Janusz Kamiński on Saving Private Ryan's look...

[Lewis-M Soucy]

This one comes so often, thought I'd post this:

To achieve a tone and quality that was true to the story as well as reflected the period in which it is set, Spielberg once again collaborated with cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, saying:

"Early on, we both knew that we did not want this to look like a Technicolor extravaganza about World War II, but more like color newsreel footage from the 1940s, which is very desaturated and low-tech."

Kamiński had the protective coating stripped from the camera lenses, making them closer to those used in the 1940s. He explains that "without the protective coating, the light goes in and starts bouncing around, which makes it slightly more diffused and a bit softer without being out of focus."

The cinematographer completed the overall effect by putting the negative through bleach bypass, a process that reduces brightness and color saturation.

The shutter timing was set to 90 or 45 degrees for many of the battle sequences, as opposed to the standard of 180 degree timing. Kamiński clarifies, "In this way, we attained a certain staccato in the actors' movements and a certain crispness in the explosions, which makes them slightly more realistic."

 

[dino g]

had the pleasure of shooting a commercial with janusz with red one #0031. he was a generous and gracious man and after we wrapped, he spent over an hour looking at the footage in redcine. he quite enjoyed the experience and loved being able to see shots right there on set.

dino

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

priceyyyyy project.. stripping out the coatings..

which lenses did they use?

and are they able to re-coat after?

 

[Steve Das]

Those were a famous set of lenses in the 90's...you used to be able to rent them
from Panavision Woodland Hills..probably still can. Of course they didn't make your film look like
Saving Private Ryan but they were quite soft.

 

[Jesper Sichlau]

had the pleasure of shooting a commercial with janusz with red one #0031. he was a generous and gracious man and after we wrapped, he spent over an hour looking at the footage in redcine. he quite enjoyed the experience and loved being able to see shots right there on set.

dino

Could the future of Spielberg be Red?

 

[Peter Moretti]

Could the future of Spielberg be Red?

Even I don't want to see that. There's got to be a few film holdouts, or this world just gets too homogeneous.

 

[JanneJansson]

Removing the lens coating... I'm hurting all over.

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

It's a beautiful look. Especially if you're after that milky backlit glaring fashion look. Makes a little tougher on the focus puller though.

With the bleach bypass you bring back the contrast into it.

 

[Shawn Nelson]

How does one remove filter coatings? I'd love to experiment with this. Should be easy to get a 50mm f1.4 Nikon manual lens, strip the coatings and then experiment with it. It is just on the outer edge or do you have to disassemble the lens and remove it from each element?

 

[Tim Sutherland]

If I remember correctly, they also used the shutter partially out of phase for some of the sequences at least, to give it a vertical smear as the film is moving in the gate part of the time the film is being exposed.

Tim

 

[Harry Clark]

Yes, that's correct. Both Panavision and Arri have boxes that let you control the amount of phase offset, and thus the length of the smear.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Davide B.]

How does one remove filter coatings? I'd love to experiment with this. Should be easy to get a 50mm f1.4 Nikon manual lens, strip the coatings and then experiment with it. It is just on the outer edge or do you have to disassemble the lens and remove it from each element?

It's not the same but Voigtlander made some lenses that have only a single coating rather than multicoating: http://www.cameraquest.com/voigt4014.htm

 

[Andrew Rieger]

If anyone is looking for some uncoated lenses, I would look for older lenses like Super Baltars and Cooke Speed Panchros. They may be coated but the coating is lighter and more flare-prone.

Another option is to buy a set of pre-stripped lenses. I know that Vantage (the company that makes the Hawk Anamorphics), sells a set of stripped Zeiss Superspeeds and some Angie zooms with no coatings. The PDF below has the info.

http://www.vantagefilm.com/file/pdf/vantage_uncoated_superspeeds.pdf

 

[Noah Kadner]

Some of that look was cribbed from Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket as well...

Noah

 

[Harry Clark]

I agree, especially the style of camera operating in that last sequence in Full Metal Jacket where they are at the bombed out village (really an abandoned cement works, according to the AC article)
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Marc Wielage]

Spielberg has been very negative on digital cameras in the past, insisting he's a die hard film guy. But his current project (Adventures of Tintin) was 3D motion capture, so it looks to me like he's bending a little bit -- maybe after the commercial and critical success of Avatar.

Tintin will also be the first Spielberg film that I know of where they'll be editing digitally. Spielberg is notorious for staying away from Avid or Final Cut Pro on past films, preferring to edit with workprints on flatbeds.

I think once Steven sees Scorcese's new feature, Hugo Cabret (shot on Alexa), maybe he'll have a different assessment about digital cinematography and try it out on a future picture.

 

[Timur Civan]

The studio may be insisting. HE may be the biggest film diehard, but if the man with the check book says Digital, what can you do?

 

[Sean Rawls]

If I remember correctly, they also used the shutter partially out of phase for some of the sequences at least, to give it a vertical smear as the film is moving in the gate part of the time the film is being exposed.

Tim

Yep, just like Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I love both these films

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

The studio may be insisting. HE may be the biggest film diehard, but if the man with the check book says Digital, what can you do?

I think Steven Spielberg has enough clout to choose what he shoots on, he's not the only person shooting film.

 

[M Most]

The studio may be insisting. HE may be the biggest film diehard, but if the man with the check book says Digital, what can you do?

Tintin is a performance capture project. There is no shooting of anything, at least nothing that will wind up on the screen. This is the same approach as past projects such as Beowulf, Polar Express, A Christmas Carol, and for the most part, Avatar.

Live action projects that are being photographed in stereoscopic 3D are being done almost exclusively with digital cameras because that makes a lot more sense these days, particularly with the arrival of cameras whose form factors are uniquely suited to the current level of stereo rig technology, such as Epic. If you look at the projects announced by Red as being shot with the early Epics, as I recall all but one are 3D stereoscopic shoots. The fact is that the large majority of studio pictures that are not 3D origination (and this would include things like Green Hornet and Men In Black 3 that will be converted to 3D in post) are still being shot on film, for many reasons that remain quite valid today. Tomorrow, who knows. But tomorrow has not arrived yet, and I don't know of any studio that is "demanding" digital capture on anything but 3D projects (and television series, of course).