Ignacio Aguilar

Thanks for the clarification -- I had always thought that Leone needed lenses wider than 25mm to achieve these shots in Techniscope. I've seen a film called My name is Nobody, produced by Leone (who also directed some scenes) in 1973 and it was shot in Panavision. The style was the same, wide-angle lenses and a lot of zooms. But when Leone directed Once upon a time in America he chose 1.85:1 because he was afraid of using anamorphic zooms again and the rise of home video at that time probably meant that the film would end up panned and scanned to fit TV screens.

Good question. Yesterday I saw Badlands for the first time and it is credited to three DPs: Brian Probyn, Tak Fujimoto and Stevan Larner, so I wondered what happened on that shooting. Damien: Omen II began production with screenwriter Mike Hodges as director and Gil Taylor as cinematographer. I believe they shot the opening scene in Israel and then, Hodges was fired and replaced by Don Taylor. Taylor left the film too and Bill Butler took over the cinematography. Two years later both Hodges and Taylor did Flash Gordon for Dino de Laurentiis.

Being a Leone fan myself, I think he used lenses wider than 25mm in many shots, considering he was shooting in Techniscope. That format (combined with a wide-angle lens) allowed him to do some impressive deep focus shots: For a few Dollars More (1965) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Once upon a time in the West (1968)

fstop, great post! By the way, do you know which scenes of Superman were shot by Alex Thomson? He was credited as Additional Photographer. I have read that preparing Nostromo, after Alcott's death, Lean asked David Watkin to shot some tests for the film, but Lean disliked the results and offered the job to Thomson. I think he shot the Iguazu chase for Moonraker, too.

Yes, I know. I only wanted to add that to your post :)

Both Academy Award Winners. BTW, The Towering Inferno main unit was shot by Fred Koenekamp, who is going to receive the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award this year.

Yes. Check out Dean Semler's We were soldiers and The Alamo or John Seale's Cold Mountain for example. Very grainy images outdoors.

I haven't seen that film in a very long time. I will take a look at it when the new DVD is released here in Spain.

The DVD has no visible grain, has a great shadow detail and is very, very sharp. I have seen DVDs of films shot with early high-speed film stocks or push-developed that have very poor shadow detail (Once upon a time in America, De Palma's Scarface and even the forest scenes of The Return of the Jedi), that's why I guess that "The Hunger" was shot on the old Kodak 5247. Me too!

I like too his work on Peter Hyams' Hanover Street (1979), one of the rare films Watkin shot in anamorphic. Lots of telephoto lenses, smoked sets and single source lightning.

I have seen this film today for the first time on DVD. It looks great. Any info on what film stock was used? My guess is that they shot it on 5247 (125 ASA), instead of the (then) new 5293 (250 ASA). What a stilysh cinematography. Lots of single source lightning and smoked sets, sometimes with telephoto anamorphic lenses, and great close-ups, almost like fashion photography.

Yes, specially for Sean Connery's close-ups. Alan Hume did the same with Roger Moore on the Bond films he photographed, sometimes causing some mismatchings.

Yeah, sure. That reminds me of American Graffiti. He started to shot the movie without a real DP (only two camera operators). Then, he had to brought Haskell Wexler in when he realized that even shooting in Techniscope everything was out of focus! George Lucas and DPs...

I don't think Philippe Rousselot is the right DP for that project. Rousselot is great when working with natural light (Emerald Forest, A River Runs Through It), but I think that someone like Emmanuel Lubezki (Sleepy Hollow) could do a better job for Burton in a studio shot. I didn't like too much the photography on Planet of the Apes or Big Fish either, though Big Fish had some interesting compositions and camera angles.

I love that scene, too. The overall film is a little dumb, but Watkin's single source lightning (in anamorphic and very shallow focus) makes it worth a watch. David, do you know if they used VistaVision for effects shots? James Cameron says on the audiocommentary of Aliens (the new DVD on the Quadrilogy set) that if he made the film today, he would shoot it 2.35:1 to match the ratio of the first film. He also complaints about the grain. I saw his later films on the theater and none of them were so grainy. Perhaps he started to overexpose his negatives on Abyss.

