Ignacio Aguilar

Only "Far and Away" (1992), some parts of "Little Budha" (1993) and "Hamlet" (1996) used 65mm since then for live action photography. I can't wait to see Malick's film, specially if they finish it photochemically and not via DI. A 65mm film shot with the current film stocks and modern lenses should look stunning.

I saw it here in Madrid (Spain) back in september 2002. It was shown only in one theater. It was a 70mm print with a six track magnetic soundtrack and it was the sharpest presentation that I've ever seen in my life, with very rich colors and very deep blacks. It was shot in 5-perf 65mm with Todd-AO lenses on slow film stocks (I believe 5247 or even 5245). There was absolutely no grain. Three days later I saw a dye transfer print of "Apocalypse Now Redux" and while the image was extremely good for 35mm, "Baraka" was superior in every way. David, try to see a 70mm print if you can. The cinematography is just gorgeus.

For some reason I can't edit my previous post. I wanted to say "And the NAME of Hora's character was "Ozzie Wexler"..." Also, I forgot to say that Billy Williams photographed "The Wind and the Lion", so his acting is not as rare as Hora's.

And the of Hora's character was "Ozzie Wexler"... I remember that Billy Williams [bSC] had a small supporting role in John Milius "The Wind and the Lion". He had about four or five lines of dialogue with Candice Bergen at the beginning of the film, before Sean Connery and his troops attack their mansion. And Williams, trying to defend Bergen and her two children, manages to kill about five bad guys with a gun! :)

It has been very nice to watch again a big budget film not using a DI, specially when it was shot with anamorphic lenses. The images were so sharp and the blacks were so deep that I was blown away. The look of 5218 combined with anamorphic is great. Even pushed te grain was varely visible. I enjoyed the whole film a lot. To my taste, the best Batman movie to date, though I still think that Superman is the best superhero-movie ever made (those epic first 45 minutes are very hard to beat).

I've just read this on the IMDB's trivia section for 1941: This is the first time I've ever heard of it. Anyone knows if its true? Frank Stanley is credited as "additional cinematographer", but on the "E.T." AC issue Spielberg said that the first offered the film to Bill Fraker. Fraker was busy, so he offered it to Storaro, who declined and finally he decided to give the chance to Allen Daviau, who had shot "Amblin" for him back in the late 60's. 1941 contains some of the best miniature work ever IMO and I think it's the most amazing photography Fraker ever did together with the opening scene of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

They used the E and C series from Panavision. They also tested the Primos, but Pfister preferred the look of the other series.

The whole film went through a Digital Intermediate and they used Kodak Vision2 Expression 500T 5229 for all boxing sequences and all night scenes, and EXR 100T 5248 & EXR 200T 5293 for day scenes. The black and white footage was shot on Double-X 5222 pushed one stop and a half, and the home-movie style flashbacks where shot on 16mm Ektachrome 7239 color reversal stock.

My guess is that most of it was influenced by Zsigmond, who still likes to shoot his movies entirely on zoom lenses (even anamorphic), and at that time he liked a lot to zoom during shots. Take a look at his work for Robert Altman in the early 70's and you'll see plenty of zooms. Kaminski has avoided the widescreen anamorphic format to date and it seems that he prefers to work in Super 35 with spherical lenses ("Lost Souls", which he directed, "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds" if it's a 2.35:1 movie). Plus over the last years he has developed a rougher style, with lots of overexposures, diffusion and grain often combined with pushing, negative flashing or even ENR, basically all photographic tricks to degrade image quality, so he would have to move in another direction if they want to shoot the new "Indy" movie in a traditional way. Though I enjoy Kaminski's work I would love to see what someone like John Toll (who operated for Allen Daviau on some of the films he shot for Spielberg) would do in an "Indy" film. P.D. The other day I was reading the AC article on "E.T." and Spielberg said on it that he first offered the movie to Bill Fraker, who was busy at the time, and later to Vittorio Storaro, who declined because of the union problems he had during the shooting of "One from the Heart". Spielberg and Storaro... that would have been interesting!

