Jaime Valles
Veteran
I do not have actual studies to back up the idea that different types of lenses evoke different emotional responses from viewers. I only know the effect they produce on me. To my eye, spherical lenses look like real life. Anamorphic lenses do not. Which one I use depends on what type of story I'm trying to tell.
I only mentioned 24p, HD and shallow depth of field because you brought it up in your previous post. Those are certainly more noticeable than anamorphic vs spherical, but they're still aesthetic choices. Again, see The Hobbit. They basically had an unlimited budget, and shot a movie that should have looked incredible, because they had incredible production design, lighting, makeup, etc. But the decision to use 48p made the audience feel something was different. All my friends who went to see it with me were complaining about how cheap it looked. "Like the news" they said. None of them are filmmakers or into photography.
Anamorphic is much more subtle than 24p vs 48p, but the Star Trek images I posted above show a clear difference between the two types of lenses. Shooting anamorphic is an artistic, subjective choice, and it certainly ain't invisible.
Once again, I absolutely disagree. My role as a cinematographer is not to "strive for industry acceptable quality." My job is to help tell the story visually, period. If that means using a 60i 1/3" CCD camcorder to shoot the movie, then so be it. Objectively, it will look like crap. But subjectively, you can end up with 28 Days Later. That movie objectively looked terrible when I saw it in theaters (shot with Canon XL-1s cameras). But the funny thing is it suited the story! It was dirty, grungy, coarse and lacking in fine detail. Perfect.
The goal is not to make movies look as pristine as possible. The goal is to tell the story as effectively as possible. Sometimes, that means using cameras or lenses that are of technically inferior quality. It's gotten to the point that I generally dislike cinematography that's too pristine. Anamorphic lenses often help take the sterile look out of movies, which I appreciate.
As a kid I remember seeing films like Die Hard, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II, and even back then (before I knew anything about how movies were made) I could tell they were different than other movies. Magical in some elusive way that I couldn't place my finger on. The cinematography made an impact which I doubt would have been as potent had they not been anamorphic. Hell, I could tell there was something different about Aliens which made it somehow not as cool looking as Alien. Kickass movie, though.
I disagree that the audience can't notice if a movie is anamorphic or not. They may not know why it looks different, but they know it does. At least some of them do. There will always be rubes out there that don't care what it looks like because they're busy texting their significant others in the theater. The same morons that leave 5 minutes before the movie ends to avoid traffic getting out of the parking lot. I don't want to make movies for those troglodytes. I make movies for me, and I assume if I appreciate what they look like, then others will, too.
Finally, something we agree on! Anamorphic lenses are not superior to spherical. In fact, I would go so far as to say they are objectively inferior. Barrel distortion, mumps, hazy focusing, blurry edges... Spherical lenses are certainly "better" in all those ways. But subjectively? That's up to the director and cinematographer.
A while back I bought an anamorphic lens adapter to use with my GH4. It was a projector lens retrofitted onto a 50mm Canon FD lens using a clamp with screws. LOVED the look, but the focusing mechanism was tricky at best, and not worth the major hassle. If these Samyang anamorphic lenses are good quality and inexpensive, I very well may take a look and see if they can do what I want.
