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VERA FEATURE
COUNTRYSIDE CHARACTER As other DOPs have found, the landscape from the Vera series almost begs you to use it as a character but Stephen would take it one step further using the Fujinon zooms. “The visual relationship between location and character is always particularly important to me. Newcastle upon Tyne, where the show is shot, is full of incredible landscapes, both natural and urban, and myself and Paul both wanted to let the show breath as much as we could by finding interesting wide shots to contextualise the drama. Using these longer Fujinon zooms at a great distance instead of a more traditional wide angle lens just helped to enhance that cinematic quality. “The added benefit of the Fujinon zooms was we could work a little quicker in certain locations. For example we had one sequence set on a beach against the backdrop of a fast-approaching tide. We had a very narrow shooting window because of tide times. We had to work extremely quickly and efficiently and the zooms really helped us in that regard. I used both the 24-180mm and the 75-400mm with a 2x doubler to
long telephoto zooms with me to compliment the Master Primes I was using so I tested and then used the Fujinon HK Premier 24-180mm and 75-400mm, both of which are a great match for Zeiss and Leica glass. I had an idea their range and compact size would be useful in several locations, but I also wanted to try shooting our exterior wide shots on a longer than usual focal length, to try and compress the backdrops, and give a slightly more dramatic look to the city and some of the landscapes we would be shooting. “The character of the Fujinon zooms was a nice match to the Master Primes particularly in terms of their contrast, sharpness and how they rendered colours, especially all the delicate shades of grey blue in the sea in our coastal locations. The 75-400mm was surprisingly small for such a long focal length zoom, especially compared to something like the Hawk 150-450mm which is a similar focal range. The smaller size and weight of the lenses helped to keep us light on our feet which is a distinct advantage on any busy TV drama schedule.”
compress the background, making it feel like the incoming tide was closer than it actually was. The effect on the 400mm (800mm) was fantastic. The telephoto style worked brilliantly to enhance the drama of this scene and the practical aspect of working on zooms helped us dramatically with our schedule. “Using longer lenses for wide shots is a well-used technique that’s been popular since Tony and Ridley Scott started making commercials. It’s still very popular in features but doesn’t seem to get used as much
IMAGES The character of the Fujinon zooms was ideal for capturing the grey blue shades of the coastal locations.
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JULY 2018 DEFINITION
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