Watched Barry Lyndon yesterday

[Jorge Díaz-Amador]

Barry Lyndon f0.7 lens and modified BNC

Barry Lyndon f0.7 lens and modified BNC

I find it interesting to note that the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f0.7 lens used on Barry Lyndon (which I was privileged to see and touch and even look through at the Stanley Kubrick Achives Exhibition in Ghent Belgium), would probably work on the RED ONE if the sensor protection window was removed. The back focus (rear element vertex to image plane distance) was just 3 mm.

The lens has a built-in shutter and you can tell it's obviously a medium format lens. It was strange to see an iris scale that went all the way to f0.7. They had locked the focus so you couldn't turn it, but you could look through the side viewfinder on the BNC and see nothing but bokeh.

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

 

[zak forrest]

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

Yes they were.

The focus was so shallow on those lenses in Barry Lyndon, they set up a video camera catching the scene from the side, drew a focus scale on the TV, and pulled focus from the video feed.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

You thought the colors on "Ran" were conservative? What do you mean by that? I thought the use of colors was extremely overt and powerful.

I am also a big fan of the look of "Ran," though I thought the ending dragged on too long.

Conservative as in "spent with thought and consideration", not as in "not used"

I saw RAN @ its release in Norway, 87? And it still stands in my head as one of the most colorfull and color thought of movies I've ever seen. But seeing it again, the reason I remember it like that is not saturation and contrast (which I think is quite conservatively applied) but well thought of color coding.

But that's just me.

Gunleik

 

[Jorge Díaz-Amador]

Yes they were.

The focus was so shallow on those lenses in Barry Lyndon, they set up a video camera catching the scene from the side, drew a focus scale on the TV, and pulled focus from the video feed.

Thanks Zak!

I'd love to know more about those "rear projection" BNC's and what was special about them if you or anyone else has more info.

 

[Eddie]

as with so many other asian films praised for their colors, i think its more fair to credit the director, set decorators and costume department for this achievement, rather than the DP. Grading really didn´t add much to the spectacle.
Akira did things the hardway, building up his epic visions in real life scenery. Pushing and pulling around with meta-data isn´t gonna help us much in this respect

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Who spoke about metadata?

 

[Eddie]

Incidentally, in the Stanley Kubrick documentary A Life in Pictures, a former studio head recounted how Stanley had asked to buy a couple of Mitchell BNC "Rear Projection" cameras for "nostalgic reasons". The cameras were sold to Kubrick. Later when Bob Gottschalk of Panavision found out, he had a fit, saying that those Mitchells were the "best cameras ever made" and were hand made to perfection (or something like that).

I wonder if these very same BNC's were converted to use the f0.7 lenses by Ed DiGulio. Anyone else heard of this story or have any other details on it?

As I understood it, the cameras were more or less obsolete because they didn´t do much rearprojection anymore, atleast not in the way these cameras were designed for. Kubrick knew that, but he also knew that the lenses on these rearprojection cameras were among the fastest on the planet (guess you need fast lenses to make the colors pop out when filming the projection). Thats why he got away with it, i believe.
correct me if i am wrong

 

[zak forrest]

more about Kubrick and the BNC, etc:

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

 

[David Mullen ASC]

All sorts of cameras can be used to shoot plates for rear-projection. To rephotograph the image, yes, you'd probably be shooting on a fast lens but usually not anything faster than a T/2.8 for most movies using rear-projection. The main thing is that the shutter of the camera and the single-bladed projector being used had to be in sync. The sync connection was probably the only thing unique about the Mitchells Kubrick brought.

The only thing in particular he needed in order to use those f/0.7 lenses, other than to remove their iris / shutter (so the lens was permanently f/0.7), was to use a non-reflex camera and have the Mitchell shutter shaved down in thickness to clear the back of the lens, which almost touched the film. He also had a locking mechanism installed that prevented the camera from racking over if you didn't first rotate the lens out a little.

Anyway, it's all be covered in the old AC article posted online:
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm