Making a movie of any kind, scripted or otherwise, is a massive endeavor. Not only do you need to assemble the right team, but you also need to figure out budgets, manage every shooting day carefully, and prepare for every eventuality. So while the PetaPixel team may have the camera and editing skills, the multitude of other factors usually preclude us from actually making a movie. So, when the opportunity was presented, we jumped on it.
In April, we were approached by Fujifilm with an offer: in exchange for putting the upcoming GFX Eterna 55 Cinema Camera through its paces, we could make a movie of our choosing and they would support us. We didn’t see a downside here, as the best way for us to understand how the Eterna would work in the field was to put it in an actual production. It’s one thing to shoot the GFX Eterna 55 in a studio and run tests on it and entirely another to throw it to the wolves, so to speak, and really test it in a production.
Full Disclosure: This film and the entire production were made possible thanks to the support of Fujifilm, AbelCine, The Boat Company, and Orvis.
The Setup
We decided that, given our particular skills and a relatively short time frame, a documentary would be the best bet for us. Using this camera on a production was going to take us way outside of our comfort zones, so we needed help.
Over the next three and a half months, the PetaPixel team worked in collaboration with Pairadox Studios, AbelCine, and Fujifilm to plan logistics while we internally worked on the plan for our documentary. AbelCine was our rental house and is where we got a majority of our equipment. Pairadox Studios acted as producer, coordinating flights, timelines, and communications with all relevant parties so that we could focus on the “meat” of the film, so to speak. Fujifilm was pretty hands-off when it came to the actual production, only making sure we had access to experts who could help us plan out the equipment needs and train us on the camera. The rest was up to us.
Since so much was going to be new to us, we decided to focus our documentary on a familiar subject: Chris Niccolls. We wouldn’t be telling the same kind of story we always do, however, and instead look at his lesser-known hobby, fly fishing. That said, as we developed this documentary, Chris and I realized that the better story was going to be tying fly fishing to his career choice and his life. The result would be a deeply personal story that we hoped would share themes that many viewers could resonate with.
The film is called No Guarantees, which is a common theme between fly fishing, photography, and fatherhood.
So, with a topic decided on, we moved on to figuring out a location. Thanks to our friends at Orvis, we landed on Alaska and a boat tour with the only not-for-profit cruise line in the world: The Boat Company. This way, we would be able to see multiple areas of Alaska during a salmon run, giving us excellent access not only to an abundance of fish but also a variety of backdrops. It was a perfect fit. Hunter McIntosh, President and Executive Director of The Boat Company, graciously donated space on the Liseron, a converted World War II-era minesweeper, so that we could make our production. No Guarantees would not have been possible without him, and we are extremely grateful to him and his entire crew.
The Boat Company has been an avid supporter of maintaining the beauty of the Tongas National Forest and since the company’s inception in 1979, the business has spent more than $30 million supporting the preservation of this natural area.
The Equipment
“The opportunity to shoot a documentary on Fujifilm’s GFX Eterna 55 Cinema Camer camera was immediately exciting to me, since I’ve been shooting with compact mirrorless cameras primarily for the last decade. The chance to use professional filmmaking lenses, accessories, and techniques was a welcome change of pace from the run-and-gun style I typically use when shooting the PetaPixel YouTube show. However, excitement at the potential is one thing, the actual process of shooting the documentary was another altogether!” Jordan Drake, cinematographer and lead camera operator for No Guarantees, explains.
“Shooting with a cinema camera when you have access to a few trucks and a large crew means the required accessories are no big deal, but shooting in Alaska and not being able to ship anything up beforehand meant we had to be incredibly selective about the equipment we brought. Fortunately, I had a couple of days in Portland at the incredible Koerner Camera rental house to whittle our camera package down to the essentials. Fujifilm’s Matthew Weintritt met me in Portland, and was invaluable in helping me choose a camera package (and explain the operation of professional tools I hadn’t laid eyes on in nearly a decade). One early decision was that the camera would exclusively be on a tripod or handheld. Not only did this keep our kit size down, but I felt tripod shots fit well with the contemplative nature of fly-fishing, contrasting with the handheld intensity when a fish is on the line.”
Matthew was invaluable on this production and not only acted as a second camera operator but also as the production’s Technical Director, making sure that the cameras worked properly and that we chose the right equipment to support the GFX Eterna 55Cinema Camera.
