Arri - History

History

Arri was founded in Munich, Germany as Arnold & Richter Cine Technik in 1917, named after founders August Arnold and Robert Richter. They produce professional motion picture equipment, movie cameras and cinematic lighting equipment. Hermann Simon mentioned this company in his book Hidden Champions of the 21st Century as an example of a "Hidden Champion".

In 1924 Arnold and Richter developed their first film camera, the small and portable Kinarri 35. In 1937 Arri introduced the world's first reflex mirror shutter in the Arriflex 35 camera, an invention of their longtime engineer Erich Kästner. This technology employs a rotating mirror that allows a continuous motor to operate the camera while providing parallax-free reflex viewing to the operator, and the ability to focus the image by eye through the viewfinder, much like an SLR camera for still photography. This technology is still employed today in almost every motion picture camera. The first Hollywood film to employ an Arriflex was in 1947 for Dark Passage, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Over the years, more than 17,000 Arriflex 35s were built.

At the same time, the company manufactured light-weight and portable cameras for both news and war photography, as well as feature film production in the 1960s which saw an increase in shooting on location rather than in a studio. The introduction of the Arriflex-16ST camera revolutionized the 16 mm format as a cheaper news-gathering and television medium, and the Arriflex-35BL provided a lightweight, quiet alternative to the rather heavy and cumbersome blimped cameras of the time. The headquarters in Munich also expanded to include sound stages, audio dubbing studios, production offices and a lab. Developments in lighting also continued. In 1972, Arri pioneered the development of daylight luminaires with the Arrisonne 2000 W.

While Arri manufactures and designs its own motion picture cameras, lenses are supplied by the Carl Zeiss group and Fujinon, unlike its rival Panavision which manufactures both its own cameras and lenses for exclusive use with each other. Arri's relationship with Panavision is somewhat unique, as Panavision is both Arri's largest rival (as an equipment manufacturer) and largest customer (as a camera rental house).

With their Arrilaser, they expanded into post-production equipment and in 2000 purchased Moviecam to refine their new camera platform Arricam. Arri developed the Arriflex D-21 high definition camera. The camera uses a 35 mm CMOS sensor (instead of CCD) to allow cinematographers to utilize standard 35 mm lenses. This technology was further developed and improved for the Arri Alexa camera. Other recent products of note include the Arriflex 235, a compact 35 mm camera; the Master Prime lens series; the Ultra 8R, an 8 mm rectilinear lens; L-Series LED lights; the Arrimax, an HMI light which can use 18 kW or 12 kW bulbs; and the Arriflex 416, a 16 mm camera optimized for high-end production.