Lens Flare, to the average moviegoer.

Chris Light

Chris Light

Veteran
The new (2009) Star Trek film has to have more flare per minute than any other film i have ever seen. Tell me if there is one that has more, and i'll watch it, just for kicks.

I saw it for the first time on DVD last week, and i invited my Father in law to watch it with me. Well, during movies we like to take smoke breaks, and he watches more of the current movies than i do, and we like to discuss the movie during breaks...so during Star Trek, i pointed out that the lens flares (i used more laymans terms like "streaks" and "reflections") were out of control. I think every scene had one or seven.

well, he said he didn't even notice. maybe he didn't quite know what i meant, so at the end of the movie, i asked him again if he noticed the "streaks". then he said he forgot to look for them. he truely didn't notice.

though i enjoyed the movie, i will always look at it from a cinematic point of view, and that many lens flares in a film is just as distracting as a moth on the screen.

so while casual use of anamorphic flares, or flares added in post, what do suppose it adds to a film if not many people notice? this is just one example of someone not noticing, so i don't expect that many of you would be hesitant to use the effect, as many of us enjoy the aesthestic, me included. but some films just push it.

This is not a thread to bash Star Trek, so no comments about your feelings on the saga please.

And i do realize that people watch movies differently, and pay attention do details others don't. It was just the flares were SO obvious, i thought even my 4 year old would notice.
 
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Ask an average movie goer how well an actor portrayed some segment of a character, or how well the art direction handled getting the proper country and time period for set pieces, or how well the sound designer managed to evoke a sense of emptiness and they'll probably say the same thing. Show them a movie that doesn't have these things and they'll know it was poorly made.

Just because he didn't consciously register 'there are lens flares here' doesn't mean anything. What we do isn't throw cues on a screen for people to pick out. We create moods, feelings and thereby tell stories. The depth is understood without being thought about. Lens flares are one example. I think it added to that particular film, and I'm sure he did, too- he just didn't know it.
 
precisely my position on it. well stated Cassius. i guess my point was that we (the collective "we" here) are so goddamn picky. i miss the innocence of watching a film without knowing what crossed our eyes.
 
The same thing goes for music.... as a musician, engineer and producer, I can never just listen to music without dissecting it. Where are the instruments placed in the stereo field, what effects were used on the various instruments, where were the returns of those effects placed in the mix, are the drums mixed from the drummers perspective or the audience perspective, was it mastered hot, is it thin, thick or heavy...OMG, I'm ruined!

Now as a filmmaker...same thing goes...Oh to have that innocents back again, throw a record on the turntable, light a fatty and enjoy the music! :Drogar-Smoke(DBG):
 
Lens flares can be used to creative advantage. They are used to portray late afternoon or morning light. Usually as establishing and moving camera shots. If they are over used they are distracting.
 
This was touched upon a bit on another thread about camera movement.
I think that lens flares in some cases are hard to avoid. Say in an approaching car at night. But in the narrative form I personally avoid them at all costs.

The audience is not supposed to be seeing something shot with a camera. They are peeking into another world, they are "magically" watching a story unfold before their eyes. Just like an actor maintains being in character during the story, the camera should be a non-factor. A lens flare just says "glass in a lens on a camera". Suspension of disbelief is the prime directive.

Someone's going to chime in with " a lens flare is aesthetically pleasing" or "it's one of many tools we have at our disposal". We do have many tools so omitting lens flares isn't going to shut down Hollywood. Or Indiewood.

Music video and doc wise then I say go to town. Lens flares can be just beautiful and various lenses have their own characteristic flares.
 
jimpatro said:
The audience is not supposed to be seeing something shot with a camera.
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Really? Even if I want them to see it that way? Seems to me that would be up the DP, I didn't realize this was previously decided. It's unfortunate, since the result is boring cinematography that doesn't fully take advantage of the artistic part of photography.

Also worth noting, lens flare has been seen so many times by the movie goer that I find it hard to believe it would pull them out at all. It is aesthetically pleasing and it is a tool at our disposal. It sounds like your argument against is that it's not the only tool. Soundtracks aren't our only tool either, and reality doesn't have them, but that doesn't mean they're a bad idea.
 
That would be the director's decision not the DP's.

How often during a film do we think "oh, this is just an actor playing a part"?
Hopefully never.

Same goes for camera presence. The audience never, hopefully, thinks about the camera that, of course, was actually used to shoot a particular take in a film. One of thousands edited together to present a story that, for the time we sit in front of the screen, is real.

And oh yeah, the omission of lens flares would hardly make for boring cinema.
 
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I will concede that there are certainly films where characters break the fourth wall and say, address the audience. The filmmaker uses this as a device and I have no problem with that. Lens flare to your heart's content in this situation. The audience is already reminded that this isn't real anyway.
 
The Trek makers were quite proud of their lens flares, according to an article I read (or was it a DVD extra?) When watching, I did notice the lens flares, but mostly because they were in special effects scenes where my brain registered that they must be fake. I didn't find them annoying or over-flashy at all.

Real lens flares are just as contentious - some DoPs religiously avoid them, some couldn't care less unless the flares are obscuring the action, and some spend hours lining up shots to maximise lens flares.
 
Len's flares in SFX flicks go back, in my recollection, to the work of Douglas Trumbull in "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" and "Blade Runner". I have not read anything about the motivation behind it, but it seems to me that it actually adds a sense of realism to the shot. While suspension of disbelief is important and powerful, I think that it is really a stretch to believe that modern audiences ever really forget that they are watching a movie that was captured by a camera. When something in the story happens that would affect a camera capturing the scene at the time, and the effect on the camera is not there, the "realism" of the event may be lost. For example, an explosion close to the camera that does not cause the camera to shake may not be believable. If there were big spaceships, with bright lights on them, or we were close to alien suns, and we were actually there shooting them, there would be lens flares. I believe that is the thinking behind it.
 
jimpatro said:
Same goes for camera presence. The audience never, hopefully, thinks about the camera that, of course, was actually used to shoot a particular take in a film.
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Yes, but what I'm getting out of this thread is that they generally don't. Even when something is obvious like lens flares. If they don't consciously register I would argue it doesn't count, and this seems to be one of those situations. Yes, making the camera obvious is often a problem, but sometimes it works.
 
