Arri Alexa Mini 

Shot in ProRes 4444 

Lenses: Cooke S4’s 

 

 

 

 

In the planning stages of the film, Charlie Lilly and I talked a lot about shooting Large Format Anamorphic to really take advantage of the wide frame it offers and to combat working in a cramped location for the entirety of filming. 

 

However we quickly realised we needed a camera package that had a much smaller footprint, wider focal ranges and fast apertures for our night-time setting. We went with The Alexa Mini and the Cooke S4’s. 

 

The Cooke Lenses were the obvious choice for ‘Invasion’ for their edge-to-edge sharpness and consistent T2 aperture across the set. Given that our lead character wears a balaclava for the whole film, his eyes really needed to tell the emotional story.  

 

The Cooke S4’s offered a unique warmth to skin-tones that I felt was drastically needed to offer some life to the little skin-tones we had to play with against a cold moonlight. 

 

Charlie and I settled on a 2:39 aspect ratio to reference the feel of our original anamorphic intentions. 

 

The film was lit entirely by my own Aputure fixtures which, with their RGBWW LEDs, really allowed us to dial in the exact settings we needed to create everything from moonlight, fires, streetlights and police lights.