Lenny Kravitz "Human"

Lens/Camera Information
Lens series: Anamorphic/i S35 2x
Focus lengths: 32, 40, 50, 75, 100, 135
Camera: Arri Alexa 35
Format: Digital
Director of Photography: David C.Weldon Jr.
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Production Information
Production: Lenny Kravitz « Human »
Producer: David Kemp
Director: Joseph Kahn
Colourist: Bryan Smaller
Production Company: Supply & Demand

Before we even scouted for this video, Director Joseph Kahn expressed a strong interest in shooting on Cooke Anamorphic again, as we had just spent the summer shooting his latest feature « ICK » on these exact same lenses. The Cookes offer an exceptional look & feel with minimal distortion across the wider focal lengths (25, 32, 40). Joseph loves to shoot physically close to his subjects, getting the camera to be an extension of their performance & making the lens feel like a part of who they are within the frame. When you are spending a lot of time on a 32mm 2x Anamorphic physically up close to a rock star like Lenny Kravitz, the lens has to perform and hold up to a level of sharpness across the frame, while maintaining a specific tone & feel that matches across the set of lenses.

Joseph decided to jump between a 2.40:1 look & a 1.78:1 look, almost making it feel like a jump to IMAX framing, where we used the Arri/Zeiss Master Primes (14mm & 18mm) to cut into closeups of Lenny when we did want to distort the image and make things pop. The video starts to « melt » in the look as Lenny and people on our city street begin to take off and « fly » into the air. Having the ability to keep the Anamorphic look stable with the Cookes and then jump into a distorted look within the Master Primes on the 14mm, gave us that contrast within the two lens sets that added another layer to the overall look.

A Cooke lens offers an incredible level of 3D quality to an image without distortion. I first felt this years ago getting my hands on Cooke S4s, you almost see around a person and elongating the dimension of your subject without adding distortion. The Cooke Anamorphics offer this same level to the optics, getting away from a « flat » image and offering the ability to make your subjects « pop » out of frame, bringing depth and dimension through optics.