The Brutalist - shot by Lol Crawley

[Stephen Perera]

The film I most want to watch….out in this part of the world 24th January 2025.

 

[Tyler Purcell]

Shot on film and 70mm prints too! 

A lot of it was shot with vista vision cameras too, not all tho. 

[David Mullen ASC]

He makes that incorrect statement that larger negatives allow one to use longer lenses to get wide-angle views without distortion. Perspective distortion is a product of camera to subject distance, not focal length. An 18mm on a regular 35mm camera versus a 27mm on a VistaVision camera at the same distance will give you the same view with the same perspective.

[Albion Hockney]

yea him and Brady both said that larger format gives less distortion because longer focal length have a wider FOV.  I donno why this still such a widely expressed piece of mis information

I wonder if there is some minute difference's here in the lens optics IE there is less edge distortion on large format 25mm then on an equivalent super 35mm focal length.

 

 

[Dom Jaeger]

27 minutes ago, Albion Hockney said:

yea him and Brady both said that larger format gives less distortion because longer focal length have a wider FOV.  I donno why this still such a widely expressed piece of mis information

I wonder if there is some minute difference's here in the lens optics IE there is less edge distortion on large format 25mm then on an equivalent super 35mm focal length.

Yes it’s a persistent belief even among professionals that a longer lens has less distortion (and I’m assuming they mean geometric distortion not perspective distortion as David described, which is clearly distance related). 
 

But geometric distortion is really an aberration linked to angle of view, and the particular design used to achieve that angle of view. It has nothing to do with focal length per se. If you took two lenses made for different formats that had roughly equivalent angles of view (say an 18mm made for S35 and a 25mm full frame) the distortion would generally be similar, and any difference would be solely due to the optical design choice and the vintage more than anything else. It’s perfectly likely that a S35 lens might have less distortion. 

[Albion Hockney]

Oh Wow—love that "It’s perfectly likely that a S35 lens might have less distortion" ! thanks for this information

So interesting that there is this huge misconception around this. Someone let Corbet and Crowley know LOL

—IMOP the use of it in high end films (IE Nolan, Anderson, Star Wars, w/e) is partly pretension and money —IE if you have the money why not used the biggest and bestest thing. Its like using leicas or something. Not to say 70mm or vista aren't going be beautiful... the movie looks epic!

 

 

Edited December 22, 2024 by Albion Hockney

[Stephen Perera]

this is interesting:

 

[Geffen Avraham]

Has anyone seen this movie on both film and digital?

I saw it in 70mm and thought the cinematography was beautiful, but the blacks were very crushed.

I don't know if it's intentional, but I don't know if I want to spend another 3.5 hours to find out.

Are the shadows more visible on digital?

[Stephen Perera]

Congratulations to this film for its achievements......have heard many good interviews etc with Lol Crawley, Oscar winner.

[Tyler Purcell]

Where I may not like the film because the director simply gave a middle finger to the audience (more on that later), I have to say Lol did a great job. It was really nice listening to him talk about his life story in a recent podcast, where he went over his oh so humble beginnings, basically admitting that without his mate Bradly, he'd probably be nowhere. I felt that interview alone was worth the statue. I like down to earth people who simply do good work and you've gotta admit, he did excellent work on the Brutalist. Heck, Vox Lux was also well shot too.

I think the "vista vision" aspect helped sell it to the academy, even though a lot of the film was shot on 3 perf 35mm. It's still horribly unfortunate the film is missing its 3rd act and it felt like a middle finger to the audience who waited for nearly 4 hours to find out what happens. Bradly knew he wasn't going to win director or picture, probably because he was so stubborn and simply refused to shoot at least a 15 minute scene that fulfills the audiences desires. I think had he just done a good job wrapping it up, maybe trimmed some fat and never even attempted to shoot that atrocious epilogue, he probably would have received a best picture win AND global distribution. It's frustrating when filmmakers think they are gods and can do no wrong. I hope Bradly learns from this and his next film, has a damn 3rd act. By the way Vox Lux was the same and was viciously panned by everyone for similar reasons. The only saving grace of the Brutalist was the phenomenal acting across the board and the cinematography. 

[Geffen Avraham]

Adrien Brody certainly deserved that Oscar, and Lol did a masterful job too.

But yes, that film needed an ending...

Do we know if all the dialogue closeups were shot on 3-perf, or did they ever use a blimp?

