Movies with peculiar bokeh?

[silvan schnelli]

I recently saw The Lego Batman and the cinematography done by Behzad Mansoori-Dara and Craig Welsh is mesmerizing.

One thing in particular that caught my eye was the peculiarly shaped bokeh they produced during some of the scenes.

 

I wonder if there are any life action movies utilizing this technique. I’ve recently seen it in the Indonesian movie Agak Laen.

And why is this technique so rarely used:
- It it because it seems to deviate too much from realism; although I’ve seen a lot of other techniques which I would think are just as bold.

- Or is it due to the technical difficulty of having a different entrance pupil and having to calibrate this. Or other issues such as diffraction or other optical aberrations?

I know David Mullen ASC once talked about  Gregg Toland ASC’s use of a Waterhouse stop to achieve those iconic f/16 shots.

I’d be curious if any of you have tried this technique and if so how you guys went about it?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I spent years wondering about these points around lights in "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935) -- I know that nets were used in front of the lens and glitter and sequins were glued onto them but some of the bokeh shapes can't be created that way. Then recently I saw a Lensbaby ad for creative bokeh attachments (basically replacing the iris like a Waterhouse stop but with cut patterns) and I think that's how it was done for this movie in combination with glittery things in front of the lens.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There are also diffraction pattern filters for lenses that create star patterns like that one in Lego Batman but usually they also have rainbow color effects.

[Jeff Bernstein]

Bokeh halo as claustrophobia

Die.Sehnsucht.der.Veronika.Voss (1982), 13:29

[silvan schnelli]

@David Mullen ASC With an example from almost a century ago, how do you think they would have exposed for such a shot. I would think today it be much easier with a monitor.
 

How would they have calculated the f-stop or metered the scene ?

[David Mullen ASC]

On 11/3/2024 at 6:30 PM, silvan schnelli said:

@David Mullen ASC With an example from almost a century ago, how do you think they would have exposed for such a shot. I would think today it be much easier with a monitor.
 

How would they have calculated the f-stop or metered the scene ?

Since there's only one aperture size, they probably just tested it compared to a normal lens at different stops to see what it was closest to. But most photography in the early 30s was shot near wide-open at f/2.8 so maybe they just shot with these special apertures, lit as they normally would, and compensated in development to get a normal density based on tests. Back then, many DPs weren't using light meters very much and film stocks didn't have ASA ratings (which came along in the 1940s.)

[Samuel Berger]

On 11/2/2024 at 7:11 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

"Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935)

I remember the episode of The Rifleman where Mark drinks contaminated water and has a fever dream. The dream sequences utilized the same glittery effects. I've often wondered if they consulted with the cinematographer from Midsummer Night's Dream. I recently found it again on YouTube and I guess I just remembered it wrong for years. The episode is not nearly as expressionistic. 

 

Edited November 9 by Samuel Berger

[David Mullen ASC]

The glittery effect is from set dressing and lighting, the set has glitter and/or sequins in it to catch the light. The watery dissolve was a common optical printer transition effect, probably some rippled glass passed frame by frame in the path of the optical printer.  But the blurry vignette is probably done in-camera (vaseline on glass) just to save money on optical printing, though it could have been added in an optical printer, but then all those shots would be dupes.