“I could have the biggest budget in the world,” says Nicolai Brix, “but if the best story is 2km down the road from where I live, that’s where I’d make my film.” It’s a purist documentary perspective that comes from Nicolai’s lengthy background in photojournalism, but with his present work a hybrid of commercial stills and video, he still follows the same principles. So when asked to test out the Sony Alpha 1’s filmmaking credentials, what did he choose to shoot?

“Actually, I chose my nephew!” he laughs. “His name is Daniel Steen Nielsen and he’s on the Danish national trial bike team. He has these crazy skills, which you’ll see in the video. I’d never shot anything with him before,” he continues, “but I’d seen some pictures which I thought didn’t do him or the sport justice. So I thought, here’s my chance to turn this into a beautiful story.”

Beautiful is certainly not what you’d call the location where Daniel, Nicolai and his long-time assistant and friend, Torsten Froestrup, pitched up to shoot with the Alpha 1. “It was so ugly,” recalls Nicolai, “basically an old factory building in the middle of waste ground, with bad graffiti all over the place! But Daniel needed that place, because it had the jumps and obstacles to ride over. And I needed obstacles, too – challenges that would test my creativity and also be a good workout for the Alpha 1.”

To clean up the cluttered and scruffy factory and put all the emphasis on Daniel, Nicolai employed some simple and effective lighting. By controlling what light was in the scene and adding some of our own, we hid some things and highlighted others.” Placing two large LEDs lights outside the factory windows and fitting them with Fresnel lenses, Nicolai and Torsten mimicked sunlight while switching off all the internal lights. This created a powerful, low-key look with strong highlights picking out Daniel against shadow. Finally, he used a haze machine to build the atmosphere.

“I thought that all the contrast in the scene would be a tough test for the camera,” says Nicolai, “but the sensor handled it superbly. I was really surprised how much dynamic range I got out of it! It was very black in the shadows and really bright in the highlights, but it coped perfectly. I was shooting in S-Log 3 mode and manually overexposing by 1 to 1.5 stops, and it kept all the detail that I wanted.”

Slow motion plays a big part in Trial, and it’s something Nicolai was keen to try out on the Alpha 1, with its stunning 100fps 4K and 240fps Full HD modes. “For a project like this, where slow motion suits the story, it’s perfect. It really helps you see the elegance and the control that Daniel has over the bike. I used the 100fps speed and it looks so good, but that’s all down to suiting the subject. 240fps is an amazing tool to have, and though it would have been too slow for this project, I’ll be looking for one where I can really use it to the full.”

Nicolai found it easy to move around following Daniel with his camera on a gimbal and, with its in-body image stabilisation, he shot handheld, too. “I wanted to contrast this ultra-smoothness when he’s tackling these obstacles,” he explains, “with purely handheld sequences, too. The Alpha 1’s IBIS really helped with that, cutting out micro vibrations, but leaving the natural feel, so I could get a more human and dynamic look to the closeups.”

With all that movement, and shooting at wide apertures, Nicolai made use of the Alpha 1’s subject tracking autofocus. “95% of the film is shot with autofocus!” he exclaims, “and that’s crazy for me because normally I do a balance of AF and manual. All I needed to follow Daniel was to tap him on the monitor and the camera did the rest, locking onto his face or a part of the bike. Every time I used it, I trusted it more and more.”

From the creative strength of a team, to a camera that can tackle any subject on its own, the Alpha 1 was the perfect tool for Nicolai’s project. “As well as my video work,” he finishes, “I’m still shooting stills, so this is the perfect piece of kit for me. It’s really the complete camera, because it combines pro video specs like 4K 100p and 8K 30p, with the best quality stills you can get. All of that means I only need this one lightweight body for any job. It really is the one for everything.”