SeeingEyeBlog

Tonight I went to a presentation for the new Vision3 250D 5207 film stock, at Kodak’s Hollywood headquarters. My favorite part was the fact that the grain structure is much smaller than in previous film stocks. I think they said there was a 20% reduction, maybe more. Basically in non-technical terms, one of the things this means is that you can enlarge the film much more before you notice any grain. This is good news for 16mm productions, where the grain is already magnified more than on 35mm, on the same screen size.

But I was more impressed with the knowledge that I can now push-process the film much more, basically enlarging the grain itself before noticing any difference in the signal-to-noise in the shadows. This is true for theatrical-bound pictures, but is even more helpful for an HD finish, where the maximum likely screen size is smaller than a theatrical release (and therefore less magnification). Another reason to shoot on film, especially if you don’t have the time to light the crap out of it. One cameraman (didn’t catch his name) mentioned he had shot a couple rolls of the new stock, pushed it 2 stops, and it still held up without any noticeable grain. I think he was looking at his dailies on HD.

I love low light situations so much that I am building an on-set oil lamp to use as a key light (don’t tell the fire marshall). Maybe a few iPhones thru some thick paper as fill. See my posts on my recent feature Broken Windows for details on my low-light fetish. I’m just so excited, because Broken Windows was 16mm Vision2 7218, processed normal, and it looked great (telecine to D5). A little soft focus-wise, but the lighting was just where I wanted it to be. Vision3 has even smaller grain size, so the same shot captured on 35mm 5219 in anamorphic would give me tons of room to push. In fact, it seems to me that it totally remove the stigma that anamorphic lenses are too slow to be shot under low lighting conditions. If you’re not afraid of pushing 2 stops, a 2.8 becomes what was once 1.4. Plus, most Hawk anamorphics open to a T2.2 (Sorry Panavision, I love you more). For the right project, it would be a perfect combination.

The 250D will let me push into the evening, after magic hour and well into blue dusk hour. Now I just need a set of Arri Master Primes with my name on them. T1.3 is your friend.

Dear Santa,

I would like a set of Hawk V-plus series anamorphic lenses for Christmas. I promise to be a good boy.

Thank you,
Jason

I just recently watched a movie called Mademoiselle, a French-language film from 1966, about a schoolteacher in a bucolic French village, who fancies a man who doesn’t feel the same. So she starts doing things….bad, bad things.

The film was shot in 35mm anamorphic, and was black & white. There is something about the anamorphic format that, when rendered monochrome, creates a better representation of reality than reality itself. I say this about a film which has zero camera moves. No pans, no tilts, no dolly moves, no cranes, no zooms. Yet the photography is stunning.

I’m not sure I would say the same thing if the widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio were achieved with a spherical lens format. There is something richer and more textured about the anamorphic squeeze. An anamorphic lens has the field of view characteristics and depth of field characteristics of two different lenses in one. Vertically, it has the characteristics of itself (50mm for example). But horizontally, after the 2x squeeze, it has the characteristics of a lens half its length. This is a departure from reality, and an anamorphic image is a unique way of viewing the world that only really has a place in cinematography. On top of that, black and white is already a big departure from reality. This gives black and white anamorphic cinematography a truly unique vision in the world. A vision I think we should see much more often in films today.