Panavision

"Cue The Sun." Welcome to #behindthescenes of #TheTrumanShow, directed by Peter Weir and shot by #cinematographer Peter Biziou BSC. Released in 1998, the film was shot on #35mm film using #Panavision #Panaflex cameras with #primoprime and #primozoom #spherical lenses. In case we don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night...oh and Happy New Year from the Panavision group! 📷 BTS Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon SMPSP

We feel as though we've stepped into a time warp...welcome to #behindthescenes of the 2001 cult classic #GhostWorld. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and shot by #cinematographer Affonso Beato ASC ABC, the film was shot on #35mm film using #Panavision #Panaflex cameras with #primo lenses. 📷 BTS Photo credit: Tracy Bennett

Today we're falling back to the set of The Million Dollar Hotel, directed by Wim Wenders and shot by #cinematographer Phedon Papamichael ASC GSC. Released in 2000, the film was shot on #35mm film using #Panavision #Panaflex Cameras with #CSeries #anamorphic lenses. 📷 BTS Photo credit: Donata Wenders

"A big part of being a first is trying to stay a step ahead of my boss by listening, paying attention and anticipating" says legendary #1stac and top #focuspuller Keith Davis as he sheds light on his process and experience. "Every job that I work on within the first week establishes itself. It has a language, it has a rhythm and so the first week or so I'm focused on trying to learn that rhythm which helps me anticipate how I work and establish what is needed to stay ahead. My process of pulling focus has always been tapping into my intuition and my feel. I am definitely a more ‘feel’ focus puller using traditional tools such as tape measures and lasers. In the morning I'll calibrate my eye to the environment, I believe that inside depth perception is a little different than outdoors. As a camera assistant we have an abundance of focus aids and tools such as sonar, Light Ranger and Monitors. I use the monitor when I need the monitor—I use whatever I can when needed, but I try to depend on myself—my internal gaze. Something that I’ve learned working with Hoyte [van Hoytema ASC NSC FSF] and Christopher Nolan, depending on our location, is that a day on the call sheet could have the whole week's worth of work on it and we could go to anything at any moment due to any unforeseen issue. Being able to obtain as much information as possible allows me and my team to prep a job efficiently and effectively so that we have everything for any given situation. I love solving puzzles and being an assistant there are plenty of puzzle solution opportunities. The puzzle is trying to stay ahead and keep the momentum going—it’s all about momentum. When I first started working with Hoyte I felt that we shared similar sensibilities that made our collaboration seem effortless and efficient. It was being able to see a frame and understanding his choices and what he wanted. When we're working together, sometimes it's easier because we don't have to have dialogue about what to do. What I love most about working with Panavision is being able to have the resources and support. It’s all the people that I work in conjunction with whether it be in electronics, camera service, machining, lenses, marketing, shipping, everybody—they love movies. I remember seeing the shipping guys wearing the orange Nope sweatshirts and just loving it. It is such a special place, having people wanting us to succeed in what we're trying to accomplish. Bringing the movie to the audience is the number one objective and we do that by working together.” 📷 BTS Photo credits: Melinda Sue Gordon SMPSP, Scott Garfield SMPSP, Niko Tavernise, & François Duhumel SMPSP

We find your belief system...fascinating. Air out your grievances around the #Festivus dinner and bring out the high strength-to-weight ratio aluminum pole (without any of that distracting tinsel). And now as Festivus rolls on, we come to the feats of strength, by #Seinfeld #cinematographers: - Wayne Kennan ASC (137 feats of strength) - Charles W. Short (22 feats of strength) - Jerry D. Good (7 feats of strength) - Roberty Berry (4 feats of strength) - George La Fountaine Sr (1 feat of strength) May your poles be straight, your feats be strong, and your grievances few! Festivus for the rest of us!

Welcome to #behindthescenes of #GodzillaxKong with #DOP Ben Seresin BSC ASC and #1stAC Simon England. England begins: "Ben was not afraid to push the limits with the glass and worked closely with the VFX team to help them understand and adopt the image style we were creating for hollow earth." Seresin continues: "The look is very different from other work I've done and it's informed by the fact that a lot of it's CGI and set in a world where it's a sort of imagined reality, not just in terms of the creatures, who we have no term of real world visual references for, but also the environment. Combined with the CGI, I think the look became a marriage of a sort of heightened reality, but really avoiding an animator quality in any way we could. It's a fine line when you're dealing with other worlds, especially in this sort of genre of really trying to create a heightened sense of the visuals but grounding them in something that's a language that's tangible, and sort of realistic. You know I'm a huge fan of anamorphic [lenses] and a couple of films ago, I really fell in love with a larger format—the value of field of view. I've seen a wider field of view and I ended up feeling a little compromised because I wanted to find a marriage of anamorphic style lensing with the large format. So [the Ultra Vistas] just sort of felt like a good, happy medium. I'm such a fan of the C Series lenses—I just love the quality of the Cs, as many people do, but what I found in the Ultra Vistas was something that could in some way emulate the specific nuance and subtlety I wanted from the Cs, while obviously not being 2x anamorphic. Ultra Vistas accomplished this wonderfully, so I was really happy to find them. From there, we had developed our own bespoke lenses for the film as well. It was a happy marriage of two ideas. Dan and Amanda [Sasaki] are just crucial in this process and have really been instrumental in my career and my relationship with Panavision. It's just really a game changer working with them and such a pleasure of the project. I really love working with those guys and everyone at Panavision. It's such a good experience." 📷 BTS credit: Simon England

