Arri-news 2014

Cinematographer and AMIRA owner Johann Perry recently filmed a short documentary about a Ghanaian youth soccer team that gets the opportunity to play in an English tournament. The 12-minute film, titled My First International , was commissioned by the agency AKQA and produced by Firecracker Films in London. It forms part of the Vodafone Firsts campaign, a series of branded documentary shorts, and was completed in just four shooting days. What drew you to AMIRA? As soon as I saw that ARRI was releasing a camera with well thought-out ergonomics and the beautiful ALEXA image, I ordered one. It was like having an ARRIFLEX 16SR 3 back on my shoulder again. That’s how we used to work in documentaries, with a lovely little camera tucked in to our shoulder and feeling like we could capture anything because we weren’t fighting our tools. After 15 years or so, it’s exciting to get back to that. So you were able to be responsive in your camerawork? Being responsive is the most important thing on every shoot I do. In documentaries you have to be ready to go, because anything can happen; I want to get the camera on a tripod or on my shoulder as quickly as humanly possible. I probably work about 150 days a year on totally different kinds of projects. You don’t want to be spending a lot of time re-jigging your system for tomorrow’s shoot; you want to be able to use the same camera day in, day out. With other cameras you can end up needing multiple bodies in different configurations, but the AMIRA adapts quickly to any situation. Were you operating the camera on your own? I’ve been doing my own focus for 15 years and I prefer to work that way. The peaking function in the AMIRA viewfinder is “The AMIRA adapts quickly to any situation.” DP Johann Perry captures with AMIRA on a documentary produced for the Vodafone Firsts campaign IN GHANA WITH AMIRA 16 ARRI NEWS