Ridley Scott focal lengths

[David Ellison]

Hi I'm looking for any breakdowns of the early Ridley scott movies (Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Black Rain) which illustrate from shot to shot which focal lengths were used either in text or image form.

Does anyone know if anything like this exists?

 

Many thanks

[Nicolas Courdouan]

I don't know if what you're looking for exists, I certainly have never seen it but would be very interested in finding something like this, so please keep us posted if you ever find it.

 

From what I know about his methods :

 

I seem to remember that he favors longer focal lengths in general. Sorry for not being able to provide you with a precise quote or website, but if I remember exactly what I read he said that he likes to use lenses from 75mm and beyond.

 

He shoots with multiple camera setups, sometimes as much as 8 cameras for a two-character dialogue scene.

 

There's also an interview of him floating around where he mentions using spherical zoom lenses most of the time. He only used anamorphic on Alien and didn't like it because of how it turned focus pulling into a nightmare (at the time).

 

 

Good luck!

[Francisco Martins]

^ Is correct, except Ridley used anamorphic on Blade Runner instead of cropping, and only started shooting spherical and cropping around the time of Black Rain, the first time he ever did so.

[David Mullen ASC]

He only used anamorphic on Alien and didn't like it because of how it turned focus pulling into a nightmare (at the time).

 

Not true - he eventually switched to Super-35 for that reason, and that he preferred using spherical zooms (which is why it is hard to say what focal lengths he preferred) which are faster (T/2.8 instead of T/4.5) but the following Ridley Scott movies were shot with anamorphic lenses:

 

Alien

Blade Runner

Legend

Thelma & Louise

1492

White Squall

G.I. Jane

Matchstick Men

[Nicolas Courdouan]

My mistake.

 

Here's his exact quote, that I misinterpreted :

 

"I always feel that when a film opens up and it’s wide, it’s kind of nice. I don’t do anamorphic. Alien was anamorphic and it was a nightmare for focus. It was the relatively early days of the anamorphic zoom lens. My focus puller in those days was Adrian Biddle (BSC). He recalibrated the lenses one weekend because for some bizarre reason they were forward-focusing. We couldn’t work out why; it would look sharp through the camera. Today, we tend to use Super 35 spherical, which is faster and easier to keep sharp."

[John Holland]

I dont where you got the quotes about Alien from . But as far as i rememember no zooms were used on that shoot . Not enough light on sets with 100 ASA stock.

[David Mullen ASC]

There are a couple of zooms in "Alien"... I think Ripley's close-up at the end as she finishes her log while petting the cat is a zoom, or maybe it was the shot of her sleeping.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

I dont where you got the quotes about Alien from . But as far as i rememember no zooms were used on that shoot . Not enough light on sets with 100 ASA stock.

 

It's from an interview you can find here : http://www.icgmagazine.com/wordpress/2010/05/26/exposure-ridley-scott/

 

I can remember a couple of zooms in Alien. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but some shots really feel like they were zoomed in.

 

Now I need to watch it again.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

The shot of the facehugger constricting John Hurt's neck in a close-up, as the crew is examining him, has a very clear zoom in. And there are other zoom shots in the movie as well. But I'd say "Alien" was shot wider than most of his pictures, with a 50mm and 75mm lens on the main camera most of the time, and then the occasional 100mm or 135mm lens on the "B" camera. Bear in mind that since "Alien" was shot in the anamorphic format, which for the same angle of view doubles the focal lenght of a spherical lens (i.e. a 50mm anamorphic lens is equivalent in terms of view to a 25mm spherical).

[Sherif Tolba]

John Mathieson, his cinematographer on Gladiator once said in an interview that Ridley can't take his hands of the zoom on all his films, so yes I guess zoom lenses are essential in a Ridley Scott film.

[Giacomo Girolamo]

I know is not about Ridley Scott, but this blog has some post (2 as I remember, about Inglorious Bastards and Prisioners from Deakins) in which analized some iconic shots in a very interesting way. Maybe you found it useful.

 

http://mattscottvisuals.com/blog/2014/7/18/glouriousbasterds

 

Bye!