In Paradise - Anamorphic Feature Film Trailer

[ergopossum]

A trailer for an upcoming feature film I wrote and co-directed.

 

We shot the movie on a C300 using the 16/32/1.5x Bolex Moller anamorphic adapter lens. Many thanks to the people on this forum for helping me figure out the logistics of this during pre-production!

YouTube Link

 

[james d]

Looks great, where can I find out more info on this film, can you share any BTS pictures. What was it like shooting with the bolex?

[ergopossum]

Here's a production blog with some BTS stills and footage (might want to skip the two most recent posts), and here's the main website, which we'll probably update further in the coming months. The blog's written by one of our producers and doesn't delve into technical aspects much, however.

 

I liked working with the bolex adapter lens, we used it in conjunction with a redstan adapter ring and Nikkor AI prime lenses. We had experimented with Zeiss lenses, but found that the look of the footage we got, with the bolex adapter over the top, was almost identical to the Nikkor-prime footage, so we chose the Nikkors because they had a consistent 52mm filter ring.

 

The big trick, of course, is that you can't really rack because the lenses have to be focused separately. We found that the Bolex's horizontal focus was a little more forgiving than the prime, but it was generally the case that the Bolex had to be focused first, and then the prime lens. Occasionally the circumstances were such that we couldn't see well enough on our little 5" monitor to get things perfectly focused, especially in the rush of shooting a feature over a tight time schedule. For the film's handful of rack focus shots, we used a cinemorph filter, which did an adequate job of matching the look. The 35mm vignetted slightly but after cropping 11% off the sides to get to a 2.4:1 aspect ratio it was cropped out. The 24mm vignetted quite a bit, but looked alright blown up slightly and still resulted in a slightly wider shot than the 35mm after cropping/resizing.

 

I really liked the flares the lens produces. Blue and very 1980s sci-fi-ish, there are a few of them in the trailer. They have a soft quality to them that was nice. It flared perhaps just slightly easier than would be ideal, but not bad.