have been shot with an Alexa system.

AbelCine’s Applications Specialist Mitch Gross gave one of his usual whirlwind tech tours, here offering important info on how the camera works, practical advice, and a hands-on demo. Mitch pointed out that the Alexa’s Super 35 4:3 sensor sports 2880 x 2160 active pixels and produces a 6.5 megapixel image. While digital camcorders that hold to the Rec 709 HD spec offer about 8 stops, Alexa delivers an astonishing 14 stops.

You can click on the image below to hear the ever energetic Mitch Gross explain some of the details to NYCPPNEW’s Joe Herman.

Andy Shipshides, manager of Abel’s Training Department, followed up with an explanation of how the ARRIRAW recorder from Codex works in post production. Alexa Studio’s 4:3 12-bit images are huge at 12 MB each (the 16:9 frames are a little more manageable at 6.8 MB each). Codex creates virtual files out of the ARRIRAW image stream, allowing you to output in DPX, ARI, AVI, MOV, MXF, and other formats.

For more info, here’s Arri’s own page on the Alexa Studio.

Words & Video by Joe Herman and Dan Ochiva

Tagged as: AbelCine, Alexa, anamorphic, ARRI, camera, Studio, wide-screen