“The most exciting thing about the GFX Eterna 55 Cinema Camera for me was the ability to explore a variety of lenses with different characteristics. The massive 44 x 33mm sensor means it’s big enough for nearly any lens, and it has a wide variety of crops and resolutions to support many lenses designed for smaller coverage. For this project, I was excited to try using the Atlas Mercury 1.5x anamorphic lenses. While designed for ‘full frame,’ the 95mm T2.2 could be used in the 4:3 open gate mode with no expander required. The 42mm required the use of a 1.4x expander, but the image from both lenses was lovely and immediately attention-grabbing,” Jordan explains.
It was really surprising to me how many lenses cover the GFX Eterna 55 Cinema Camera’s large sensor. I went into this expecting to be limited to medium-format glass, but quickly realized there were many other options available to us.
“We were also incredibly fortunate to be able to test the new Sigma Aizu 35mm and 65mm T1.3 lenses. These offered a very clean, sharp look, even wide open, that made isolating a particular subject extremely easy. Surprisingly, both of these lenses were able to cover the 16:9 full width of the GFX Eterna 55’s sensor,” Jordan continues.
As director of this film, I wanted to use a mixture of spherical and anamorphic lenses to give different scenes unique “looks.” I was very pleased that the Atlas Mercury lenses were an option, but I was equally as excited about Sigma’s new Aizu Primes. Not all covered the sensor (this is pretty common at the wide end), but the 35mm and 65mm worked great and looked spectacular. Some of my favorite shots came from the Aizu Primes, and I am particularly impressed with the gorgeous focus fall off. Sigma has made some truly lovely optics for cinematographers.
“The NiSi Athena primes completed our cinema lens package,” Jordan adds. “These 25-85mm T1.9 lenses also gave us full width coverage in 16:9 and were surprisingly compact for such fast lenses, and I was particularly enamoured with the 85mm, which we used less for close ups and more often for dramatic full body compositions with shallow depth of field. These were quite prone to flare, though, so I was happy to have a Kondor Blue 4×5 Matte Box. I’d previously only used rail-mount matte boxes, and truly enjoyed the experience of being able to mount the box directly to the lens.”
Because we knew we were going to want some telephoto compression, we made sure we had some native GF lenses, too.
“Finally, we brought a collection of Fujifilm GF lenses. The 100-200mm f/5.6 and 500mm f/5.6 were in constant rotation, and finding comparable compact cinema optimized telephotos that could cover this giant sensor would be nearly impossible. I really enjoyed using the telephotos for very wide compositions, to emphasize the isolation and beauty of Alaska.”
Other than lenses, both Jordan and I spent the weeks leading up to the production thinking about the kinds of shots we could get with what the GFX Eterna 55 Cinema Camera was capable of capturing, especially considering our subject.
“Prior to departing for Alaska, Chris recommended several fly fishing documentaries for me to watch for visual inspiration. While there were distinct visual styles in all of them, one constant emerged: slow motion,” Jordan explains.
“Many of these films played out entirely in slow motion aside from the interview clips. I was concerned that high frame rate recording would require cropping the GFX Eterna 55’s giant sensor, limiting the advantages of using a medium format camera, but there is a full-width 4K/60P mode, which we were able to rely on extensively.”
Filming in Alaska
Alaska is a spectacular backdrop, but it is also unpredictable. We had to nail down our shooting dates months in advance, which meant that we had no idea what kind of weather we were in for when we arrived.
“The weather and environment were the biggest challenges of this project. Our first four shooting days took place in the pouring rain, and we had no idea how the GFX Eterna 55 and all our accessories would fare in those conditions,” Jordan explains.
“Obviously, while we had two cameras for this project, losing one would set us back enormously. The rain bags we ordered did not fit the camera at all, so our solution was to use a few garbage bags acquired in Juneau to transport the camera, and then some wonderful Cap It! brand camera shower caps while operating. That kept the rain from falling on the gear, but I was also concerned about condensation in the bags, as my body heat made the space around the camera feel like it was in a sauna. Fortunately, none of the equipment was damaged by the elements.”
Cinema gear tends not to be weather-sealed, and that goes for the other equipment we used. Because we would be operating in the wilds and with two cameras, I knew that we were going to need to have a reliable way to communicate with each other. I didn’t love the idea of trying to shout at each other across rivers, so I reached out to Hollyland, and they provided the Solidcom SE headset system. I didn’t know what to expect because my only experience with similar headsets were very old and cheap systems used by local news teams that I happened to see back when I was in college. Boy, technology sure has improved because these were great.
