Girl in the Mirror

Lens/Camera Information
Lens series: Anamorphic/i S35 2X
Focus lengths: 32, 40, 50, 75, 100
Camera: RED Monstro VV
Format: Digital
Original aspect ratio: 2:35

Production Information
Production: Girl in the Mirror
Producer: Shin Matsuda
Director: Luke Huxham
Instagram
Production Company: HCS K.K.

At the beginning of this project, I always knew the camera package we would be working with, so I wanted to find lenses that would pair well with the sensor on the RED Monstro. For me, shooting on RED is all about lens choice; there are certain sensor characteristics that I want to soften up, and the way Cooke lenses handle center sharpness and natural roll-off is something RED sensors benefit from. I was also still deciding on if I wanted to shoot spherical or anamorphic, I love spherical when shooting people, but for my locations, I wanted anamorphic, so it came down to either a set of classic Panchro’s or the Anamorphic/i s35 lenses and at the end of the day we went with the anamorphic, the locations really demanded them, so it was the right choice.

Another crucial reason for picking the Cooke Anamorphics is their flare control. I personally can’t stand watching films with flares crowding the screen. I want my subjects to be the center of attention and the atmosphere I’m trying to create. For this film, I knew there would be specific scenes that we would shoot into direct spotlights, so when our lens did cross direct light sources, it dealt with the flares as cleanly as possible. You can see how well they handled these situations in our theatre scenes. The moments we do have flaring, your eyes expect them, and they don’t detract from what’s on screen.

CG and VFX work also played a big part in our film, so an added bonus was the i/ Technology; we didn’t need to keep a record of focal lengths or any lens data, as this was happening on the fly and could be pulled up at any time from the raw data.

If everyone can understand the final image you want to create, you can make choices that help every process of the film without compromising your visuals. My biggest takeaway from working with these Cooke anamorphic lenses is their robustness and reliability across all our scenes, no matter how complex our lighting situations were.

Watch the behind the scenes footage here: