Since at least the Nimrud lens of the 7th century BCE, engineers have been quietly dedicated to making better optics. Definitions of better recently expanded to include behaviours smart people sweated for centuries to minimise, and which technicians now coax out of modern lenses so modern productions can sidestep blowing the dust off actual, decades-old optical antiquities.
Denson Baker ACS NZCS seems keen to avoid an archaeological expedition to the back rooms of a rental house, especially given the lenses there will likely lack a few modern conveniences. “I’ve seen situations where we found vintage lenses we liked, but realised there would be some restrictions, inflexible choices, or low-light situations. That’s where it gets very interesting – when you can approach someone like ARRI Rental or Panavision to detune modern lenses, and create that look you’re after in a lens set that is mechanically sound.”
On Shiver — a recent production Baker shot in Vancouver — he found a way to combine deliberately-characterful lenses with others modified to approximate their behaviour. “It’s a teen romance where they’re not strictly werewolves, but people who turn into wolves. We wanted the poetic quality of a wolf, rather than it being a vicious werewolf. They have a specific way of looking at things, a sharp central field of view and broad peripheral vision. I looked for wide lenses with a sharp centre, but a dramatic drop off on the sides to simulate what the wolf would see.”
Baker tested a range of lenses “and the ones that felt right were ARRI Rental’s Heroes Look lenses. They’ve got a variety of modern and vintage elements, and they’re a variable look. They have variable tuning so you have a third ring on it, so you can control the level of detuning. They only had a set of two, and we needed to carry that look across other focal lengths. So, Matt Kolze in LA tuned a couple of lenses, another couple of focal lengths, to match that look.”
Baker’s approach was to find the best available match and adjust it to taste. “Starting with something we already liked, we pushed it a little further. The lens Matt modified was a 20.7mm Tribe7 Blackwing. It already had nice characteristics we wanted to push even further.” The first revision produced effects Baker felt were slightly understated, and he liaised with Kolze to iterate toward the desired result with Kolze showing what the effect was like wide open or stopped down, so Baker could see the characteristic change.
The right result was quickly reached, although the details of the process tend to remain behind closed doors. Often, it involves slightly altering the position of elements. “I’ve been told they’ll swap out elements and use elements that don’t have coatings, or different coatings, which change the colour of the flare,” Baker adds. “There’s a feeling of alchemy and a few trade secrets too. There wasn’t much information about the specifics. We’d talk about the qualities of the look, but I saw there were some secrets and I respect that.”
Realistically-imperfect
The idea of deliberately degrading an artist’s tools – again, depending heavily on the semantics of degrading – might have been seen as somewhat sacrilegious by the practitioners of old, and Baker describes a careful process of informing other creatives about his intent. “I always go for very early buy-in from the production designer, costume designer, makeup department. And test – preferably on location, at least on a set, and if those aren’t ready the production designer can maybe set up some flats and colours and furniture… get it as close to an actual shooting situation as possible, then we’re really putting it through its paces.”
Testing in realistically-imperfect scenarios, Baker adds, is important. “I’d rather take the camera outside and shoot in the kind of light we’ll shoot our project in… I’ll do a series of tests, early tests when I play with things technically, but the last line is when LUTs are designed and the colour palette is designed and locked in – that’s usually in the last couple of days before the production. Hopefully we have some sets built, and some locations locked in.”
A common tension arising from test results, Baker says, is that photographic creativity and practical necessity inevitably interact. “We’ve had it blow up where we’ve chosen lenses with pronounced flares, or soft focus edges, and the flare ends up across the actor’s face, or the area where the director would like to compose the actor in the frame is soft. We end up in something of a creative compromise. That’s why I like doing a lot of camera tests and having the director on board so there’s no surprises on set.”
Given those concerns, thoughts inevitably turn to less indelible, more flexible routes to similar results, especially where a detuned lens might struggle to keep up with production demands. “I’ve dabbled in some of the post options to recreate some of those looks,” Baker reflects, “and there’s some interesting things there. It’s not the same as creating it in camera with the optics, but you can get away with it if there’s an odd shot where you need to use a faster lens, then twist it a bit to match the other looks. But personally, I wouldn’t commit to that being the approach.”
Getting behind the look
Early in Baker’s career, he admits he had a few ‘yikes!’ moments. “A producer saying ‘that’s not what I thought we were doing!’ Not that it was bad, it was just different. That’s why I’m a big advocate for shooting tests. I’ll set up LUTs, set up frames, share and get a signoff, so a producer can say ‘I see what you’re going for, and I like what you’re doing.’ It’s about getting people behind it and being enthusiastic about a unique look.”
Carrying a set of more straightforward lenses alongside the modified set is, Baker says, something of an insurance policy. “If you have very extreme characteristics in the lens you don’t want to get in a situation where you can’t dial it back or get something a bit more neutral. You always want to have a set of cleaner lenses. When photographing actors and performances, you don’t want to get the optics in the way of a clean performance.”
No matter the production, finding the sweet spot between the pictures made by the original lens and the detuned variation, Baker admits, is enormously subjective. “My philosophy is it’s an instinctual thing. Often, I’ll make a selection I feel is in the right zone, and put them up on a camera so I can look at the aesthetic. When I see a look which feels like the look for the movie, or a particular scene, that’s what guides it. I want to evolve and change with every project, and a lot of the projects are led by the scripts.
“The Colour Room,” Baker remembers, “was led by the colours, photography of the period, and art of our character. That led to a lot of our choices. With Shiver, a contemporary story, colour and ways to look at things was a good starting point too. I go to the great masters, the painters and cinematographers of yesteryear, whose work is a great starting point. You have their idealised version of reality… the most well-conceived or beautifully-constructed version of what their artwork might be.”
Baker proposes that those historically inspired approaches to photography arise from something fundamental enough that it echoes down to the present day. “I think that’s something we do as filmmakers, as well. We’re not taking reality as it comes, we’re making a fictionalised version of it that best suits the narrative. That’s why I like the testing period because you have time to have a bit of a play, find a starting point, and see where that takes you.”
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Words: Phil Rhodes
