Patek Philippe, maker of prestigious watches, has commissioned director Remi Faillant, and French production company Neo-Film Productions to make a short film to run at the new Patek Philippe museum which opens in Geneva later this year. Having successfully used digital for recent commercials for the brand, he has chosen to shoot in CineAlta HD.

Faillant needed to shoot huge quantities of footage to gain the effects he wanted. For each ten seconds he was shooting around half an hour of material. The CineAlta HDCAM camera allows him to maintain high quality, without spending too much.

Faillant believes that for some directors of photography, the fact that CineAlta HD cameras allow everyone on set to see the work in progress publicly on a monitor is intimidating. “For the first time everyone can have a look.”

The advantage of using CineAlta HD is that you are shooting what you see and relying less on the post production. “After the first work on the lighting you can then look on screen and maybe just go a step further because you can just say maybe a bit more lighting here or more warmth here,” says Faillant. “You can change the lighting or change the menu of the HDCAM. For the first time, the author is the person in charge.”