"To render the world of 'Nickel Boys'," says @nickelboysmovie #cinematographer Jomo Fray (@jomofray), "we wanted an image that felt unmediated by nostalgia or memory, we wanted it to feel distinctly present tense, in that the viewer was being pulled into an image that was in the here and now of the world of the story, but we also wanted an image with a certain level of wonderment to it. The way the VA’s render volume gave us that feeling. Aside from their optical qualities they are fast and surprisingly lightweight which were both important given our space restrictions with so many of our point of view builds. The optical qualities of the VAs were like nothing I had seen before. They were so optically unique that they instantly pulled me in—they have a distinctly three-dimensional quality that felt incredibly immersive to us. Steve Krul, at Panavision New Orleans, surprised me by bringing them out while I was testing and I am so glad he did. RaMell [Ross] (@ramellross) and I are both deep admirers of optical design and we had both been a bit surprised by these lenses. After the test, I was determined to get on the phone with Dan Sasaki to learn more about the design and approach. They are a very exciting new option. This film was unlike anything I have ever done or been asked to do. Shooting entirely in point-of-view for the movie introduced an incredibly technical and creative challenge. The goal was to be in point-of-view, but still maintain a level of poetry and immersion to the image. Luckily we had a brilliant and creatively adventurous crew supporting us every step of the way. Within cinematography I see a unique opportunity to express yourself on a more emotional level through imagery. I think since my youngest memories I have always wanted to converse with other humans in a deeper and more vulnerable way. Cinematography gave me that opportunity. I am continually and eternally inspired by the beauty and complication of the human experience. As we evolve our visual mediums evolve in tandem. I want to know what the images of the future look like."

Happy #waybackwednesday to the set of #EdwardScissorhands. Released this week in 1990, directed by #TimBurton and shot by #cinematographer Stefan Czapsky ASC, the film was shot on #35mm film with #Panavision #Panaflex cameras and lenses. 📷 BTS Photo credit: Zade Rosenthal

“It's a story about a night that television and comedy changed pretty much forever, and we wanted to use that parallel in our work – to stand out from the rest just like Lorne Michaels wanted his show to stand out from the rest of television,” says cinematographer Eric Steelberg, ASC about the kinetic & hilarious ‘Saturday Night’. “In choosing 16mm film, we thought that would be the recipe that would create the feeling of being there that night. The softer resolution, the grain, the color palette – it’s just beautiful. My last movie was on 16mm and my first short film was also on 16mm, and the first thing I ever worked with director Jason Reitman on when we were teenagers was 16mm. Little details like that might not mean much to other people, but they're special to me. ‘Saturday Night’ was about stripping my work down to its simplest elements and various components. This is the first time I've had the mandate to get the camera in the middle of everything and make it feel like it's a fly on the wall. We're not on steadicam, except for a few shots. Using the dolly, using remote, it's focusing on the story and moving around with the actors. There really was an independent, give-me-the-camera-and-throw-it-on-my-shoulder sort of vibe, but it also came with an extraordinary amount of planning, unlike I'd never done before. We needed to know exactly what was going to happen in every scene every day, because there was so much to organize between the actors and the background actors and props and lighting cues. Panavision has always had amazing cameras and fantastic optics, but at the end of the day, Panavision for me has been about the people that I want to have as my partners who have my back on films. Whether I was doing something that was a short film or the biggest studio feature I've ever done, I've always had the same amount of service. And there's an honesty and a support and a trust, they understand the creative reasons for needing something and they do it. Panavision's always been interested and invested in my creative success, and I consider them a part of whatever success I've had.”

"Although much care went into the design of the look, the feeling is far more carefree and loose. Griselda is on a wild ride, and the image reflects that every step of the way, from the mundane to the opulent.” #Cinematographer Armando Salas, ASC on the look of the Netflix limited series #Griselda, directed by Andrés Baiz. Salas worked with #Panavision for his camera and lens package and #LightIron for dailies and final color, which was performed by supervising #colorist Ian Vertovec and senior colorist Ethan Schwartz.