LIFE THROUGH A LENS
As manufacturers push the limits of new optics an ever increasing range of lens options is available to cinematographers. Nancy Schreiber ASC shares her process wen testing and choosing lenses and the industry evolution she has witnessed.
Cinematographers have always taken a healthy interest in lenses, but the last decade or two have changed things – narrowing some choices, broadening others, and making real-world optical effects the centre of attention. Thus emboldened, the world’s optical companies have responded with a huge range of new ideas in the form of both original designs and reworked classics.
Nancy Schreiber ASC has watched much of that process unfold to the point where a choice of film stock and processing is now the exception rather than the rule. “I came up at a time when our photographic choices were about testing Kodak and Fuji stocks and working with the lab to push the limits. We would test over and underexposure, pushing and pulling to affect grain and contrast, flashing the negative and, my favourite, bleach bypass. The visual control remained with us cinematographers as these processes could not be undone.
“It would be a huge deal when Kodak released each stock, having esteemed cinematographers worldwide put the stock through its paces. We would attend screenings, discussions and parties akin to Hollywood premieres and then we DPs would rigorously test each stock with filtration and chemical processes to determine the palette for the next project. Yes, we had many lens choices but nothing like today where every month a new set of lenses gets released.
“Digital can look too crisp and clean, too present, like news, and putting a filter in front of the lens can make the image too soft. Nowadays the lenses are our film stocks. Manufacturers push the limits of new optics and we endlessly search for beautifully imperfect vintage lenses from Zeiss, Canon, Cooke, among others, and glass from east Germany, Russia, Asia and everywhere there was film production. These are getting rehoused all over the world.”
Schreiber enjoys working with Dan Sasaki at Panavision Woodland Hills to detune old and new lenses. “ARRI and Angénieux have add-on devices, behind or in front of the elements. Duclos in the US, TLS in the UK, Zero Optics, P+S Technik, and lens techs in rental houses everywhere adapt lens elements like artists, modified to taste,” she adds.
Planning makes perfect
Planning an approach which makes best use of the available technology, Schreiber says, has become a gratifying overture to each new project. “What’s satisfying is letting the imagination wander and ponder looks for a particular genre, and then test, test, test, as we always have done. Hopefully by that point I’ll have had good pre-production time with the director, production designer and costume designer. Am I going full frame, am I going anamorphic? Where is this project going to end up? Will it be theatrical, or streaming or both?”
Analogue lens favourites have increased in value, which has led, Schreiber admits, to some humorous hindsight. “I was shooting a film on celluloid,” she remembers, “and Panavision had been my go-to at that point, but I couldn’t afford an entire set of Primos and supplemented my primes with Super Speeds. This was before our amazing digital tools, with a turn of a knob, allowed us to affect colour and contrast. When digital came along, the prices of such lenses increased and I sure regret not buying any. They’re gorgeous, they have imperfections, and they humanise a face.”
Schreiber highlights that she is camera agnostic and adapts to the project and often to the budget. Lens design goals have historically involved perfection, though new designs increasingly target behaviours which experts of old would consider faults. The advantage of a new lens with deliberate character over the coincidental artefacts of historical designs, Schreiber suggests, is reliability and ease of use. Even so, she emphasises, the real thing will always hold more verisimilitude. “You know a new design is going to work in the field because they’re brand new, but if you’re after a vintage look, I say, go for vintage lenses… there’s a lot of them around. Yet a company like Zeiss made new lenses, the [Supreme Prime Radiance] to mimic vintage qualities and apparently arrived at that through a mistake in the optical department and people loved the outcome.”
Producers have sometimes been cautious about the optical esotera of history, as Schreiber explains. “When I was in the film world a lot of producers didn’t want us to use anamorphics, because you needed a lot of light, and focus could be an issue. We didn’t have 800 ASA (ISO) stocks and extra lights would cost. I remember when I photographed Your Friends & Neighbors with director Neil Labute, we wanted to shoot anamorphic for a widescreen release. The producers fought back, and we ended up shooting Super 35, where we lost a generation.”
Convenience notwithstanding, interest has only grown in the digital age, to the point where some of the classics have become hard to find and the market has responded with new options. “There was a shortage of anamorphics,” Schreiber recalls. “Now, the market has exploded. I still love anamorphics from a variety of manufacturers.”
Story focused
Finally, Schreiber returns to an aspect of optics, filtration, which, she suggests, works best with a light touch on digital cameras. “I used more filters in the film days. When I shot Loverboy for director Kevin Bacon I always used the Schneider Classic Soft 1 for Kyra Sedgwick, after extensive testing, I still occasionally use Classic Softs, but more often these days it’s Tiffen’s Black Satin. Vintage filters like Mitchell A through D give a very pleasing look without destroying the contrast or resolution of a lens. They’ve made a bit of a comeback. And net stocking behind the lens is ever popular as are Tiffen Black Pro Mists we used in film.
“If I wanted to control colour, in celluloid, I might bake it in, for example, using sepia filters when I shot a Western or period film. Today, ‘baked in’ has become a dirty word as some producers seem to want to have a voice in the look. We DPs try to keep total image control in grading, and I’m grateful for our incredible post tools. The ‘film look’ is ever popular, when using film itself isn’t viable, and when one can’t afford anamorphics, such as on my Starz series P-Valley we used blue streak filters to attain that trendy flare on our pole dancers.”
If Schreiber has a gripe with the way things are today it’s that there is too much emphasis on the gear. “How many Ks do we really need? I find focusing on story and the emotional arc of each character most satisfying and I know I’ll find the perfect gear.”
As a final note, Schreiber emphasises the importance of “testing your lenses and then projecting the files large and in a controlled environment. That is how, as artists and technicians, we best find our signature.”