If I'm not wrong, the title of "first all-Vista film in 50+ years" is still up for the taking. There were 19 years between Hamlet and The Hateful Eight without any all-65mm narrative features, but Vista is coming back from a much longer hiatus.

 

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Do we know if all the dialogue closeups were shot on 3-perf, or did they ever use a blimp?

Well, nearly all the BTS images have an 235 or Arricam in them. I only saw 5 BTS pictures out of all the press stuff, with a vista vision camera in it. When watching the movie, I only counted 12 shots that were CLEARLY vista vision. The rest of the film looked like 3 perf. We have a hunch, the reason why is because they couldn't afford to do a real 70mm record, so they recorded to 4 perf 35mm and then blew up that to 70mm. The 70mm print was extremely grainy, in no way did it really represent the source, but the VV shots were night and day sharper than the 3 perf ones. 

Edited March 5 by Tyler Purcell

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

If I'm not wrong, the title of "first all-Vista film in 50+ years" is still up for the taking. There were 19 years between Hamlet and The Hateful Eight without any all-65mm narrative features, but Vista is coming back from a much longer hiatus.

Yes, PT Anderson will nab that with his next film which is nearly entirely shot on VV with a proper 70mm print. 

[Geffen Avraham]

I also hear that Corbet will be making his next feature on 8/65.

Oh, how nice it would be to have a quiet self-blimped 865 camera... Nolan would never have to switch aspect ratios again.

Anyone know how loud a System 65 is at 32fps, as a reference for whether this is possible?

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

I also hear that Corbet will be making his next feature on 8/65.

There is "A" camera around, but no post workflow from my understanding, making the format useless. So I doubt he will actually do that. 

12 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Oh, how nice it would be to have a quiet self-blimped 865 camera... Nolan would never have to switch aspect ratios again.

There isn't one, it's a very loud camera. 

12 hours ago, Geffen Avraham said:

Anyone know how loud a System 65 is at 32fps, as a reference for whether this is possible?

System 65 has both MOS (3 bodies working) and Sync sound (2 bodies working) over at Panavision. The sound bodies are pretty quiet, like under 30db. 

[Mark Dunn]

On 3/5/2025 at 5:49 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

The 70mm print was extremely grainy

The one I saw wasn't. Not as sharp as "Oppenheimer" but you couldn't expect that from mixed elements.

There has to be room for film as art in a mainstream release. That it confounded the idea of the 3-act play was surely the point, and as to audience expectations, yes, the story could have been told differently, but it's his film, not mine, or any studio's. That's the deal with works of art- there's no deal. You accept it on its own terms.

Not every film has to be a product. It's very telling that an American director had to come to Europe to make an extraordinary picture.

Edited March 6 by Mark Dunn

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

The one I saw wasn't. Not as sharp as "Oppenheimer" but you couldn't expect that from mixed elements.

Well considering its mostly 3 perf with 500T, it doesn't really get more grainy then that unless you push 500T 2 stops like PT did in Phantom Thread. So you didn't see the difference in sharpness and grain structure between the vista vision shots and the 3 perf shots? 

[Mark Dunn]

11 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Well considering its mostly 3 perf with 500T, it doesn't really get more grainy then that unless you push 500T 2 stops like PT did in Phantom Thread. So you didn't see the difference in sharpness and grain structure between the vista vision shots and the 3 perf shots? 

 Sure, there were some clear differences, but that's not how I watch a film. I am rather out of practice though having only seen three or four films at the cinema in the last 20 years, the last 2 in 70mm.

I am a fan of brutalism though so maybe I made allowances. That said, the interval countdown shot was like looking at a picture in a gallery. The BFI haven't forgotten how to do 5/70.

 

[Mark Dunn]

I kind of agree that the VV was a bit of a gimmick. But it was a hoot to see "MOTION PICTURE- HIGH FIDELITY" on the screen. I don't suppose it will happen again.

[Stephen Perera]

Gimmick or not who cares, VistaVision logo appearing on the front was superb and love it all.....

[Jon O'Brien]

Speaking of VistaVision, I watched 'One-Eyed Jacks' last night on DVD. I noticed that it was shot on VV.

I wonder how they got around what must have been a pretty noisy camera. Think about it: all that 35mm whizzing through horizontally with those wide frames. And not a physically huge camera apart from the slightly awkward sideways configuration of the mags.

Btw, what a great western. Any else like this movie? Great performances by Marlon Brando, Karl Malden and Pina Pellicer. Directed by Brando, the only film he directed apparently. Some truly beautiful shots, just like paintings ...

