A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
Production name: Atom & Void
Production type: Short film
Cinematographer: Alex Grigoras
Director: Gonçalo Almeida
Overview of production and the visual approach you adopted:
The film follows Valya, a spider who leaves her burrow to investigate a strange disturbance, only to discover she lives inside a dead astronaut aboard a drifting space capsule. She unwittingly witnesses the destruction of Earth. Director Goncalo Almeida wrote the story to be shot with real spiders, aiming for a tactile, in-camera approach to help audiences empathise with a creature often feared.
Lens(es) used: Laowa 24mm F14 Probe 2: 1 + Fotodiox focal length reducer/speed booster, Laowa Ultra Macro 25mm 2.5x–5x:1 (only for spider extreme close-ups).
Lenses supplied by: Bought from production budget.
Camera used: Blackmagic Cinema Camera 4K micro 4/3.
Look you needed to achieve: As it is a story about loneliness set in space, we wanted to create a dark and desolate atmosphere with a single source of light coming from one of the capsules’ windows. As spiders cannot speak, we needed to tell much of the story through context and make the place a character, so we settled on a 2:39:1 aspect ratio.
Lens testing process:
Over nearly two years, we prototyped and experimented to find the best way to tell the story. Early tests showed we needed to be very close to the spider, framing it like a human in medium and close-up shots. Most macro lenses and bellows were too bulky, casting shadows and limiting flexibility, so we realised a probe lens was the only viable option.
Why your chosen lens was the most appropriate: The Laowa 24mm probe was the perfect choice for its size and affordability as having a set of lenses was out of the budget. Its increased DOF given by its fastest aperture of T14 contributed to making the world appear more real and avoiding the miniature effect macro photography can sometimes have. Also, its ability to go with the focus from 2:1 magnification to infinity was invaluable as it allowed us to tell more of the story in single shots. For example, by pulling the focus from the spider inside the capsule to the planet Earth outside through the window we were able to immerse the audience more into the story world with a progressive reveal.
Explanation of lensing techniques used: We chose just two focal lengths (32mm and 24mm Super35 equivalent) to maintain a consistent sense of familiarity and objectivity. Using a focal reducer on the Laowa 24mm gave us an extra stop of light and wider FOV—crucial for lighting at T14 during a rotating tracking shot that moved from a spider close-up to a capsule-wide view.
Filters used (if applicable): None
Challenges faced and how they were overcome: The biggest challenge was working with real spiders and creating a zero-G space capsule setting in the director’s garage with minimal crew and budget. Since the spiders couldn’t follow direction, some shots took over 100 takes to capture a few seconds of usable footage. Shooting in story order and getting lucky early on helped us persevere—with patience and a willingness to embrace the unpredictability of working with animals.
Anything else to add? I was impressed by how much creative freedom macro photography can bring. With the scaling down of the space in which the film takes place the resources scale up and a 30cm slider and a few Dedos and Red heads become as powerful as 30m dolly tracks and big lights on cherry pickers in the human scale world.
Lens lessons this production taught you: Shooting at this scale with such delicate beings made the lens optical/image character take a background roll allowing its size and shape to shape more of the film’s image. Proximity allowed us to embrace and capture in an intimate way more of the spider world and hopefully impose less of our arbitrary filmmaker vision.
