Why DP Federico Annicchiarico relied on ARRI equipment for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Robot”

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Robot” is the directorial debut of Italian actor Marco Bocci who used his very own novel “A Tor Bella Monaca non piove mai” (In Tor Bella Monaca never rains) as inspiration for the film. At times dramatic, at times ironic, this picture was shot in the suburban neighborhood of Rome, Tor Bella Monaca, and follows the daily life of Mauro, a 35-year-old man and his family.

Federico Annicchiarico has always chosen ARRI´s ALEXA cameras for his projects. For this one he relied on ALEXA Mini: “We realized that we needed to use ALEXA Mini after the on-site inspection. The main set was a 40-square-meter apartment on the 14th floor of a tall tower located in the suburbs. The spaces were small and reduced. I could touch the ceiling if I took a small jump. In that moment, we understood that we had to choose appropriate equipment to fit the space. The ALEXA Mini seemed to be the right piece of equipment to tell a story like this. Also, 70 to 80 percent of the feature needed to be shot with a hand-held camera, so we needed an ergonomic and lightweight tool.”

The shooting lasted seven weeks starting from October 2018, in which the crew was heavily influenced by various external forces: “We shot day and night, frequently outdoors and mainly in October which is not summer and not quite winter,” Annicchiarico commented. The filming location, Tor Bella Monaca, was hit hard by bad weather and gusts of wind that affected the entire city of Rome, causing not only trees to collapse but also took victims. There were plenty of challenges during the production phase due to the difficulty of shooting directly on location. Annicchiarico commented: “It was a difficult film to shoot. We decided to film in a rather degraded suburb of Rome. Here we had the opportunity to talk with the residents, wonderful people who must learn to exist with the disadvantages and discomforts of a difficult suburb.”

Despite the difficult conditions, Annicchiarico relied on ARRI to get the best results: “With the ALEXA, I feel confident about getting the best out of any location with minimal additional support.” In this feature, the need was to act rapidly. He added: “We walked into people’s houses and had to shoot the scene wasting as little time as possible. In these scenarios, ALEXA Mini helped us a lot.”

Francesco Argenziano, Camera Operator for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Robot,” in talking about the aesthetic taste of the director, specified that he very often found himself shooting in narrow spaces because a dirty frame with objects and scenes was preferred: “Luckily ALEXA Mini could be easily placed anywhere and this greatly facilitated getting the job done.”

The ergonomics and flexibility of ALEXA Mini made it possible to create high-level images, the DP remembers a scene shot at night in an abandoned hangar: “We put the camera in a 40 x 40 space and we still managed to bring home beautiful shots taken through those perforated bricks.”