Thoughts on Large Format Cinematography
“Just for Today” was shot, and aired, using the full frame 3:2 aspect ratio of the VENICE with the TS70(HS) lenses by WHITEPOINT OPTICS. Here's why.
I recently had the opportunity to work with the SONY VENICE on the TV series “Just for Today”. The 9-episode drama, directed by Nir Bergman, aired September (2019) on YES TV, one of Israel’s leading broadcasters, and has been officially selected for the 27th CAMERIMAGE TV Pilots Competition (2019), after also winning the Best TV Series Prize at the ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL, as well as the Special Jury Prize at SERIES MANIA. Set in present-day Tel-Aviv, the show follows a group of recently released prisoners as they fight for their place on the fringes of society when their half-way home shuts down prematurely.
“Just for Today” was shot, and aired, using the full frame 3:2 aspect ratio of the VENICE with the TS70(HS) lenses by WHITEPOINT OPTICS. The VENICE and the TS70 lenses were a perfect match for "Just for Today". While researching the world of the show - that of ex-prisoners, half-way homes, and drug abuse - it quickly became clear that the Super 35mm format simply didn’t feel right, and here’s why;
Although the characters in the show are weaned from drugs, some of the research was done in shelters for active addicts. Admittedly, walking into a shelter for active drug addicts can be jarring at first. While they were fine with me taking pictures, I kept a fair distance and used longer lenses to respect the tenants’ privacy. This observational approach resulted in images that serve the space and assimilate the tenants into its overall texture, but it lacked intimacy. The images below were taken with a 56mm on Fujifilm’s X-T2, which has an APS-C sensor, similar to super35.
Lacking intimacy | Research at half-way homes | 56mm on APS-C sensor.
The optical traits of long focal lengths were appealing, but when one of the tenants invited me into his tiny room I found myself struggling. I wanted to be in the room, closer than what the 56mm would allow me, but I also didn’t want to introduce any of the distortion of a short focal length. It’s a really small room - a niche with a single bed - and the distortion would make it appear weirdly large.
The option of using anamorphic lenses came up. A 2X squeeze would capture twice the angle of view of a 50mm lens without the distortion of a 25mm - and it would look cool too! I chose the same for the previous series I shot – “On the Spectrum”, Directed by Yuval Shaferman, also aired on YES. The show follows three twenty-year-olds, all on the autistic spectrum, who share a sheltered apartment. We wanted to fit all three characters into one frame without awkwardly cramping them together, but still be close enough and avoid distortion that might ridicule them. We chose the ARRI Master Anamorphic lenses (from ARRI RENTAL Berlin) which have no barrel distortion. It was the first Israeli TV series to be shot and aired in cinemascope 2.39 aspect ratio and it ended up winning several awards including the Grand Prizes at Series Mania, Monte Carlo, and Seoul, as well as the Israeli Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
Shooting cinemascope for TV was a very interesting, often thrilling, experience, and the Master Anamorphics were certainly a good choice for that story, but on “Just for Today” we needed something different. The horizontal angle of view of anamorphic lenses is great, but I felt I needed to better accommodate the human face and for body language to be visible. Achieving that required a larger canvas.
Off screen body language | On the Spectrum | ARRI Master Anamorphic 100mm
Enter the SONY VENICE. This camera certainly has many features that enable cinematographers (and colorists) to do things a bit differently from what they’re used to - from its dual base ISO’s (500\2500), excellent low light performance, 15+ stops of dynamic range, and 8-step mechanical ND mechanism, to its efficient X-OCN RAW formats. The Venice helped us get more out of the short winter days, literally. But, without a doubt, it was the implementation of a 3:2 Full Frame sensor that opened new artistic doors. Now, to frame a close up – from up close - I could easily use an 80mm or even 100mm with a 0.7x focal reducer (more on that later) in cases where I would typically use a 32mm, from the same distance. The physical proximity to the actors, together with the qualities of the longer focal lengths, put the viewer in the room, experiencing its true scale and perspective - facing the characters, immersed in their expression while still being able to register their posture and body language.
Using longer focal lengths also allows for shallower depth field, helping us achieve some beautiful close ups, and not just with super wide apertures. The images below were taken with a diopter to let us get a bit closer with the 80mm T2.8 and separate the eyes, so the child’s focused eye would be in the light, while the criminal adult’s focused eye is shadowed.
Apart from creating these rich, expressive close shots, the shallow depth of field is also a very effective storytelling tool when it comes to wide and group shots; Being able to separate one person from a group of people - not by using a distant long lens - we can now play out scenes with little to no coverage, with the focus used as a highlighter in a shot that would typically become cluttered when everything is in focus. This also helps us create an intimate, personal moment in an impersonal space. In the image below, the camera is on the doorstep of the room with an 80mm T2.8, singling out Shlomi (on the left), nervously scratching his hands, as the tenants receive bad news about the half-way home being shut down.
