DP James Butler talks about shooting this film on the URSA Cine 17K 65’s RGBW sensor, using vintage anamorphic lenses and a Blackmagic Cloud pipeline, recording Blackmagic RAW at 8K.
Bedlam is an independent film made by director Jon Sheikh and cinematographer James Butler, set in the harsher side of 1750s London. Bare knuckle boxer Jack Slack attempts to free his sister from the notorious asylum for the insane that gives the film its name, occupying a world defined by firelight, smoke and tight, limited interiors, all of which placed heavy demands on the cinematography.
The director’s vision, and the story itself, called for the dramatic sequences to carry as much narrative impact as the film’s fight scenes, which meant the visual approach needed to support that balance with consistency and detail. Furthermore, for James, 18th century London took the production further back into history than his experience of shooting period settings had taken him.
Making the Jump to Large Format
To make the most of this opportunity, he was taken by the idea of shooting in 65mm, believing it offered the presence and texture required for the story. His long-standing interest in medium format photography made the jump to large format cinematography an opportunity he couldn’t resist. But because 65mm cameras had long been prohibitively expensive for indie budgets, finding an affordable camera system would be his main hurdle ahead of the shoot.
Early on, with the best part of a year before pre-production began in earnest, James began exploring whether the Blackmagic Design URSA Cine 17K 65 digital film camera could be the answer to this puzzle. “Since I’ve always loved medium format because of the way it renders faces and depth, it felt as though this camera could be the right match for this story,” he said.
The production opted for two URSA Cine 17K 65 for A and B camera work, and the Blackmagic Design PYXIS 12K for stunt sequences.
Cloud Based Dailies
Testing the URSA Cine 17K 65 gave James an opportunity to sample and evaluate a fully integrated Blackmagic RAW pipeline from onset capture to editorial, running DaVinci Resolve Studio. When and where connectivity allowed, proxy uploads were sent to Blackmagic Cloud during principal photography.
The production hired its assembly editor on day one. Working from London, he and his assistant received proxies as they came in, syncing and rough cutting scenes while the shoot proceeded. Producer Kevin Harvey monitored progress from his home studio in Essex using Davinci Resolve on a calibrated reference monitor. “Kevin became an extra pair of eyes,” James said. “He could review scenes earlier in the process and offer feedback that could help the story.”
This daily feedback loop meant the team could review progress during the shoot and plan pickups while the sets were still intact and the cast available. For James, that was the real advantage of running all stages of production inside DaVinci Resolve Studio via Blackmagic Cloud. It ‘closed the loop’ creatively and helped avoid discovering missing pieces months later in the edit.
Resolution and the RGBW Sensor
“What I like about Blackmagic’s RGBW sensor is that it’s genuinely scalable in terms of resolution,” said James. “Regardles of the resolution, you’re always reading the whole 65mm sensor. Because there’s no crop to manage, you keep the native field of view and that expressive, shallow depth of field look in every frame.”
Recognising that recording the film in 17K RAW was going to be impractical, the production evaluated 12K and 8K capture, using the codec’s option to strike a balance between image quality and storage efficiency. They could compare compression ratios using Blackmagic Design’s data calculator. James noted that, for their purposes, the difference between 3:1 and 5:1 was negligible, and because Bedlam was not VFX heavy, the production opted for 8K at 5:1,.
Once these decisions were made, the London post team were able to begin cutting while the shoot continued, accelerating the overall schedule. “If you can build a robust feature film workflow that cuts costs at multiple points – that is, dailies, storage and finishing – it makes a huge difference for independent productions like Bedlam.”
Customising for Light
James researched the light sources available in 1750 and concluded that scenes would rely on combinations of sunlight, moonlight and fire. “The upper levels had softer blues and whites, and it grew harsher as you moved down to eye level and lower,” he said.
The lowest level of Bedlam depended almost entirely on real flame, which pushed the camera into the bottom end of its latitude. Working at around 1250 ISO in those sequences, James and the DIT Mark Kozlowski were often operating at the edge of what they were willing to risk for lighting, but still within a range they knew would hold together in the grade. “Rather than underexposing into noise and trying to recover it later, we deliberately gave ourselves a little extra exposure on set and then brought the blacks down in Resolve for clean, structured shadows,” noted James.
Clarity and Emotional Weight
Lens coverage was another critical decision. A consensus of opinion concluded that the standard Hawk65 anamorphic lenses would achieve the correct look for the project’s visual direction. Consequently, building a robust rig around the camera involved further customisation.
The URSA Cine 17K 65 paired with the large format anamorphics formed a substantial, weighty package that needed to operate across cranes, tripods and studio builds. James’ team collaborated with Hawk and Ratworks Engineering to design a full cage system compatible with the production’s support requirements.
Depth of field management also played an important role during production because James preferred to avoid extremely shallow focus to keep characters rooted within the environments. Lenses were generally held between T4 and T5.6, stabilising the backgrounds and maintaining continuity across scenes.
He recalls one key sequence in particular, lit by a single diffused moonlight source, where the combined effect of the sensor and anamorphic glass delivered the desired clarity and emotional weight. “It was a simple portrait, but the image gave us exactly what we needed to carry the importance and emotion of the scene,” he said.
By the last day of principal photography, all material was already ingested into a shared DaVinci Resolve project. Mark Kozlowski, the DIT, had backed everything up, applied monitoring grades and turned over proxies, so that only a few days after wrap, James could sit down with the director and watch a full assembly of the film – something he said he had never had access to so quickly on a feature. www.blackmagicdesign.com
