At our recent AbelCine EXPO: Innovations in Lighting, cinematographer David Mullen, ASC spoke about the more unusual lighting challenges from some of the feature films and television series he has photographed. In the excerpt above, David explains how he dealt with the stylized photographing of an exterior daytime landscape that was actually a huge indoor set while shooting The Smell of Success.

ARRI is now offering three ALEXA cameras with a 4:3 Super-35 sensor designed for anamorphic: ALEXA Plus 4:3, ALEXA Studio and ALEXA M. The ALEXA Plus 4:3 offers many of the same features as the ALEXA Studio, including the anamorphic desqueeze license, high-speed license and DNxHD license. However, it still has an electronic viewfinder, as opposed to the spinning mirror optical viewfinder system found in the ALEXA Studio.

A few weeks ago Arri dropped off their new MFF-2 follow focus for us to play with. I spent some time looking at the features and differences between the MFF-2 and the popular MFF-1 follow focus.

When Arri released the SUP 4.0 firmware for the ALEXA, they also added the ability to create color 'Looks' to load into the camera. These Look files are similar to scene files found in other cameras, but they aren't burned into the Log C recording of the camera. Instead, they can be used in post by converting them to LUTs using Arri's LUT Generator. These looks then travel as metadata with the clips recorded (through the XML file). Look files can be created by saving a still from the camera and loading it into the Arri Look Creator, which can then modify the still and output a look.

Canon's much anticipated EOS C300 is a modular Super-35 sized sensor camera available in both PL and EOS (EF) mount. The modular nature and size of the C300 means the camera can live in many configurations - from the fully decked out studio camera to a light-weight run-&-gun setup.

It's been another exciting year in our industry, with lots of evolutionary and revolutionary changes. Many of the trends we've seen coming for the past several years came to fruition in 2011, leaving some to wonder what comes next. Let's take a look back and see if it can help inform us a bit on what's to come in 2012.

ARRI's latest lighting innovation is the L7 series of LED-based Fresnels. The line is made up of three fixtures: the L7-T (3200K tungsten-balanced), the L7-D (5400K daylight-balanced), and the L7-C (color-controllable). The L7-C can be adjusted from 2700K-10000K, with an additional green/magenta control. It also features a "Hue Mode" for theatrical color effects.

ARRI has released their Anamorphic De-squeeze download license for purchase. This eagerly anticipated license for the ALEXA will correct the "squeeze" effect that occurs when shooting with anamorphic lenses. With the license installed, ALEXA and ALEXA Plus cameras with the Software Update Packet (SUP) 4.0 can now readily accept anamorphic lenses with 1.3x or 2x magnification.

The ARRI ALEXA has become so popular that many clients are asking to use it in ways outside of the traditional Digital Cinema market. Documentary and ENG-style productions, long the playground of 2/3" cameras, are now beginning to use the ALEXA. With this demand, AbelCine has worked to adapt the camera to the style of "One Man Band," everything-on-the-camera shooting.