Just for Today | WPO TS70 80mm
One of my favourite features of the SONY VENICE is the 3:2 ratio of the 36 x 24 mm sensor. Most projects will probably crop the image to a 16:9 or 17:9, or even to spherical cinemascope for that matter. Similar to cinemascope on the horizontal axis, the taller ratio of 3:2 invites different kinds of compositions with a lot of headroom. Below is Shlomi again, unable to sleep after receiving the bad news. He rests his head on the home’s dining room table, and later on at his hotel room, realizing his family betrayed him.
The vast dynamic range of the VENICE sensor holds highlights and shadows extremely well, making it fairly easy to use practical light sources and retrieve the highlight details in post. Additionally, thanks to the extra headroom of the 3:2 sensor, rooms can take on different forms - powerful high hanging practical sources can be inserted into the frame in situations that would normally require camera movement or a much wider lens. In the image below, the only access to the roof was through the small window. We managed to fit through two ARRI SkyPanels 120 and position them right on the glass, and use them as the only light source in the scene. In the LOG footage the texture of the SkyPanels was still visible, and to quote Tomer Bahat our colorist, as he pushed the highlights just enough to blow them out without hurting the texture of the window frame: “First time I’m not bummed out when someone didn't shoot on the Alexa”.
Just for Today | WPO TS70 60mm
As someone who enjoys taking stills, I felt right at home with the 3:2 ratio, especially when taking portraits, and at this point things really started to click - as the term “Portrait” seemed to come up a lot in my conversation with Nir, the director. The show’s narrative structure is essentially a series of portraits, dedicated to four different perspectives - those of a social worker, two tenants, and that of the home’s director, during the period of its shut-down. It was those famous, up close and personal, Medium-Format Platonesque portraits, that we kept coming back to. For obvious reasons, we couldn’t shoot 60mm film, nor could we afford the ARRI Alexa 65, but we now had in our hands a full frame, high-end, mirrorless digital cinema camera. The first thing I did when I got a test unit from SONY, was to (gently) get rid of the PL mount that was attached to the body, expose the SONY E-mount, and try different kinds of lenses - some quite old, which were previously adapted to the SONY a7 line of full frame 3:2 stills cameras. One of those lenses was an old Hasselblad 80mm f/2.8, adapted with a KIPON 0.7x SpeedBooster to get its full image circle. Sure, it wasn’t true medium format, for that we would need an even larger sensor, and the 0.7x speed converter changes the focal length of the lens - but the numbers didn’t matter anymore. We just fell in love.
I don’t care much for charts, so to test this set-up, with the help of our rental house, MOVIE MOBILE, I got my hands on some old Hasselblads and shot a spontaneous short film in one night with some friends. The images looked great!
The SpeedBooster\Hasselblads combo was okay for a chill indie project like “Babong”, but unfortunately it wasn’t really a workable setup for a long, high-paced production like a TV series. Focus pulling was extremely difficult and some of the lenses jiggled on the mount. I almost gave up on the dream of shooting a TV series with a Medium-Format analog look.
That’s when we contacted WHITEPOINT OPTICS. Their engineers rounded up a bunch of old Hasselblads, took them apart, designed a brand-new consistent iris and rehoused them - using only the best glass from each lens they found, and, if needed, attaching their own sturdy 0.7x speed converter. The superb rehousing with great focus and aperture mechanisms, coupled with the built-in 0.7x speed converter, really sealed the deal. The TS70’s Hasselblad ‘Medium-Format’ look and character with the 3:2 aspect ratio on the SONY’s 6K VENICE created humanistic, gentle - yet gritty - analog looking images full of texture. The images feel intimate and close to the characters without distorting them, while still allowing their surroundings to be present.
Just for Today | WPO TS70 80mm
Even though the budget allowed for only 4 lenses, I felt it was the right choice. The look of the portraits was more important to me than the versatility of focal lengths. In fact, the 80mm was the go-to lens in many cases and most of the series was shot with it. Once you experience the natural perspective of this focal length, it’s very hard to take it off the camera. Some group shots, action, and car scenes were taken with the 60mm and a few shots were taken either with the 40mm or the 100mm. Lastly, three extreme POV shots were actually taken with a Tamron 180mm stills lens, which was easily adapted to the Sony E-mount. Perhaps the only thing I wish was available from the Hasselblad line is a 110mm f/2. If it was, I would probably take the more expressive portraits with that lens.
Much like with small and confined spaces, the large format also shines in bigger landscape shots. Short focal lengths on a super35 sensor allow for large vistas, but they look much further away than they really are - a close figure would seem detached from the landscape. In contrast, through long focal lengths on the large sensor, the point of view seems more natural and brings the distant horizon closer, perpetuating the figure in the landscape as part of the overall image.
There’s a lot to be said about the technical benefits of using the SONY VENICE, but at the end of the day, not only did this tool give us more control over the image, but it also allowed us to explore different cinematic forms that until now were unavailable or beyond our reach.
Just for Today | WPO TS70 80mm