34 replies to this topic

[ipcmlr]

Actually, I find that the breathing during a slow rack focus to be kind of neat-looking, at least on my OCT-18s. I know that I've seen it in some older films. I wouldn't do it on a corporate gig but for art films, why not?

Thanks for pointing out this lomo "feature" which drives me nuts!!!!

[ipcmlr]

I did find the first "summer scenes" changing squeeze distracting.
I think it was because at first I didn't know that it was not completely unsqueezed to 2x so I kept on thinking "why is some of it unsqueezed 2x and some of it not unsqueezed fully?"
After those first 8 or so shots I was fine with it guess.
Thanks for the video.

[TJB]

Yep it is a intentional style thing. Just preferred it to the full squash and as I said in the blog the LOMO changes the actual squeeze factor depending on the focal position. Need to send them off to a repair guy and see if anything can be done because it seems impossible to rack focus like this.

Question for you guys who find it distracting - was the distraction caused by all shots in the first 25 seconds (summer scenes) or just a few?

If the human form (usually a face) is distorted in anyway - as a viewer, my brain is distracted and askes WHY?

When I was a kid and watched Lawrence of Arabia on a 4:3 TV in "pan and scan" my young brain asked WHY?
I asked my Dad why the film looked so strange and he said that the film width is wider than our TV screen and they want us to see the important action. End result was that I remember being distracted and missed the story.

My question to you would be. WHY? What is the filmic motivation? What is the reason? What are you trying to say in our international film language? Is it part of the filmic grammar that we have grown up with or is it something that just looked cool with or without motivation.
Just looking interesting or fun or different or artistic is great but it MAY confuse the viewer or it may enlighten them. It's your film so you can decide.

As art - I find it jarring - which is entirely A-okay. As a traditional filmic story telling technique - I find it distracting.

[HurtinMinorKey]

There were some squashed shots in there. But I really like both the sequences and the framing of the shots. But more importantly, that girl Lili is extremely hot. You should have used more shots of her and less of the bald guy.

[Bruno]

I've worked with many different directors and cinematographers, and on many occasions there have been problems with the projectors or movie player software that causes slight aspect ratio distortions when we're watching dailies, and no matter how subtle these are, it is enough for them not being able to judge the work anymore and rather look at it later once the issue has been addressed. It's that much of a problem.

[EOSHD]

IMO faces or full body shots is what gives it away the most. In the closeups of her shorts when she's walking, for instance, it's hard to tell since I don't know her, it can make her look thinner or chubbier if it's wrong, but doesn't feel as blatantly odd as a face or full body shot does.

I totally understand it's a look to have it stretched or squeezed, I just don't think it cuts well with undistorted footage, unless you go further and use more extreme distortion, then it would be clear it's a creative decision, this way it looks like something's wrong with it.

Well the close-up of her shorts was shot on the 135mm F2.0L and cropped from 16:9.

After all this talk I notice the distortion far more now.

Funny thing is, even whilst editing it and watching it a thousand times it didn't bother me. This from knowing that I was coming off the shoot with both aspherical and anamorphic footage that I needed to intercut. Obviously I noticed it but bother me it didn't because I liked the effect.

I still find the slightly taller figures more attractive than odd, but one way around this would be to do an edit using split screen for the 16:9 sections as these (uncropped) fit perfectly side by side into a 3.55:1 aspect ratio, and then you can have the full 2x squeeze on the anamorphic LOMO shots.

This is an experiment and it is interesting to see how people react and what new ideas it might generate, so even if I don't agree with some of you in terms of the subjective viewing experience (I don't find it jarring for example) I do appreciate the points of views a lot.

[EOSHD]

I did find the first "summer scenes" changing squeeze distracting.
I think it was because at first I didn't know that it was not completely unsqueezed to 2x so I kept on thinking "why is some of it unsqueezed 2x and some of it not unsqueezed fully?"
After those first 8 or so shots I was fine with it guess.
Thanks for the video.

After the first 8 shots it is less of a mixture of cropped and anamorphic so there isn't that reference point to compare the squeezed footage to. Maybe that is why you accepted it more later in the video.

The summer sequences involve a lot of vertical planes shot from quite far back and nearly 60% of the first 25 seconds are aspherical cropped. Again this test has been useful for me to see how far you can intercut and break the rules without it becoming a problem for the viewer.

[EOSHD]

I've worked with many different directors and cinematographers, and on many occasions there have been problems with the projectors or movie player software that causes slight aspect ratio distortions when we're watching dailies, and no matter how subtle these are, it is enough for them not being able to judge the work anymore and rather look at it later once the issue has been addressed. It's that much of a problem.

I guess it is not so much of a problem for me. Nearly every anamorphic work I've shot has been framed on an unsqueezed LCD and I do the squeeze in my head. Maybe I am compensating in the same way when I watch this footage. Maybe I need to step back from it and do a 3.55:1 version. Like I say, conversing about it has broken my spell a bit.

[TJB]

One of my favourite suspense movies is Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Typically with Hitchcock, there are moments of visual story telling genius. They're genius because they depart from the usual visual language but instead of distracting the viewer, they inform, involve and attract the viewer. One such scene is the climax of the film where the front door is opened. The view is from outside looking into the actors inside. Hitchcock allows the viewer to study the suspense on the faces of the characters from outside as the door is opened as if the viewer can magically see through the door. It's simply done with a wipe of shadow across the faces as the main character reaches for the unseen door knob. It's theatrical, it's magic and it won me as a viewer but .....I didn't notice it. That's why I love cinema.

[ipcmlr]

After the first 8 shots it is less of a mixture of cropped and anamorphic so there isn't that reference point to compare the squeezed footage to. Maybe that is why you accepted it more later in the video.

The summer sequences involve a lot of vertical planes shot from quite far back and nearly 60% of the first 25 seconds are aspherical cropped. Again this test has been useful for me to see how far you can intercut and break the rules without it becoming a problem.

Yep. I guess it was the first 8 shots. They are mixed anamorphic and just plain cropped.
Looking at it now it looks like
1st shot - anamorphic
2nd shot - cropped
3rd shot - anamorphic
4th shot - anamorphic
5th shot - anamorphic
6th shot - anamorphic
7th shot - cropped
8th shot - cropped

5/8 looked anamorphic to me and 3 plain crops. I could be wrong but thats what it looked like to me. So it was quite jarring. But after that it was less jarring


EDIT: I guess I was wrong since you said 60% of the first shots were just crops!/>

[galenb]

Okay, I took the liberty of downloading the video and scaling it in premiere Pro 6. Here's the project file if you want to have a look at it. All I did was to find the shots that looked stretched and add an additional 84-85% vertical scale to them. The main thing I noticed is that it seemed to be very consistent. Like it only applied to a certain combination of lenses or something. Going through it frame by frame by the way was pretty interesting. I like what you did here. :-)

Here's the Premiere pro project file. Theoretically you should be able to just load it up and replace the missing media with your fully rendered version:
 Anamorphic_correction.zip   34.29K   34 downloads

[OzNimbus]

Really liked the anamorphic shots... the rest looked like video..... Man, the BMC has really spoiled me.

[Bruno]

Best use of squeezing ever? Single take shoot by the way.

[Xiong]

I've seen too many films to have it burned into my head, I also found it a bit distracting. Like above comments, its less noticeable until you see a breathing living subject. Just giving my feedback, there are still some interesting shots in this that I like.

Keep it coming.

[Steven Phipps]

real tight andrew. well done. i really dug the scenes with the lit up floor and the black and white shots with the shadows. cool story all around.