Director Joss Whedon and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey recently employed Arri Alexa cameras in a Codex/ArriRaw workflow to capture principal photography for Marvel’s The Avengers. Produced by Marvel Studios the Super Hero saga was released worldwide by Walt Disney Studios and is on its way to major success. Marvel’s The Avengers is the first digitally captured film for McGarvey whose previous credits include The Soloist Atonement and The Hours. In order to become comfortable with the new technology the cinematographer conducted detailed tests with the Arri camera and the Codex workflow technology during pre-production. “Shooting ArriRaw with the combination of Arri Alexa cameras and Codex Onboard Recorders made the transition to digital easy ” he says. “Everything worked flawlessly and the images look amazing.” On set production D.I.T. Danny Hernandez managed four Codex Onboard Recorders on his cart. He recorded CDL (color decision list) values to the Onboards along with the media from the cameras. McGarvey supervised color applications on set and the looks he established were communicated to Efilm the post facility handling dailies processing and final digital intermediate work. Editorial was located near-set and was equipped with a Codex Digital Lab. Editorial crew checked and fixed all the metadata and made back-up copies of the ArriRaw files to LTO-5 tape. The data-packs from the Codex recorders were then sent to Efilm for dailies processing. Bruce Markoe senior vice president post production of Marvel Studios says “Having a Codex Digital Lab in editorial was invaluable not only to speed dailies processing but also to streamline visual effects. Visual effects utility shots such as tiling and color charts were restored from LTO-5 tape using an EDL and quickly sent to the appropriate visual effects facilities saving time and money.”
