60s/70s Lens Recommendations for Music Doc.

[Alex Gaynor]

Hello,

 

I'm shooting a small behind-the-scenes/rehearsal/performance style special on an upcoming band and have been looking at lots of the old documentaries on Creedence, Cream, Rolling Stones, The Band and am trying to capture an older, more 70s look with the camera. We're trying to do a lot of it in camera and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with older lens mounts from that era and/or PL mount equivalents. While the grain and latitude of the film lends a look, I'd like to also see if there are any accessible lens sets that might add to the older feel.

 

Here's an old Creedance video and a Cream video that have some of the lens qualities (or lack thereof) that we're looking for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqh54rSzheg

 

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

-aogaynor

[Nick G Smith]

Looks all 16mm. The film stock used then will have a lot to do with the look.

 

Depends what format you are going to shoot on. For 16mm and small sensors - Old Angenieux 12-120 zoom will give you a warm soft look - Primes; Cooke Kinetals have a great feel - I have founf they work best around T4- 5.6

 

 

 

Nick

[John Holland]

The first clip American so looks like bad Ektachrome of some sort , the Cream clip looks 7254 neg so softer and better skin tones , but both prob. shot on as using a Ang .12-120 lens .

[Alex Gaynor]

Thanks guys, great ideas, I'll look into the 12-120.

[Jim Carlile]

They also used the telephoto range of the zoom much more than today, and whenever possible avoided cranking it out to widest setting.

 

The one big difference between that period and now is the current over-reliance on extreme wide angles. It makes every shot look the same, and seriously distorts backgrounds (some great examples of this problem are the Huell Howser travelogues on public television).

[rob spence]

Plus, judging by your clips, they seem to be shooting face shots from way below most of the time.