And yet he proved that he could shoot really well in black & white even for Stanley Kubrick in Lolita (1962). I would add The Man Who Would be King (John Huston, 1975) as a must see for its daytime exteriors.

I liked that film and its cinematography when I saw it some years ago. I believe that Morris used a little diffusion (probably nets) throughout the whole film. I find the whole decade very exciting because of the "collision" between the old studio cameramen and the new wave of the late sixties/early seventies, whose style took a while to be recognized. People like Ernest Lazlo, Robert Surtees, James Wong Howe, Lucien Ballard, Geoffrey Unsworth or even Freddie Young were beginning to share awards with new talents like Vilmos Zsigmond, Laszlo Kovacs, Owen Roizman, Haskell Wexler, Richard H. Kline, Gordon Willis, Bruce Surtees, etc. Films from that era vary from a high-key studio lighting to some films shot with low light levels, pushed developed and source motivated to achieve a more natural look, or even films combining styles. Take a look at the Academy Award Nominations for the Best Cinematography of 1971: Winner: Fiddler on the Roof (1971) - Oswald Morris Nominees: French Connection, The (1971) - Owen Roizman Last Picture Show, The (1971) - Robert Surtees Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) - Freddie Young (I) Summer of '42 (1971) - Robert Surtees The least "classical" film of the bunch in terms of cinematography of course was "French Connection", and some "modern" looking films of that year that didn't get a nomination were "Klute" (Willis), "A Clockwork Orange" (Alcott), "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (Zsigmond), among others. With the evolution of cinematography during that decade, ten years later probably this films would have been nominated instead.

I could't find a screenshot of that scene, but Caleb Deschanel did that kind of shot in The Black Stallion (among other films):

I agree with you, Adam. I find amusing that Leone perhaps is most remembered by his long & powerful close-ups (have you ever seen Charles Bronson or even Claudia Cardinale looking so good?) when he had an incredible eye for wide-angle compositions and for deep focus staging. Speaking about Gordon Willis, one of his trademarks was shooting actors with the light source behind then, then exposing correctly that light letting the characters a little underexposed. The most famous example of this is the Lake Tahoe scene between Michael and Fredo Corleone in The Godfather II inside the house when it's snowing outside. Both characters are barely shown, fitting the mood of the scene.

I just saw a 35mm presentation of the film. The image quality generally was good considering that it was an HD film, though the blacks were poor and the overall look was too soft. The last half hour featured more dramatic lighting and was the best shot part of the movie in my opinion.

Some of my favourites: -"Lawrence of Arabia", "Doctor Zhivago" & "Ryan's Daughter", Freddie Young BSC. -"Dances with Wolves", Dean Semler, ACS, ASC. -"Apocalypse Now", Vittorio Storaro, AIC, ASC. -"Baraka", Ron Fricke. -"The Thin Red Line", John Toll, ASC. -"Ran", Asakazu Nakai.

I saw today Dragonslayer for the second time in my life and I was even more impressed than the first time. The production design and cinematography are just gorgeus. The cave scenes are very well lit (though some ambient fill light is a little obvious), but what surprised me the most was how natural looking are the day exteriors (considering Vanlint's background), the ammount of smoke used on the forest scenes and specially the how well the anamorphic frame is used in the classical way. I would have loved The Lord of the Rings to look this way. Derek Vanlint, what a great cinematographer we lost to commercials...

It may be true, but remember that Watkin shot in anamorphic Hanover Street for Peter Hyams around the same time and later, as David mentioned, used it for "Boy's Life"... I still don't understand why if he hated the format kept using it. In 1993 he could have used Super 35 if the wider frame was an issue for that film. Today, lots of cinematographers shoot all his 2.35:1 stuff in Super 35 and sometimes even studios or producers or directors push hard to avoid anamorphic lenses. Yes, according to The Internet Enciclopedia of Cinematographers. It's funny, because as far as I know Deakins has never shot an anamorphic film. Like Watkin or even the late John Alcott he seems to prefer Zeiss lenses, now that we're taking about naturalistic lighting...

