Pro Moviemaker Spring 2020

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All about anamorphics CVP’s technical expert, Jake Ratcliffe, explains how you can use these very special lenses to give a true cinematic feel to your films H ow do you make footage look more cinematic? This is one question I get asked on a pretty frequent basis. And I

normally reply: ‘What characteristics of an image make it cinematic for you?’ For me, anamorphic is one of the looks I associate with cinema. It holds a special place in my heart, not only because some of my favourite films have been shot using anamorphic lenses, but also because I love the way it renders imagery. Before getting into what makes anamorphic unique, let’s quickly explore its history. The use of anamorphic predates the first world war, but its use in photography can be traced back to its inventor, Henri Jacques Chrétien, a French astronomer and inventor who, in 1927 developed the Hypergonar lens. However, the technique and technology were not adopted into cinematography until 1952, when 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to the technology and created the CinemaScope widescreen technique. In the fifties, TV had started to tear people away from the cinema, which drove studios to think of ways to get people back into theatres. Widescreen was one of the key technologies differentiating cinema from television. Most televisions displayed 4:3 images, so this much wider image of 2.39:1 allowed filmmakers to create some truly breathtaking imagery that would get viewers back in the theatre. At this time, the industry-standard recording format was 35mm film and anamorphic took greater advantage of that, being able to capture a wider field of view and producing its trademark wider aspect ratio. Not only was this very convenient for studios at the time, but it was also a much cheaper alternative to other formats like 65mm film. Fast-forward to today and anamorphic is more of an aesthetic choice for filmmakers than a technical one. There are two main types of lenses used across filmmaking: spherical and anamorphic. Spherical lenses are the most common and are completely made up of circular elements. Anamorphic lenses have different optical elements that aren’t circular and squeeze the image

“You get the best of bothworlds: a nice wide field of view and the shallower depth-of-field of a longer focal length lens”

relationship between the focal length, field of view and depth-of-field. Take a 100mm 2x anamorphic lens, for example. This lens would have a focal length of 100mm. However, because of the 2x squeeze, you will get the horizontal field of view of a 50mm spherical lens on the same format. Because of this, you get the best of both worlds: a nice wide field of view and the shallower depth-of-field of a longer focal length lens. This, however, only touches on the many factors behind the science and design of anamorphics. There are so many modern cameras that have the ability to shoot in various anamorphic formats. The versatility to be able to shoot in a range of formats is one huge benefit of full-frame sensors being adopted by motion picture camera manufacturers, and this has even trickled down on to more affordable mirrorless cameras. However, shooting anamorphic can get pretty expensive very quickly. So even though your Panasonic Lumix GH5,

horizontally. There is a range of different squeeze ratios, including 1.33x, 1.5x and 1.8x, though the most common is 2x. This tells you the additional horizontal squeeze each anamorphic element has in relation to the vertical. There are several key characteristics that people are drawn to anamorphics for, the most easily recognisable being the distinct flares. These are very different from those produced by spherical lenses, responding to light more dramatically with their horizontal flaring streaks. Another characteristic is oval bokeh. The amount of squeeze the bokeh has is directly linked to that of the lens, with a more oval shape being rendered with lenses of greater squeeze factors. When you combine this unique shape with how anamorphic lenses render depth, you get an extremely unique and beautiful way of rendering out-of-focus areas. A lot of people often speak about ‘anamorphic separation’, because of the

ABOVE The Atlas Orion series of anamorphic lenses are good value for money at around £8000 a lens

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PRO MOVIEMAKER SPRING 2020

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