Not only did these headsets have incredible range, but they took an absolute beating out in the rain. Jordan frequently did not use a hood, so his head and the Solidcom headsets were just taking the full brunt of the weather. On one of our shoot days that we dedicated to the photography portion of the documentary, we took skiffs out right next to a glacier. Not only was the rain coming down in sheets, but this was easily the coldest day we had encountered. We stayed warm and dry thanks to gear from Orvis, but the cameras and our equipment were really put to the test.
Everything made it back to the boat unscathed.
On days it wasn’t raining, I was able to take advantage of another tool from Hollyland: the Pyro S system. This is a wireless video feed transmission device that let me quickly swap between feeds from Jordan and Matthew’s cameras so that I, as director, could provide feedback on shots as they happened. Because of how mobile we were and how far away from one another we often found ourselves, the Pyro S was pivotal in conjunction with the Solidcom headsets for proper coordination.
“My other struggle with this project was focus. I consider myself a pretty good focus puller, but using the large rig handheld meant I couldn’t support the camera and adjust focus on the lens itself. I’ve used a variety of follow focus solutions before, but this was my first time using the Tilta Nucleus control handle, and it took a considerable amount of time for me to get used to it,” Jordan explains.
“When Chris would pull a big fish out of the water, and I ran in with a wide-angle, it was a source of frustration on the first few days when I would overshoot the focus pull. Fortunately, Matt did a great job on the second camera and Chris caught an endless series of fish, making this less of a concern if it took an extra second for me to find focus.”
When we left for Alaska, I came prepared with a ton of storage, which was graciously loaned to us by OWC. I packed 20 CFexpress cards, all with 1TB capacity, along with four redundant 8TB OWC SSDs that we could use to back up the project. I was extremely nervous about losing footage, so it was my intention that we have four copies of the project at all times, and four different people would leave Alaska each with a full copy of what we shot.
Given Jordan’s previous history with filming Chris fishing, we were prepared for hours of “wait and see” footage, which is why we brought so many CFexpress cards. Luckily, fishing a salmon run (especially a pink salmon run) is far more akin to “catching” than “fishing,” and on multiple occasions, we could set up a shot we wanted, ask Chris to catch a fish, and he could basically do it on command. This was not what we expected going into this, but you’re not going to catch a single one of us complaining.
Every day, Alex Mitchell — who mainly managed our sound and was an incredible resource on set — took both memory cards from both cameras (along with any of the other footage captured by our BTS cameraman Dima Koshutin) and backed them up. We would also sit together and watch “dailies” once this was done, and would take notes on shots we had not yet gotten and shots we wanted to get again, allowing us to make sure we got everything we needed for the documentary.
“Lighting was a big concern for me when prepping the shoot, but the lights went largely unused due to the soft, diffused light we had for most of the trip,” Jordan explains.
“For Chris’s interviews, we actually wound up using black cloth or a black reflector for some negative fill to add contrast, but otherwise the film was lit with natural light. When bright sunlight would break through, I actually found that the light reflected off the water Chris was usually standing in would give enough fill light that his face wasn’t lost to shadows.”
Scenes from Alaska (Shot on Hasselblad XPan and Fujifilm TX-1)
Post Production
Getting all the gear out of Alaska was just as challenging as getting it in, but once we were back and all the rental equipment was back in the mail, it was time to get on to the edit. That’s where our post-production team, led by Post Relativity, came into play.
“While we were fortunate enough to use a professional colorist, Marie Richardson, to grade the final film, I couldn’t help but play with the F-Log2 C files a bit myself. What I found were extremely flexible files with a massive amount of dynamic range. Fujifilm’s F-Log2 C to Eterna LUT provides a great starting point and I can’t imagine that Raw video would provide much of an advantage in this situation,” Jordan, who is also acting as lead editor for the film, explains.
Music is also being custom composed by Abdul Tambal, and the initial composition for the trailer was made in tandem with Shearaton Carter.
“Overall, the process of shooting No Guarantees was incredibly satisfying. I had a chance to work with fantastic people in a stunning location, and I’m very happy with what we were able to capture. I look forward to showing off the final film after it finishes its festival run,” Jordan says.
No Guarantees is currently in post-production and is slated to be completed by mid-November 2025. Since we are planning to enter it into film festivals, we cannot publish it in its entirety until after it has completed the circuit.
Image credits: Photographs by Dima Koshutin, Jaron Schneider, Jordan Drake, and Matthew Weintritt
