flare-like blue streaks

[Sean Conaty]

You see it pretty often in music videos. The best example I can think of right now is Bob Elswit's work in "Punch Drunk Love". It's a horizontal, razor-thin, blue streak that seems to occur when you hit a point light.

 

I'm curious, is this a filter creating this effect? It's a bit overused now (Transformers, et al), but I'm still curious how to do it.

 

On a side note: I was doing some scouting with a friend's cheap digital still camera, and I noticed that right before the picture was being taken, the lights in the frame made a vertical streak. I'm assuming it has something to do with phasing and the shutter (a la "The Limey"). Can this be duplicated for motion picture (film or digital)?

 

Thanks,

 

-Sean Conaty

[Michael Nash]

Those horizontal blue flares are inherent to anamorphic lenses, and have become very popular in the last 5-10 years. So much so that sometimes what you're seeing is an artificial flare added in post or with a filter, when the original material wasn't shot with an anamorphic lens.

 

The vertical streaks you've noticed are two different things. In a digital still camera, it's the chip "overlaoading" with too much collected charge which then gets dissipated across adjacent pixels above and below. This is known as vertical smear. In The Limey the effect was created by throwing the camera's shutter and pulldown out of phase so that the film is actually being advanced to the next frame while the shutter is still open.

[Kevin Zanit]

This has been discussed a lot in the past, try a search for more info.

 

The blue flare is from typical of anamorphic lenses. The well known blue flare is usually from Panavision Primo anamorphics.

 

There are filters available to create this effect, streak filters may be do the trick, but they will not be blue, they will be the color of the light source.

 

I think someone may have made a filter that specifically recreates the effect you are after, but I can not remember off the top of my head. For some reason I think it was Hawk Anamorphics that made the filter (don't quote me on that though).

 

Ahh Michael beat me to it ;)

[Michael Nash]

http://www.vantagefilm.com/file/pdf/equipment_24.pdf

 

Saw them on a recent shoot and they work surprisingly well, but are prone to the same artifacts as all streak filters.

[Sean Conaty]

http://www.vantagefilm.com/file/pdf/equipment_24.pdf

 

Saw them on a recent shoot and they work surprisingly well, but are prone to the same artifacts as all streak filters.

 

just found it. thanks.

[Tony Brown]

.....check price before you rent - I got stung 500 Euros a day apparently for a set of 2 (I kid you not). I was furious. They quoted me 50,000 Euros to buy a set (of 2) justifying it by saying they were optical attachments not filters.

 

Whatever.

 

I had a lot of time for Vantage before that........ I'll be a little more careful in future.