Max Jacoby

Vantage Film have 1.33 anamorphic lenses designed for 16mm. Best speak to them. But I'm not sure how widely these lenses are available yet. Otherwise you can letterbox S16 to 2.35 and do either an optical or digital blow-up to 35mm. That way your film can play anywhere. I've seen an optical blowup a couple of years ago and I was very impressed, it held up very well on the big screen.

Gunleik, What exactly did you offer in your package? Just the camera, or also accessories and lenses? What I'd like to know is that could they have gotten everything from you, or would they have to go to a rental house to fill out the package?

Me too.

In the end it comes down to which lenses you like best: Panavision's Primos and their many anamorphic lenses or the Cookes/Zeiss/Hawks/Elites that you can put on an Arri.

Someone pointed out the following on reduser where they talk about the same commercial. Check out post 29. He got banned straight away.

Is that what you were told in your acting days? ;)

Looks like they didn't even have the budget to get a 35mm camera ;)

So do you want to bet that film will be around longer than the amazing Epic?

Yep I think so too. Do you think Tom will do another bet with us Stephen? ;)

Sorry I'm a bit late in joining this debate. In my experience I would be very hesitant to go below a 12:1 ratio. Because once you factor in waste, blown takes (either by actors or technical glitches like focus, timing, etc...), shots that invariably run longer than anticipated, the time it takes to slate, etc... 12:1 gives you only about a 10:1 effective shooting ratio. So if you start already with only 10:1 you really only have about 8:1 which I don't think is enough for most films. Yes you can rehearse to try to keep the shooting ratio low, but actors are not athletes or trained monkeys that get better the more you practice with them. You don't want to force them to do the same thing over and over again, because the acting will invariably get stale. I've found it incredibly beneficial to let the actors do different versions of a scene (either through different directions, or losing dialogue or even swapping dialogue around where that can be done). For one that keeps their performance fresh, but most importantly, it gives you options in the editing. Because you don't know until you're actually cutting the film what works and what doesn't. This has been confirmed by friends who have more directing experience than I have: the take you like best on the day is hardly ever the one you choose in the edit. When you're shooting you have a tendency to look for something very specific (mostly something technical, like timing of camera and actors) and once you have that, you think that's your best take. But it's only when you watch the rushes, that you really see what you've got and you can pick a take. So it is best for the film if you give yourself options, and that you can only really do if your shooting ratio is high enough.

I think unless you are working on the project as Dop, it's very hard for individual owners to compete with rental companies. After all rental places have a wider selection of gear, like Stephen says, but more importantly, they provide peace of mind: if anything breaks down they'll get you a replacement straight away.

Fair enough for FF35 size sensors, but I don't think people are going to take that 168x56mm sensor and start shooting movies with it ;)

Have a look at some of James Gray's films, especially 'The Yards' shot by Harris Savides, or 'We Own The Night' and 'Two Lovers', shot by Joaquin Baca-Asay. A lot of it is art direction, but they also underexposed and/or pulled the film to create a more 'dirty' textured look.

Well actually the focus-puller pushes the button most of the time :P

I don't quite agree, I think scope is a very intimate format. For one close-ups look gorgeous, because the focus falls off faster, you can concentrate on faces more. Also because of the width it's very easy to have 2 people in a CU at the same time, instead of cutting back and forth. As soon as you have 3 or more people in a shot, even an interior, scope allows you more interesting compositions. The only one drawback I've found is that it's very hard to compose medium shots of a single person, because there is so much width that needs to be filled. So most of the time I find myself either going closer or wider. Certainly not compared to my Euro ;)

There are 2 perf movements for both the Arricam LT and ST, as well as the 435. Best talk to any rental companies to see if they have them, they are relatively new. Panavision have some 2 perf Cameras as well.

An aspect ratio has no meaning by itself, it is what you make of it. If you have an eye for composition it does not matter whether you shoot in 1.33, 1.85 or 2.39, your images will look good. If they don't the fault lies not with the aspect ratio but with yourself.

Good luck trying to get 1.33 projected properly in a theatre. Most cinemas cannot do that anymore. Also with televisions moving towards 16/9 (1.78), going back to 1.33 for films does not make much sense. Because all that will end up happening is that people will stretch out your 1.33 image over the complete width of their 16/9 telly as they all did with programs that we broadcast in 4.3.

I think we actually mentioned this shot already in an early discussion of the trailer.

That's what I love about anamorphic, you can really play with the out-of-focus parts and use them for your compositions. As soon as you go very close to someone, you still have more than half of the frame to put in out-of-focus elements. And Im not just talking about pretty background, but important picture information.

Perfectly round out-of-focus highlights are the most natural obviously, but as soon as you start stopping down, you'll start seeing the shape of the iris. So the more iris blades, the more circular the out-of-focus highlights appear. The Hawks and their 15 iris blades are the only lenses that I know of that you can stop down and not see the shape of the iris. Cooke S4s give the ugliest out-of-focus highlights on the other hand. 8 sides that are not stright, but bend slightly inwards.

Yawn. The noise to signal ratio on the Red forum is still as mind numbingly high as ever.

It's shot on Cooke S4s with Arricams, although I suspect that for some exterior night scenes (like the ones towards the end) they used Masterprimes (the bokeh was different to the rest of the film), because they needed the stop.

Don't think they are made anymore, so you'd have to get a 2nd hand one and that'll still cost you way more than this Russian set ;)

Hey Steve The page isn't opening. Cooke never made macro lenses as far as I know, Arri did a full set, from 16mm to 200mm.