Roger Deakins on his journey to ARRI’s large format

Halfway down the Portobello Road in Notting Hill sits the Electric Cinema. One of the oldest cinemas in London, the Electric first opened its doors in 1911, survived World War Two, became a famous arthouse venue in the 1970s, and is now owned and operated by the Soho House chain. Normally off-limits as a shooting location, the management swiftly made an exception when ARRI asked if it would be possible to film an interview with Roger Deakins in the historic auditorium. Such is the respect for Deakins among film lovers.

So, not long after wrapping Sam Mendes’ highly anticipated World War One movie, “1917,” Deakins meets up with a small team from ARRI to talk about his experiences with new technology on the shoot. Accompanied by his wife, James, Deakins walks unassumingly into the theater wearing his trademark blue jeans and white button-down shirt, and chats with old friends from ARRI before sitting down for the interview.

Deakins is a career-long user of ARRI camera equipment. He started out with the ARRIFLEX 35BL 4 in the 1980s, moved on to the ARRIFLEX 535 B in the 1990s, ARRICAM in the 2000s, and made the transition to digital with ALEXA in the 2010s. His latest film, “1917,” marks another significant progression; it is Deakins’ first foray into large-format cinematography.

“The format, to me, feels more like my stills camera,” he says. “I have always been a stills photographer, really, since I was pretty young. So I feel more familiar with that format and that sort of depth of field than I do with regular [Super] 35.”

His experience with 35 mm stills, which is the same size format as full-frame cameras like the ALEXA LF and Mini LF, meant Deakins had an instinctive feel for how different focal lengths would behave. “It was the sense that you could shoot with a longer lens, get less depth of field, but still maintain the width of view,” he says. “I don’t like shooting close-ups of people on wide lenses. A 40 mm is very comfortable, I think, for shooting a close-up, unless you’re going intensely close. And that’s what drew me to it, really, the idea of shooting on a 40 mm but getting the width—getting the background at the same time.”

Another major advantage of the ARRI large-format system for Deakins is the low-light performance and lack of digital noise. “I was blown away, with the LF, by the difference if you shoot 1,600 [EI] or 3,200,” he says. “I know you can always underexpose, but there should be something like a 4,800 setting, because it’s remarkable, the image quality. Yes, you get a certain amount of noise at 3,200, but it’s minimal. On a future film I could quite imagine myself shooting the whole thing at that setting, to have that little bit of noise.”

For brighter scenes, Deakins made use of the ALEXA Mini LF’s internal FSND (full spectrum neutral density) filters. And where necessary, he supplemented them with matching external FSND filters made by ARRI with the same high-quality glass and coatings. “After 1.8 on most NDs, you start noticing shifts in the color and quality of the image,” he says. “But the NDs in the Mini LF are very, very clean, and we had a set of the same NDs to put in front of the lens…I was really pleased with them.”

At the same time as testing the ALEXA LF, Deakins also tested ARRI’s Signature Prime lenses, which are purpose-built for large-format digital cinematography. “I have always used primes, he says. “I started off with the Zeiss Distagons and Planars, then Cooke S4s, then I went to the Master Primes. So coming to the LF, we did a lot of tests with various lenses, but for me, the Signatures are the cleanest I’ve seen.”

“I don’t like vignetting; I don’t like breathing when I’m shifting focus,” continues Deakins. “I want the sharpest, the cleanest; I want a lens that shows the world, or records the world, the way I see it, which is—I’ve got pretty good eyesight, so it’s pretty sharp. The image that the LF and the Signature produces seems more like what my eyes see than anything else I’ve experienced so far.”