 Hey what is up? This is the Crimson Engine. My name is Rubidium. Today we are looking at why the Arri Alexa is the industry standard camera. Now I do not own a Alexa. I own a Canon C200 which I think is comparable with or almost as good as the Arri Alexa but just having to say that means that I'm comparing my camera to another and trying to say that it's as good as means that the Alexa is the one that everything else is compared to. If you're in Hollywood and you're shooting on anything but the Alexa you really need to tell people why because everyone just assumes the Alexa is the best out there. Brand recognition is probably the first reason that the Alexa established dominance in the cinema industry. The cameras it replaced were also made by the same company. So the Arri Flex 235 and those kind of 35 millimeter film cameras were the dominant on most feature films and when Alexa you know saw the way the wind was blowing saw that digital was coming they spent a lot of time and a lot of effort to create the best what they thought would be the best alternative to film. Now they were making a lot of money from film cameras so it really took courage for them to attack their own market dominance by bringing out a digital cinema camera especially when the digital cinema cameras that are out there were either super super expensive you know I'm talking about $150,000 to $200,000 worth or the red which was very finicky didn't have a lot of dynamic range certainly wasn't anywhere near what film was as far as quality and latitude was. That's not to say the first Alexa was cheap they were $50,000 and $60,000 and $70,000 cameras but by the time you paid for the higher of the film and the processing of the film the cost of having one on a film set was pretty even to having film I'm sure that's why they priced it that way so it wasn't a huge cost disadvantage or advantage it was just a different way of working in the digital environment. The big studios liked working digitally because it gave them more control of the final image when you shoot on film a lot of the colors all as beautiful as they are are baked into the negative whereas digital has a lot more latitude to push and pull and recolor because the Alexa was made to replace existing cameras that Ari also made it had all the same accessories it could just slot right into that space whereas the red and the early Panavision cameras needed a whole different infrastructure around them the first Alexa's could very easily take the space of the existing film cameras they required the same kind of teams to work with them they were the same kind of size you know they took the same lenses fit on the same dollies on the same cranes and it was a much smoother transition than having to start from scratch you know once the Alexa was used on a couple of big films and it was the first to be used on those big you know hundred million dollar plus feature films that Hollywood makes other productions jumped in and used that same camera because that's the one that had really broke ground as far as Hollywood was concerned red was in around the same time um Michael Mann shot collateral on the Viper camera and it had a very digital video-like aesthetic it certainly wasn't as filmic as the Alexa was I believe Drive was one of the first big films that they shot the Alexa on because it had a lot of nighttime scenes and the Alexa's base ISO of 800 is higher than the 500 of film what I really think pushed the Alexa over the edge was that into you know market dominance was that you could buy it yes you could buy the red but the red was a new company and Hollywood is kind of very conservative when it comes to you know new brands that they have to you know they spend a lot of money on productions they don't really want to go with the untried untested Alexa even though it was new technology came from a very trusted established brand and DOP started buying these cameras they would then push the productions to rent the cameras from them and shoot digitally Panavision also had a pretty big digital project for a while but like Panavision does you could only rent their cameras you couldn't buy them so DPs tended to push for the Alexa that they themselves owned so they could pay their camera off and then you make money on the back end and you know it turned into this synergistic circle for Alexa where their camera was used on a lot of productions then DPs bought the camera then they pushed other productions they were on to use that camera and it kind of goes round and round something that's worth mentioning um on at films at this scale is that cost isn't that big an issue when it comes to you know $500 versus $1,000 versus $1,500 a day if you're shooting like a typical feature film world for like 40 days you're getting a month and a half rentals so you're probably only paying for like three weeks so it's like the difference between $15,000 a thousand dollars a day and $7,500 or $500 a day on a hundred million dollar budget is is like a rounding error it's a very very small line item the rent of the camera it may be huge for indie filmmakers like us but for Hollywood you know cost is no issue they'd much rather go with something tried and true until the full format and the 65 came out you know the Alexa had been using the same sensor for almost 10 years and people still use it because they still loved it are there any cameras on the horizon that could unseat the Alexa as the as the dominant one I don't really think so as far as big productions are concerned I would definitely like to shoot my feature with my c200 because I know the camera I know how to work with the raw you know I've built up all these hours of experience with it but I think people now that like you guys learning on the c200 when you come to shoot your feature films you know once this camera goes full frame I would be you know super surprised if it doesn't at least take parity with the Alexa for smaller productions much like the red has for it much like the red has for sports footage they're my thoughts on the Alexa thanks for much watching leave your questions in the comments and I will see you next time