When IndieWire conducted its annual survey of all the cameras used by cinematographers at the Sundance Film Festival, a striking trend quickly emerged: Over 75 percent of the DPs with narrative films at the festival utilized either the Arri Alexa Mini or its large format sibling, the Alexa Mini Lf, as their camera of choice.
The Mini was introduced in 2015 as a compact version of the Alexa designed primarily for use on drones and gimbals, but its combination of a traditional Alexa sensor with increased mobility eventually led to its use as the A camera on Hollywood studio movies like “A Star is Born” and “Get Out” — and now, it seems, for a majority of cinematographers in the independent realm.The Mini’s presence in independent film began to be felt at Sundance’s 2017 iteration, where festival favorites “Patti Cake” and “Thoroughbreds,” among others, were captured with the camera.
“It was a very ambitious shoot,
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