The DVD I watched was a terrible transfer. A modern scan of Super 8 would have looked much better. But it didn't matter as the screen presence and story carried you along.

Edited March 7 by Jon O'Brien

[Tyler Purcell]

11 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

Sure, there were some clear differences, but that's not how I watch a film. I am rather out of practice though having only seen three or four films at the cinema in the last 20 years, the last 2 in 70mm.

Yea I guess good point. I'm so use to seeing stuff on 70mm, I basically only go out of the house for film prints. We've seen 2 already this year and those are the only 2 movies I've seen in the theater.

11 hours ago, Mark Dunn said:

I am a fan of brutalism though so maybe I made allowances. That said, the interval countdown shot was like looking at a picture in a gallery. The BFI haven't forgotten how to do 5/70.

Yeah, I bet the projection was great. Ours was very good, stable and sharp. I think a lot of 70mm shops generally do a good job maintaining their equipment. Many of my friends in the UK vastly prefer the BFI screening room over other places. 

[Tyler Purcell]

19 minutes ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I wonder how they got around what must have been a pretty noisy camera. Think about it: all that 35mm whizzing through horizontally with those wide frames. And not a physically huge camera apart from the slightly awkward sideways configuration of the mags.

Oh in 1961 it probably was the same camera system Hitchcock used with the blimp, which used 2000ft loads. So yea, it was not that loud actually but man did it require one heck of a dolly! hahah 😛

 

[Steve Switaj]

22 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

I wonder how they got around what must have been a pretty noisy camera. Think about it: all that 35mm whizzing through horizontally with those wide frames. And not a physically huge camera apart from the slightly awkward sideways configuration of the mags.

I think almost all of the Vista productions were shot with the Mitchell 'elephant ear' cameras. There were earlier proof of concept cameras built by converting old technicolor bodies, but these were unwieldy even by the standards of the 50's.

I shot a lot of Vista in my VFX days, but never got to actually use one of the old elephant ears. Every one I ever handled already had it's movement removed for use in a 'new' spinning mirror body.

There were at least a few blimps made for tight sound work, but the blimps were _huge_ . I know this because I have a friend who has one in his shop. It came in on a pallet with some other gear and he initially though it was an underwater housing until he examined it closely. It's clearly a production unit though, with a body and hardware similar to the blimps for the normal rackovers. Lot's of access doors because the camera opened up on all sides for loading. It did not have the feel of a one-off, so I suspect there were probably a handful built by whatever company was making the rest of them.

But I suspect the cameras were not all that loud to begin with. Even though the movements looked like an overgrown Standard, I think they might have sounded more like an NC, more muted, you might just throw a couple of blankets over the thing an live with it. 

I base this on fact that when I see a BTS photos of, say, a Hitchcock production, as often as not the camera is  unblimped on the dolly, even though it's clearly a dialog scene. (I'm a VFX geek, I always look for the camera).

Also, from my personal experience with the format, the sound of film going through a VV camera is different. It's more of a flup, flup thing and less the sewing machine of a Standard or GC. Maybe the bigger loops pitch it down a little bit? dunno, but it's different, and I could see where it wouldn't carry as far.

The sheer _mass_ of the elephant ear cameras probably didn't hurt when it came to damping out the sound. You really have to see one in person to appreciate it, but here's some links...

  http://www.mitchellcamera.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25

  http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingvv2.htm

Also, if you absolutely must have one for your very own, you're in luck right now because The Prop Store has one up for auction. Sadly, it's missing it's movement,  but it would look great on a set of sticks in the corner of your office anyway

   https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/449/lot/157100

It's serial # 21, which is the highest I've ever seen, so by VistaVision standards, it's brand new. Gotta hurry though, the auction ends March 26th.

Also, if you want the matching blimp to complete your set, contact Joe Lewis at General Lift. I'm pretty sure he would entertain offers. Or maybe tours, if you want to check it out in person.

Actually though, if people here are really interested in seeing the blimp, I'll ask him to post a few photos.

Edited March 8 by Steve Switaj

[David Mullen ASC]

The Technicolor camera bodies were converted to 8-perf 35mm for the Technirama process with the magazines usually on top -- though the Mitchell elephant ear VistaVision cameras look very similar I don't think they were made from a 3-strip Technicolor body. Though I acknowledge that Mitchell built both types of camera bodies.