Mission Impossible Fallout was shot on an old super 35 film camera combined with a modern 8K digital camera. What’s more interesting is that the movie has been mastered in 4K, yet it is screened on an IMAX theaters. Read more below.
There are two cinematic – filmmaking interesting facts regarding the last Mission Impossible film.
First, the film was shot on the ARRIFLEX 235, second it was mastered to 4K.
The old and mighty ARRIFLEX 235
ARRIFLEX 235 is an old film super 35 film camera that has an extremely prestige heritage. Many Hollywood movies were made on it, some of them are classics for eternity. The ARRIFLEX 235 is the compact version of the ARRI cameras, as stated by ARRI:
The ARRIFLEX 235 is a small and lightweight 35 mm MOS film camera designed for handheld and remote applications
Using the ARRIFLEX 235 on a modern blockbuster is not very common anymore, since DPs prefer to shoot digital large format (have a look at a previous article to explore more about large format cinematography), and the ARRIFLEX 235 is film camera with a “small” super 35 sensor.
However,ARRIFLEX 235 is not the sole camera in this film. The other cameras are the Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 (also a film camera – picture below) and the Panavision Millennium DXL which can capture 8K.
Combination of 8K (Millennium DXL) and 4K (ARRIFLEX 235)
My two cents are, that the DXL was dedicated (in this movie) for special effects purposes, nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how 4K and 8K, film and digital, are stitched together.
4K master for IMAX?!
According to the IMDB tech spec, the film was mastered in 4K. Yet it’s screened on IMAX theaters. I saw the movie in a regular theater and it does look a bit soft to me, maybe because of the anamorphic lenses.
Final thoughts
As filmmakers we have to admire this kind of cinematography combination, means, not always aim for large format and higher resolution. The super 35 is still looks beautiful and 2k could be more than enough for you to tell a compelling story and deliver a vast entertaining film. Resolution and large format are not the most crucial factors when making a film! However, the most fascinating thing here, is the combination between different sensors, format, digital and film.
What are your thoughts about this combination of 8K, 4K, large format, super 35, film and digital? Let us know in the comments section below!
Great Article! I would love to know
what do you think the ‘HALO Jump’ scene was shot on. In the behind the scenes, there appears to be a rather ‘boxy’ camera attached to the helmet of the aerial cameraman, which to me appears to be some sort of a RED Weapon or an Arri Alexa Mini. Would love to know what your thoughts are.
It’s a RED DSMC2 8K camera.
HI Arjun,
The HALO (high altitude low opening) jump was shot on a Red Weapon 6K camera strapped to the cameraman’s head!
It’s a bit strange because no RED camera is mentioned in the IMDB tech spec. But it was the Red Weapon 6K.