ARRI, 12 Points: How Eurovision 2026 Was Shot on 24 ALEXA 35 Live Cameras
For the first time ever, the Eurovision Song Contest was shot entirely on cinema cameras. We spent more than six weeks embedded with ARRI to document how 24 ALEXA 35 Live systems took over the world's biggest live music event, watched by roughly 180 million people. ARRI defines how movies look. The vast majority of Oscar-winning films are shot on ALEXA, yet in live broadcast, a world ruled for decades by Grass Valley and Sony, the company had essentially zero presence. Eurovision 2026, hosted by ORF at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, became the most demanding proving ground imaginable: 24 ALEXA 35 Live cameras across box lenses, Steadicams, wireless rigs, remote dollies, cable cams, and giant telescopic cranes, all matched and shaded live. This documentary follows the entire journey, from cameras hand-built out of milled aluminum and titanium in Munich, to integration into an OB van designed for completely different cameras, to a custom look pipeline that treated each of the 35 competing songs like its own live music video (over 50 looks in total). We don't skip the hard parts either: the friction over creative control, the physics of B4 lens light loss, the network-traffic surprises, the tally bugs fixed on site, and the one broken cable that froze a frame during the grand final. Featuring ARRI's Sean Dooley, Jannik Abelt, Thomas Stoschek, and colorist Florian Rettich, NEP's Erhard Thüringer, ORF's Michael Kogler and Max Meissl, and Riedel Communications CEO Thomas Riedel on the acquisition that brought cinema cameras and broadcast infrastructure under one roof. A CineD production in collaboration with ARRI.
– by Jürg – Watch on YouTube
