Bright Shiny Things

I stood at the camera prep station in Burbank, California. The other two posts held the top of the line latest digital camera. The Arri Alexa to be specific. These are studio production cameras, roughly $84,000 for the body alone. I knew this since I have a friend who works for Arriflex. The Los Angeles headquarters. Me…I was standing by my Arriflex BL-4. I purchased this through…a circular. It’s called In Sync magazine (not to be confused with the band). This camera was introduced in the late 80s-1990’s and discontinued around the 2000’s. The old friend was the first camera I’d ever shot in 35mm film. It was for my student thesis film. It’s hard to think that at one point someone had paid over $100,000 for this camera. It’s not hard to believe once you see it, since it is a tank of a camera. Precision engineering from the Germans. A beautiful piece of hardware. I stare at it wondering what the first person who ever uncrated the camera must’ve thought. What movies it must’ve shot. What stories it could tell. That’s the nature of motion picture cameras. What ran through the camera now exists out there.

Sorry to romanticize it, but it beats the floating files of digital numbers that are now prevalent in movies today. There is a heartless nature of something so tangible not running through a machine. Instead now, it’s translations in the ether.

I stood there next to my camera. A beat up old fighter. The patina had worn off on the machine. Chips of paint falling off. It’s scars that showed its decades of use. Its loyalty. Slogging and puttering for the next ride. It’s a warhorse, abandoned for the shinier machine with so many more buttons.