Len's flares in SFX flicks go back, in my recollection, to the work of Douglas Trumbull in "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" and "Blade Runner". I have not read anything about the motivation behind it, but it seems to me that it actually adds a sense of realism to the shot. While suspension of disbelief is important and powerful, I think that it is really a stretch to believe that modern audiences ever really forget that they are watching a movie that was captured by a camera. When something in the story happens that would affect a camera capturing the scene at the time, and the effect on the camera is not there, the "realism" of the event may be lost. For example, an explosion close to the camera that does not cause the camera to shake may not be believable. If there were big spaceships, with bright lights on them, or we were close to alien suns, and we were actually there shooting them, there would be lens flares. I believe that is the thinking behind it.
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Right, but remember we're not supposed to be "actually there shooting them".
The events are just happening and we get to watch. And I do think that even modern audiences can forget that they are watching something fake. Actually, of course they do. What would be the whole point of narrative film? You sit down, you feel for the characters, you cry with them, you cry for them, you hate them, you love them. For 90 minutes or so, they are real.

I think "realism" is the mindset behind shaky cam. It's supposed to look like a subjective point of view. But as has been pointed out many times, our eyes don't show us shaky images when we're running around in the world.
Just another gimmick that Hollywood has shoved down our throats.

Our eyes (hopefully) don't show us lens flares.
 
jimpatro said:
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Right, but remember we're not supposed to be "actually there shooting them".
The events are just happening and we get to watch. And I do think that even modern audiences can forget that they are watching something fake. Actually, of course they do. What would be the whole point of narrative film? You sit down, you feel for the characters, you cry with them, you cry for them, you hate them, you love them. For 90 minutes or so, they are real.

I think "realism" is the mindset behind shaky cam. It's supposed to look like a subjective point of view. But as has been pointed out many times, our eyes don't show us shaky images when we're running around in the world.
Just another gimmick that Hollywood has shoved down our throats.

Our eyes (hopefully) don't show us lens flares.
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I don't buy that at all. If that were the case, then many, many accepted filmmaking conventions would have to be thrashed, including the crane shot, the dolly in or out, the cross dissolve, slow motion and film music. I believe that the modern audience understands that they are being told a story and can accept potentially alienating filmmaking conventions, as part of the story telling process, and be engrossed in the story and the movie going experience. There are some filmmakers that are so skilled that they can use techniques that bring the filmmaking process front and center, and still bring the audience deeper into the story. Just off the top of my head a few examples of this is Spielberg's treatment of the Omaha Beach sequence in "Saving Private Ryan", Brian DePalma's use of the split screen in "Carrie" and the Wachowski Brothers use of "Bullet time" in "The Matrix". Now all of these movies would still hold their own, even if the more flamboyant filmmaking techniques had not been used, but they would not be the same movies.

Now, this can be overdone, but If you are telling a great story, creative use of the filmmaking process can be used to tell that story in a new and exciting way that will bring the audience in to the story, and enhance the experience for them.

As for the lens flare in "Star Trek", Like I said above, I understand them, but, yeah, I didn't care for them either.
 
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Yeah, I just don't see how a crane shot can be compared to a lens flare.
The audience doesn't think "oh, we're swooping in on a camera crane now". They are just magically swooping in on the scene.
But they just might say "oh that lens flare happens because of light hitting the lens". Of the camera! When they shouldn't be made to think about the camera!

It's our job to let the audience become enthralled in the story. It's fun! You're a fan as well as a filmmaker. Isn't it great fun to let it all be real for just a while?
 
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jimpatro said:
Yeah, I just don't see how a crane shot can be compared to a lens flare.
The audience doesn't think "oh, we're swooping in on a camera crane now". They are just magically swooping in on the scene.
But they just might say "oh that lens flare happens because of light hitting the lens". Of the camera! When they shouldn't be made to think about the camera!

It's our job to let the audience become enthralled in the story. It's fun! You're a fan as well as a filmmaker. Isn't it great fun to let it all be real for just a while?
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Oh yeah, I agree. However, in a movie like "Star Trek" the audience is being asked to a accept computer generated images of spacecraft and alien worlds as "Real". Adding little visual "flaws", like lens flair, which was noted in the OP as to not to have been noticed by the lay viewer, helps to make such fantastical images appear more "Real". Of course, if you could actually go into space and film a space battle, and such, you would probably take care to avoid lens flair, but since they whole thing is fake, a little visual fakery, suggesting light glinting off of a camera lens, can help make the images easier to accept.
 
Yep, good point. Akin to EFX compositing on handheld footage. It sells the authenticity.

Great discussion. This is only my opinion/style and of course everyone should have their own philosophies and techniques.
 
jimpatro said:
Yep, good point. Akin to EFX compositing on handheld footage. It sells the authenticity.

Great discussion. This is only my opinion/style and of course everyone should have their own philosophies and techniques.
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It is a good discussion. That is the great thing about filmmaking, in that is does offer a whole continuum of styles and techniques to tell stories.
 
Interestingly I noticed that the lens really only had "shmutz" on it during the end credit sequence, with the titles over the planets and all. A dirty lens wouldn't fit into the action of the film really, since Star Trek is all smooth and shiny, and shiny-er in this case, but over the credits they really help sell the matte paintings of planets as actual footage.
 
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