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Hollywood dream machine Shooting a full-length feature film in glorious CinemaScope was made possible for director Peter Hamblin by Panasonic’s Lumix S1H
M irrorless cameras have already revolutionised the world of filmmaking for many independent production companies around the world with their small form factor and high- quality results. But they’ve not made much of an inroad into feature films. That looks set to change thanks to the new full-frame Panasonic Lumix S1H, as it offers features and quality to allow commercial filmmakers to take their creativity to the next level, but it also represents a new zenith of production capabilities for feature films in such a small camera. The first to grasp on to this is DOP and director Peter Hamblin, who used a prototype of the camera in his new film In Hope of Nothing , which is currently in production. It was the ability to shoot in
full CinemaScope due to the camera’s anamorphic shooting mode and full-frame 6K sensor that sold the new camera to Hamblin and his team. The work shot so far was aired in Hollywood at the official launch of the camera, which was an apt location as the story centres on Tinseltown and its underworld of lost souls who moved to LA in the hope of ‘making it’. “After finding out the camera could record the full 3:2 sensor in 6K for anamorphic shooting, I thought it would “It’s quite spectacular howwe pulled it off– it looks stunning”
be a great opportunity to bring my idea to life,” says Hamblin. “I have always liked the look of central symmetry, where your subject is in the centre of the frame, and with anamorphic, you’re forced to do that. But I had never worked in anamorphic before, so it was like learning a new language. It’s just an evolution of filmmaking for me. “I did have a backup camera on set, but there wasn’t any need to use it; when I first saw the image in the monitor, it was exactly how I envisioned it. I think we were destined to work with the S1H on this film,” he explains. Of course, to shoot real anamorphic, you need the right lenses and a way of mounting them to the camera. The new Panasonic Lumix S1H uses the large L-Mount, which works perfectly with lens adapters, such as the PL mount, that the majority of true cinema lenses have. Hamblin chose Cineovision Anamorphic lenses, which are Japanese lenses from the seventies and eighties, for a unique look. “Although the S1H is designed to produce a sharp image, the lenses have, by contrast, created an organic softness and a fall-off around the edges,” says Hamblin.
ABOVE Peter Hamblin directs his actors in his film In Hope of Nothing. It is one of many low-light scenes
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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2019
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