lars von trier

[icha7]

Hi, I was wondering for movies such as breaking the waves, dancer in the dark and dogville what kind of make and type cameras or filters lars von trier used for them. I've noticed that the visual aesthetics differ from normal 3ccd consumer cameras or even some prosumer triple chips

[Tim J Durham]

Hi, I was wondering for movies such as breaking the waves, dancer in the dark and dogville what kind of make and type cameras or filters lars von trier used for them. I've noticed that the visual aesthetics differ from normal 3ccd consumer cameras or even some prosumer triple chips

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"Breaking the Waves" was shot in 35mm anamorphic.

"Dancer in the Dark" was shot in DVCam/miniDV with a variety of cameras incl. PD-150's sporting custom anamorphic lenses!

"Dogville" was shot in 1080/24p HD with a Sony F900.

 

Well...according to MY sources.

[David Mullen ASC]

"Breaking the Waves" was shot in 35mm anamorphic.

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"Breaking the Waves" was shot on 35mm Super-35, not anamorphic, but framed for cropping to 2.39 anamorphic.

 

It went thru a cheap form of a D.I. though by transferring the negative to D1 PAL videotape (hence why it looks slightly video-ish), color-correcting it (mostly desaturating the image), and transferring it back to Super-35 I believe, and THEN optically blowing this up to 35mm anamorphic (I don't think they did the crop & stretch to anamorphic in the video realm).

 

Von Triers seems to have a fondness for timing things to the sickly brown-yellow parchment color.

[icha7]

hi, thx for the insight!

[Tim J Durham]

"Breaking the Waves" was shot on 35mm Super-35, not anamorphic, but framed for cropping to 2.39 anamorphic.

 

It went thru a cheap form of a D.I. though by transferring the negative to D1 PAL videotape (hence why it looks slightly video-ish), color-correcting it (mostly desaturating the image), and transferring it back to Super-35 I believe, and THEN optically blowing this up to 35mm anamorphic (I don't think they did the crop & stretch to anamorphic in the video realm).

 

Von Triers seems to have a fondness for timing things to the sickly brown-yellow parchment color.

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That would seem alot more trouble than just shooting it with an anamorphic lense in the first place. Is it? Or are those lenses so expensive as to warrant that sort of work-around?

[Alvin Pingol]

That would seem alot more trouble than just shooting it with an anamorphic lense in the first place. Is it? Or are those lenses so expensive as to warrant that sort of work-around?

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There are many reasons why a DP would choose a scope extraction from an S35 frame over true anamorphic. Cost and availability of equipment/processing can be one factor. The lighting situation is another - opening up on an anamorphic lens introduces significantly more artifacts like flare and distortion, versus a spherical lens. Some DP's may not like the natural distortions created by anamorphic lenses, or may feel they do not fit well with the subject matter being photographed. And if I'm not mistaken, anamorphic lenses are a bit more difficult to work with when it comes to focus and overall operation, but this shouldn't be problematic for DP's and crews familiar with scope.

[Tim J Durham]

There are many reasons why a DP would choose a scope extraction from an S35 frame over true anamorphic. Cost and availability of equipment/processing can be one factor. The lighting situation is another - opening up on an anamorphic lens introduces significantly more artifacts like flare and distortion, versus a spherical lens. Some DP's may not like the natural distortions created by anamorphic lenses, or may feel they do not fit well with the subject matter being photographed. And if I'm not mistaken, anamorphic lenses are a bit more difficult to work with when it comes to focus and overall operation, but this shouldn't be problematic for DP's and crews familiar with scope.

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His next film (seen by actual people) after "Breaking the Waves" was "Dancer in the Dark" in which he used a slew of "custom" anamorphic lenses on video cameras. Don't know what that says, if anything, about why he didn't just go the anamorphic lense route in "Breaking the Waves".

 

What's the deal with those anamorphic lenses? Is it just the front element that's barrel shaped?

I used to love it when the westerns would have the last shot in anamorphic but it wasn't re-stretched-out so the guy in the saddle riding off into the sunset looked "tall in the saddle".

 

Least I think that was anamorphic...

[David Mullen ASC]

Think of an anamorphic prime lens as a spherical lens with a wide-angle adaptor in front that only increases the view in one direction. In order to not vignette, not suffer from excessive barrel distortion, etc. the anamorphic elements have to be larger than the front spherical elements -- so the anamorphic version of a spherical lens becomes much bigger.

 

With telephotos and zooms, the anamorphic element can be added in back, not really changing the size of the lens, although it does get slower.

 

You have less depth of field with anamorphic since you tend to use longer focal lengths to make up for the doubling in horizontal view, so a 40 and 50mm becomes your wide-angle lens, etc. instead of using a 20 or 25mm lens as you would in Super-35 for the same view.

 

Considering that most of "Breaking the Waves" was shot handheld in available light, anamorphic lenses, being slower, bigger, heavier, and having less depth of field, would have been more difficult to work with.