In the spring of 2015, Trent Opaloch began a huge undertaking as director of photography on a new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The bar is set high – as a production unit, Marvel has been a smashing success – but one advantage is the solid workflow that Marvel has developed over the course of a dozen feature films.
Ant-Man is a comic-book superhero that uses a special suit to shrink in size while gaining in strength. In the latest Marvel creation for the big screen, Ant-Man’s adventures involve a battle against a foe that uses similar technology for nefarious ends. The project, directed by Peyton Reed and photographed by Russell Carpenter ASC, extends the strong and successful working relationship between Marvel and Codex. Issues of scale and how to convincingly present it to the audience dominated most of the decisions about cinematography and visual effects. For guidance, the filmmakers looked at films with similar characters going all the way back to Darby O’Gill and the Little People, photographed with extensive forced perspective and giant props in 1959 by Winton Hoch ASC.
Codex has once again collaborated with Arri to develop the recording and workflow system for Arri’s next evolution of the Alexa camera – the Alexa SXT.
Codex equipment is playing a key role in the making of ABC’s series Marvel’s Agent Carter. Codex has provided digital recording for director of photography Gabriel Beristain’s cameras, and has consulted with visual effects supervisor Sheena Duggal on the lens mapping, to assist VFX production. According to Duggal, this is the first TV show to use ArriRaw for main unit photography. Marvel’s Agent Carter marks the first time an ArriRaw workflow has been used extensively in series television.
Codex, Cooke Optics and The Pixel Farm plan to develop and deliver what the companies are calling the next generation of metadata capture for film and digital cinema cameras.