Yesterday I wrote: Vilmos Zsigmond also had problems on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the film was finished by William Fraker, Douglas Slocombe, John Alonzo and Laszlo Kovacs. John Alonzo replaced Stanley Cortez on Roman Polanski's Chinatown. Cortez wanted to photograph Faye Dunaway with some diffusion filters and Polanski rejected. John Alcott shot the Dawn of Man sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey when Geoffrey Unsworth left the film due to previous commitments. Oswald Morris replaced Ted Moore on James Bond's The man with the golden gun when Moore became ill. Nicolas Roeg was replaced by Freddie Young on Doctor Zhivago due to creative differencies with director David Lean. Duke Callaghan replaced Gil Taylor on Conan, the barbarian. George Lucas also wanted to fire Taylor on Star Wars. Karl Walter Lindenlaub replaced Caleb Deschanel in The Haunting. I guess Jan de Bont must be a nightmare as director to cinematographers because Don Burgess was replaced by Jack N. Green on Twister, too. I think Alex Thomson's work on Alien 3 looks very much like Cronenweth's work on Blade Runner because that was the look Fincher wanted from the beggining. Now I'm tired of the way Fincher's films looks (though I liked Alien 3 and Se7en at the time they were released) because it's the same concept again and again, done by different DPs (Thomson, Khondji, Savides, Cronenweth, Hall Jr.). I also dislike the way Aliens was photographed, specially in comparison with the original film, which was superbly shot. I'm not surprised when the IMDB says that Cameron approached Derek Vanlint (Alien's cinematographer) after he fired Bush. Apparently, Vanlint refused and recommended Biddle. But, to my tastes, the film was lit too flatly, was too grainy and had that bluish tint Cameron seems to like so much. For you guys that love David Watkin's work, you should hear Peter Hyams' audiocomentary on Hanover Street. Too much light during some scenes to Hyams taste!

Check also any of Sergio Leone's Techniscope films, specially Once upon a time in the west, shot by Tonino Delli Colli. Lots of deep focus, even indoors. Great film, btw.

I liked both the film and the cinematography. It has some great scope compositions and camera moves making full use of the 2.39:1 frame. Some scenes were a little grainy and the overall image was a bit soft, but it's a very good looking film.

Yes. Lubezki initially was hired to phograph Che, but now it seems he's still with Malick doing The New World.

I have read some rumors about Terrence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki (the DP of his new film 'The New World') testing the 65mm cameras at Panavision. Anyone have heard of it? Is there any chance nowadays to shoot an entire film in the 65mm format?

That film was shot by Michael Ballhaus, whose only anamorphic film I think it was Fassbinder's "Whity" in 1970. Later Petersen did "The Perfect Storm" with John Seale and they shoot it in anamorphic Panavision. By the way, I have seen the trailer of the new "Harry Potter" film and it looks like Super 35 again. The cinematographer is Michael Seresin [bSC] ("Midnight Express", "Angel Heart", "Mercury Rising"), whose previous scope films were anamorphic. So there must be someone working on these films who pushes hard to shot Super 35. Ignacio

There's a zoom shot when Hector (Eric Bana) opens the doors of the city to face Achilles that I think is completely out of place. They could have achieve the same effect just travelling. That kind of shot is OK for a Sergio Leone Spaghetti-Western, but it doesn't make sense to me on a film like this. Maybe they just shoot the movie in Super 35 because they have planned to use zoom shots, like Robert Richardson had to do in "Kill Bill". Ignacio.

I saw it yesterday, too. The image was pretty fined grained, indeed, so my guess is that Pratt used slow film stocks for the day exterior scenes (5245, maybe) and 5218 for night & interior scenes, though I know Pratt favors shooting everything on one film stock. Anyway, there's no doubt this film could have looked much better in anamorphic. What was really strange for me is that some of the shots with CGI looked much sharper than the rest of the film. Maybe a combination of shooting the background plates in a large format like VistaVision and the DI caused the effect. I liked most of the film and its cinematography, although some of the night interior scenes were too much flatly-lit for my taste. Or it was just Pratt trying to recreate the old-fashioned look of the 50's peplums?

Vanlint also shot Dragonslayer (Matthew Robbins, 1981). Very good anamorphic cinematography, in my opinion. He has done a lot of commercials, too. By the way, IMDB states that John Mathieson is the DP in Ridley's new film, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. It would be his fourth film with Scott (Gladiator, Hannibal, Matchstick Men), a total record!

I can't believe John Toll wasn't nominated this year for The Last Samurai and its beatiful anamorphic cinematography. He was my favourite this year to win the Oscar, but maybe his previous wins (Legends of the Fall, Braveheart) worked against him.