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Originally Posted by Dylan Pank
Actually Jonny, at the risk of being somewhat incendiary I think that's exactly what a lot of filmmakers are doing. The 35mm lens adaptor is a short cut to the cinematic look. "To hell with acting, staging, blocking, set design, lighting, etc. All I need is this thing strapped to the front of my cam and that's enough to make it a real movie" Look on vimeo, there's tons of DOF adaptor films, but they're almost all landscapes, or just test shots. People are very proud of how shallow the DOF is and how cool the Bokeh looks, but in general they're stumped as to what to do with it.
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I'm not a director, I'm a DoP/Camera Operator. Directing isn't my business. I work on shoots under the director. It's my job to make it look good - the DOF doesn't "make the film work" - it just makes it look better. Nobody's saying 'to hell with the acting' etc.
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It's easier to drool over particular pieces of technology that appear to do the job for you (boys with toys after all) than it is to really take control of the film from a craft skills/technique/artistic point of view.
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In the end all these decisions are hard, and dismissing adaptors out of hand is just as short sighted as saying "cinematic look? adaptor on, job done!"
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I never said that a good DOF makes a good film regardless of the acting etc. The threadstarter however suggested the film would be just as good without good quality photography (perhaps it would be - but in most cases, 35mm does look better. It just does.)
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and a lot of no budget/amateur filmmakers will through away their adaptors when they figure out how F*&!ing hard focus pulling is with 35mm DOF.
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Boo hoo for them. I'd rather stick to honing the skill - if they can't be arsed to do their job, a highly respected and technical one at that, then so be it. Throw them a handycam with auto-everything and be done with it
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Kurosawa, Kubrick, Welles, Leone, Wyler, Polanski all used deep focus frequently and I defy you to demonstrate that their films are in anyway uncinematic.
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That's because they're geniuses - and they were still using 35mm. I'm sure there are other qualities to 35mm lenses apart from shallow DOF that give it that look. I have a 28mm with obviously a deep DOF and... it still looks better. And remember, they're ticking other boxes - they're on 35mm FILM - at least they have that box ticked - but in my opinion, video, without even a 35mm lens, for a film, just looks... cheap. In my opinion. I mean yeah you can make it look good, but only to a certain extent, I think - I'd always prefer to use a 35mm lens. I think I just have a phobia of video for film, after the amount of student films I've seen... :p </ponce>