Lenses

Bringing a Classic to the Big Screen

Wed, 03/04/2020 - 10:14 -- Nick Dager

DP Nicolaj Bruel and director Matteo Garrone, who first worked together on the award-winning 2018 feature film Dogman, recently repeated their collaboration on the live action Italian language feature film Pinocchio, starring Oscar winner Roberto Benigni. A live action adaptation of the classic fairy tale about a wooden puppet that is brought to life, the production had to be right on many levels.

Making it GLOW

Mon, 02/17/2020 - 10:42 -- Nick Dager

The Netflix series GLOW, which launched its 10-episode third season in August 2019, brings the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling to Las Vegas and the fictitious Fan-Tan Hotel and Casino. The production captures the personal and professional lives of a group of women who perform for a wrestling organization that started in Los Angeles but now find themselves in glitzy Las Vegas during the 1980s. Cinematographer Chris Teague met with show creators, executive producers and episode writers Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch to pitch his ideas for the new look of GLOW for its new Las Vegas setting, which is where they realized that everyone was on the same page.

Star Trek Gets a New Look

Tue, 01/28/2020 - 17:10 -- Nick Dager

Star Trek: Picard, the highly anticipated streaming series from CBS All Access, relied on two complete sets of Cooke Optics Anamorphic/I Special Flair lenses to tell the story. The follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and centers on Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) in the next chapter of his life. Director of photography Philip Lanyon’s goal was to give this new series a big movie adventure epic saga feel — while keeping fans in a familiar visual world.

Facing the Challenge of Giant Screen Close-Ups

Tue, 01/14/2020 - 10:53 -- Nick Dager

Cinematographer Peter Chang has completed his latest film, Cuba, which won the Best Documentary award at the 34th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and has begun releasing to museums, educational institutions and other giant screen and IMAX venues. In a break from giant screen tradition, his film features close-ups. To accomplish that, he turned to Cooke lenses.

Black Christmas Re-Imagines ‘70s Horror Classic

Tue, 12/17/2019 - 11:37 -- Nick Dager

As Hawthorne College winds down for the Christmas holidays, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority sisters one by one. Produced by Jason Blum (Halloween, Get Out) for Blumhouse Productions, Black Christmas is a re-imagining of the 1974 cult classic for the 21st century audience. The horror film was directed and co-written by Sophia Takal (Always Shine). Although Takal was a fan of the original film, she wanted to bring attention to contemporary women’s rights issues, in particular the Me-Too movement

Shooting on Short Notice

Mon, 09/09/2019 - 12:07 -- Nick Dager

The Long Walk is the third feature film by director Mattie Do (Chanthaly, Dearest Sister), who was raised in Los Angeles but relocated to Laos to become the country’s first, and only, female filmmaker. In an interview in Women and Hollywood, Do described her genre-bending film as “an unconventional time-travel thriller set in a forgotten rural village in Laos, about the ethos of a man, plagued by regret and loneliness, and his downward spiral into becoming a serial killer. He also has a very complicit ghostly friend.” Cinematographer Matthew Macar shot the low-budget feature over 32 days in Vientiane, Laos with very little prep time.

New Showtime Series Gets Softer Look

Tue, 08/27/2019 - 13:06 -- Nick Dager

The goal of the filmmakers behind the Showtime series On Becoming a God in Central Florida was to create a softer look to tell the 1992 story of Krystal Stubbs (Kirsten Dunst), a minimum-wage water park employee who lies, schemes and cons her way up the ranks of Founders American Merchandise (FAM) — the cultish, flag waving, multi-billion dollar pyramid scheme that drove her family to ruin.

Streamlining an Indie Film's Process

Mon, 08/26/2019 - 13:17 -- Nick Dager

The production of the feature film Brittany Runs a Marathon presented several challenges. The directorial debut of Paul Downs Colaizzo, the film was shot by cinematographer Séamus Tierney, who came to the project late. That was just one of the reasons he was grateful to have the Panavision family of services to back him up, including camera support and Light Iron post-production.

Addressing Yesterday’s Workflow Challenges

Wed, 07/24/2019 - 14:08 -- Sarah Priestnall

Yesterday, the new British musical comedy directed by Danny Boyle, which was released last month following its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, used as many as twelve cameras for some scenes. This presented some serious workflow challenges. To address them, cinematographer Christopher Ross BSC, who had previously worked with Boyle on the TV series Trust was joined by Mission digital imaging technician Thomas Patrick who had worked with him for the first time on Trust in 2017.

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