Lens Flares and lighting in the show Alias

C

casey warren

Active member
I have been watching the television show, Alias for quite some time. I love the cinematography and lighting. In many of the scenes there are lens flares and streaks that come from the lights in the background, I was wondering how they achieve this, do they use a filter or do they do it in post?
 
havn't seen the show, but since no one else has responded...

usually different lens flares are caused by different kinds of lenses. Since DVX is fixed lens, your options are kinda limited. I'm not sure what you can do with a mini35 or what kind of post options you have, but you can get cool flares with the DVX, try different kinds of lights and proximities to the camera.
 
Haven't seen the show either and I don't really like lens flares (to me its an aesthetic about keeping the camera invisible), but some of the best flares I've seen have been done in post. When the light is coming directly onto the lens, it's too easy to introduce noticible problems (dust on lense, glare ruining the shot, etc.).
 
Mini-35 adds problems when dealing with lens flare, there is more glass for the light to bounce around.

Big shows like a Alias try very hard to keep lens flare to a minimum, although I don't know the DP so I'm guessing. Thats why they have a matteboxs and flags.

I would assume that the flares are in post.
 
Since no one is to familiar with Alias, here are some other movies that have this effect

Crash and Collateral both have really unique lens flares in the bokeh, or unfocused light areas of the background in many of the shots. The light sort of bleeds into the forground. For example, in Crash there is a scene where the blue light in the backgound in bleeding into Don Cheadles face in a close up.
 
don't remember that specific shot, but I know flourescense do that with the dvx for me.

I just did a shot using the z99 shallow dof technique and there was a flo in the background fixed horizontaly. A purple bar stretched the width of the screen, right over the actor's eyes, so we moved the camera a little.

you might wanna try that and see how you like it
 
thanks for the info, I tryed some tests and got good results with flourescent light too, I had to leave them bare though, with no diffusion, but it worked out very well.
 
casey warren said:
I had to leave them bare though, with no diffusion
Click to expand...
If your interested, that's because diffusion breaks up the light at the source (as in a diffusion gel) which means that the light particles scatter and there's not enough light to flare.

Just food for thought.
 
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