American Cinematographer - November 1999 - 100

Selling An Image
explaining that this is because all
anamorphic lenses tend to go soft
toward the top and bottom of the
frame. "If you put an actor's eyes too
close too the top of frame, you put

quickly, and you get the feel of a
longer lens."
For close-ups, Schneider used
a Tififen Soft F/X filter. "In my experi¬

them into the critical line."

they do the resolu¬
tion of the lens you're working with.
Unlike a ProMist or fog filter, they
simply add an extra layer of glass that
slightly decreases the clarity of the
image; rather than diffusing the
image, they just take the edge off. If I
felt a lens was getting too crisp - for
example, if I was seeing a bit too
much of the makeup - I'd just add
that extra pane of glass."
Stephanie Argy

With

anamorphic

vertical lines also tend

to

light

lenses,

bow, espe¬

cially with wide-angle lenses. This
tends

to

and the

bow features in faces

as

well,

cinematographer had to be

careful about his choice of lenses.
"We
with

mainly shooting Coko
longer lenses, in order to glam¬

orize

her," he discloses.

were

Schneider did go to

ence, a

wider

lenses while

shooting vistas or scenes
featuring children. "We used the
whole range we had, from 40mm to
250mm," he says. "One of the nice
things with anamorphic is that you
get soft backgrounds. Even down in

as

Soft F/X doesn't affect the

much

as

-

commercial's entire

Ordinarily, one of a cine¬
matographer's most important
responsibilities is lighting perform¬
ers' faces, but John Schwartzman,

relatively normal focal lengths -
depth of field falls off more

N N R

cast

was

invisi¬

ble. "It was the first time I didn't have

about lighting people,"
"On this spot, we
were
asking ourselves things like,
'Does the wall look good?' It was all
about bodies and shapes."
to

worry

Schwartzman says.

the

In

humorous

clothed-yet-invisible
comes

visit

to

The

an

spot, a

young woman

invisible young

engage in some torrid
foreplay, shedding clothes as they go,
before being interrupted by the
man.

two

unannounced arrival of the young
man's equally invisible mother. The
actors

ASC didn't have to worry about faces
at all on a recent Levi's clothing spot

the

by longtime friend Michael
Bay. Except for the clothes, the

commercial
"Invisible" Jeans

the 50mm, 75mm and 100mm range
-

directed

was

filmed with real

dressed in greenscreen

suits; the actors

were

body¬

later removed

from the

scenes, leaving just the
shells of their clothes.
The Levi's spot was filmed
over three
days, which was largely
consumed by the motion-control

empty

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American Cinematographer - November 1999

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