PRODUCTION THE CREATOR
A LONG TIME AGO The film made use of a vintage anamorphic lens, in homage to classics of the sci-fi genre
single Kowa 75mm, which is a vintage Japanese anamorphic lens. The crew also carried a 42mm Atlas Mercury prototype, which is slated for general release in the coming weeks. “We were very lucky – because of Greig’s relationship with Atlas, we got a prototype of the 42mm,” Soffer says. “It’s just a slightly wider-angle option to complement the 75mm. The vision, at its core, was to take the approach Gareth adopted making his first film, Monsters , which was made in a very small, guerrilla-filmmaking style with a limited crew. He was his own DOP on that film, shooting in available light with prosumer equipment to keep the footprint small.” The lens choice was made to complement that, and choosing a single focal length meant the cinematographers didn’t have to do lens swaps or rebalance the gimbal – processes that happen frequently when you introduce a large lens set. “The 75mm anamorphic was found, through testing, to be the perfect focal length,” Soffer explains. “That lens on the full-frame sensor of the FX3 is pretty close to replicating the perspective of the human eye, because it’s basically a neutral lens. It’s roughly the equivalent of a 40mm spherical lens, which is very close to replicating the depth perception of the human eye, so it’s the closest approximation to that in anamorphic.” With Edwards, Fraser and Soffer all children of the 70s and 80s, they agreed to invoke the look and feel of the classic science-fiction films of that period. “Movies like Alien , Blade Runner and the original Star Wars were shot in anamorphic in the 70s and 80s, so we thought, why don’t we shoot on an anamorphic lens from the 70s to help create that same look and feel? Those films were probably the biggest visual influence on The Creator .” LET THERE BE LIGHT Soffer says the team wanted the film to be as naturally lit as possible – so even when that couldn’t be achieved, they
WE WOULD LIGHT SCENES IN A WAY THAT WOULD ALLOW GARETH TO shoot in any direction ”
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