There’s a battle going on. And it’s a battle for credit between totally different cameras: The mighty high-end cinema camera ARRI ALEXA 65 versus the innovative prosumer Cinema LineSony FX3. What’s the camera behind the IMAX production, The Creator? According to Director Gareth Edwards, the answer is Sony FX3. (Update: The ALEXA 65 was never involved in this project). 

Update (2/8/23)

We got a response from ARRI stating: “For your Information: We at ARRI are not responsible for the wrong information on IMDB. In addition, the ALEXA 65 was never involved into this project”. 

The Creator: ARRI ALEXA 65 vs. Sony FX3

The Creator is an 80,000,000 USD movie shot by cinematographer Oren Soffer, with the help of DP Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC. Our previous article demonstrates that this film was shot on the Sony FX3, which is the first time an IMAX movie (film made for IMAX screening) is shot on a prosumer mirrorless camera. We based our evidence on an interview with Fraser that stated: “It’s an amazing prosumer camera. I’m about to use that on a film I’m shooting in Thailand (The Creator). I’m about to shoot the entire film on this camera. It’s so ridiculously that it’s so small. It has such a high ISO…in a much small camera”.  Furthermore, at the beginning, IMDB Tech Spec was mentioning the FX3 along with the ARRI ALEXA 65. Hence, many have assumed that the main camera was ALEXA 65, and the FX3 was a sort of crash cam. However, after a few weeks, the ARRI 65 was deleted from the IMDB Tech Spec, and the FX3 was the only one mentioned. Now, someone has erased the FX3, and the ARRI 65 appears to be the sole camera. Nevertheless, IMDB Tech Spec can be edited by anyone. Thus you should take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, in a series of interviews at Comic-Con, the film director clearly stated that the main camera is the Sony FX3. Additionally, Louis Leterrier, a fellow panelist at Comic-Con and director of Fast X, expressed enthusiasm, proclaiming the potential for this technology to “Transform cinema”. Proofs are below. 

Indeed, the main camera is Sony FX3

This is what The Creator director, Gareth Edwards, said at Comic-Con: “We had a camera that you can buy in Best Buy. We used the thing called a Sony FX3 and it’s the difference between a prosumer like the really good prosumer camera and the top top top cinema cameras you can buy is minuscule. Like they’re nearly identical and the upside of using this sort of prosumer camera was that we could shoot in moonlight. It’s so sensitive to light. You don’t need much light to do anything so we ended up using very small lightweight portable LED lights that you’ve got here to light scenes and stuff. We even got to the point where instead of having a boom holding a microphone we had people holding booms with the lights on the end so that we could quickly move around with the camera. They could quickly move the light and so we didn’t normally on a movie you’d wait 20 to 30 minutes for re-lighting, and so there was happening instantly”. Watch the whole interview below:

We shot The Creator on a new camera – it’s a Sony camera it’s called FX3. Pretty much the whole movie shot on this. It’s a camera you can buy at Best Buy. It looks like film. It’s full frame full IMAX resolution and has filmic really photographic quality to it.

Director Gareth Edwards – The Creator

Moore’s Law in cinema productions

Here’s another discussion with Edwards about Shooting The Creator on the FX3, as stated: “There’s always been this promise with technology with Moore’s Law. The difference between shooting on film making it a very expensive film, and what you might call a consumer a prosumer like the stuff you can buy in stores, is getting narrower and narrower. That gap is getting indistinguishable to some extent. We shot the Creator on a new camera – it’s a Sony camera it’s called FX3. Pretty much the whole movie shot on this. It’s a camera you can buy at Best Buy. It looks like film. It’s full frame full IMAX resolution and has filmic really photographic quality to it. It can shoot in Moonlight. I don’t know if you remember this with cameras, but you basically remember film stocks, and you would get like a 100 ASA or ISO and they were built to 800. If it was dark you might need an 800, or this does 12,800. You can shoot in moonlight and as a result, it meant that we didn’t need big massive lights so we had these LED lights that are just really lightweight. They’re kind of feather way and so you know like how people hold booms on a set we have um our gaffer kind of best boy Nancy was kind of holding a LED, and so we would like it by as could be really organic if suddenly the shot by the actors had this freedom and suddenly the shot looked better over here. Nancy would suddenly move around with the light and Aaron would be talking to Nancy through a little microphone and we were just really fluid and organic. We’d shoot for like 25 minutes at a time and it was like a very liberating experience. It looks like a much bigger film than it cost because of that reason”. Explore the full interview here:

Wrapping up

So we can conclude. After getting so much debris from readers how we dare to say that this film was shot on the little cheap Sony FX3, it appears that this is the main camera of the film. The director clearly says that they shot the whole movie with it. Hence, can someone please correct the IMDB tech Spec?

Update (2/8/23)

We got a response from ARRI stating: “For your Information: We at ARRI are not responsible for the wrong information on IMDB. In addition, the ALEXA 65 was never involved into this project”. 

Product List

Here are the products mentioned in the article, and the links to purchase them from authorized dealers. 

• Sony FX3 Full-Frame Cinema Camera
  • BUY on B&H
  • BUY on ADORAMA