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Hi Roger and Dave, I was wondering what does a long lens, say, in the range of 70-120mm or up emotionally mean for you? My first reaction to scenes with higher end of the focal length range is that it makes the background almost melt away in some instances, leaving mostly just the subject in frame. Probably even uncomfortably depending on how tightly they are framed, distancing the backdrop from the subject more and more. But I was wondering what do long lenses mean to you both and what does it evoke visually? I know you wouldn’t just use them for the sake of using them and it is contingent on what a scene is trying to convey.
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A long lens can infer a point of view or can be used to isolate a subject from a background. So much of the why depends on the subject and the specific moment in the story or it may just be the way a foreshortened landscape looks more interesting than a wide shot. Some decisions are that simple.
There are a number of reasons one picks a certain focal length. When long lenses are combined with a distant camera position, the resulting compression of shapes creates certain graphic effects that may be dramatically interesting.
Look at this shot from Kurosawa’s “Red Beard”, reportedly shot on a 500mm anamorphic lens (so 250mm spherical equivalent) at f/22 for a deep focus. The effect is that everyone’s head in the scene is the same size; this works dramatically because it is about a village coming together to hear the sad story of a dying man who is well-loved.
On a smaller scale, when I’ve shot in crowded clubs and restaurants, the only issue when shooting close on wider-angle lenses is that the camera is “inside” the crowd so you don’t have a sense that there are characters behind the camera in the room. But back up a little and use a medium focal length and the main character can be framed between some foreground people to create a visual sense that they are surrounded on all sides. If that’s an important story point, then there is a reason for shooting it that way.
Thank you very much Roger, Dave. The Revenant from 2015 got me first noticing how the really really wide angle lenses were used so close to people in so much of the film which felt like it put me right in their environments and I thought wow this would not have had the same effect on longer lenses. That shot from Red Beard is amazing, and it does work in that context! I don’t know where else I’ve seen anything like this honestly. Can’t recollect off the top of my head. But I have to watch a film second time because first time you always get sucked in to the story. I will watch Red Beard very soon, thank you also for bringing it up as I’d not seen this film yet. And thank you Roger for pointing out how it can also be as simple as things looking more interesting on a longer lens than a wide one. Maybe it’s me getting too into the weeds with so much information out there on filmmaking, which gets me overthinking everything to the point of over-analysis often hahaha.
“Maybe it’s me getting too into the weeds with so much information out there on filmmaking, which gets me overthinking everything to the point of over-analysis often hahaha.”
Clint Eastwood often says: “Let’s not overthink things”.
On the other hand I think pondering over such things and looking at how other people do it is part of learning and finding your own voice.
Haha Stip, that reminds me also of a quote attributed to Einstein, which goes “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.
The thing to remember is that the goal isn’t always to be immersive and create a subjective “hot” experience; sometimes there is a reason to create a more remote, objective “cool” experience. Look at Gordon Willis’ work, which is mostly medium focal-length, or Ozu’s. There is a touch of distancing that works; both “The Godfather” and Ozu’s movies tend to be about group behavior — the family — rather than completely center around one person’s emotional experiences, which is more of a Hitchcockian thing (and even Hitchcock liked medium focal-lengths.) Certainly “The Parallax View” feels very cool and observational for the most part, mixed with more subjective moments. You see scenes from Warren Beatty’s eyes but then you feel like he’s being coldly watched from a greater distance.
Yeah, there’s unfortunately a lot of talk based seemingly on what looks cool rather than what may best fit the picture. It maybe music videos that make some people think in that manner because for music videos where there is no parallel narrative/story part, I guess it’s like “make it look great”, when it is just the band or vocalist singing.
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