Yes, that was pretty obvious. But I saw both films back to back and while Klute was simple in its camera approach, superbly framed, with a very consistent underexposed look due to the low light levels employed and no glamour lighting applied on Jane Fonda creating a very intense atmosphere, The Interpreter looks fairly conventional to my eye and only a few subtle artistic choices if so (the soft lenses, shallow focus & film grain) translates the average viewer to the 70's. When you see one of those 70's films photographed by Gordon Willis or Owen Roizman you see that the image is anything but unconventional, very dark, full of shadow areas and even less commercial than what is generally done today in major productions. Khondji did pretty much the same in Se7en, but according to what he says in the current AC article he seems to have lost interest on creating dark, high-contrast images.

I just watched it and I was blown away by the low-light interiors Watkin did on this film considering the anamorphic lenses and the slow film stock of that time (Kodak 5251 50 ASA or 5254 100 ASA). He took a lot of risks considering it was a high budget production with some stars on it. The shallow focus look was amazing and very rare for that time and even the exteriors seemed to have been shot wide open. My only complaint would be that in some exterior shots the faces remain too underexposed because the lack of fill light and some extreme artifacts from that old anamorphics working wide-open. Though I love the anamorphic format, I can see why Watkin called it "an optical catastrophe". The second unit cinematography is credited to Peter Suschitzky. I believe that the other Watkin's anamorphic films I've seen to date (Catch 22 and Hanover Street) were shot at least at f/4.0 and didn't have so many artifacts.

Once again, thanks for the info, David :) I believe that it was an optical blow-up, and a very good one. The print I saw theatrically at the time of release was excellent, with very deep blacks, excellent sharpness and vibrant colors. I still think this is one of those films that justifies the use of the Super 35 format over anamorphic. They really took advantage of the spherical lenses in every way. Does the article mention any push-developing? None of that stocks are as grainy as some of the shots on the film when normally developed... (take a look at the opening scene, it looks like something shot on 16mm).

The other day I was watching this film and I was wondering what film stocks and processings they did to achieve that image texture and film grain. Perhaps some ENR enhancing the blacks & contrast and increasing the grain? Slawomir Idziak (why he doesn't work more often?) did an amazing job with his grads here. This film looks terrific, specially the night stuff.

Roger Pratt, BSC ("Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", "12 Monkeys", "Shadowlands", "Troy", "The End of the Affair").

I don't know the focal lenght, but I noticed a few shots using some extreme wide-angle lenses to cover some of the real locations.

Yes, and it is sad cause Ridley has been using anamorphic zooms since Alien. I've have always wondered why some filmakers could use those zooms back in the 70's with 100 ASA stocks and know the f/4.5 & 500 ASA stock combination seems "too slow" for them. Tim, I'm anxious to read your comments ;) Now that you mention it, I forgot Johnson did the second unit directing & cinematography on this one. I've read some people complaining about the picture being too dark. Maybe I've been watching too many movies shot by Gordon Willis lately, by I found "KOH"'s image OK on that level.

When I first saw the trailer I was dissapointed too see that Ridley Scott and John Mathieson had switched back to Super 35 after having shot Matchstick Men in anamorphic, but Kingdom of Heaven's image quality was superb; very fine grain and great sharpness. The best Super 35 print I've ever seen, much richer that The Interpreter and other anamorphic films with 2K DIs that I've seen in the last months. Since the film will be covered in the June issue of AC I don't have any technical details yet, but my guess is that they have used a 4K both for scanning & recording back to 35mm. The cinematography was on par with Gladiator's. Blue hues for the early winter scenes and warmer colors for Jerusalem. High contrast lighting indoors and color temperature mixing between daylight and candles. They used exteme wide-angle lenses to cover some of the real locations and lots of telephotos for the army's shots and fast shutters during the battles. But what suprised me the most was the high ammount of zooms used through the whole film, though most of them were very slow zoom in/out during wide shots or close-ups.