Cine Snark

These are random notes, in no particular order. - April 17, 2025

The basic functionality of cine equipment has not changed in sixty years. But complexity has increased.

Cinematography has no sense of humor Note: not the same as saying cinematographers have no sense of humor.

* Whatever the task, find a way to do it in the most wondrous, complex, difficult, and heroic fashion possible. *

* Beware of intermediate-level artists *

It's all lights, lenses, LEDs

Coming soon, the live-action version of Steamboat Willie

It's easier to sell new equipment than new ideas

The placebo effect of vintage lenses

We want the newest technology in our cameras and the oldest technology in our lenses.

Are you really going to keep making biographies about people who are still alive?

As far as new ideas are concerned, cinematography is about as receptive to new ideas as the church.

Using someone else's LUT is a good way to make your work look like someone else's work.

They made movies fifty years ago that they can't show today They make movies today that they couldn't show fifty years ago And the difference is... people from fifty years ago aren't judging us

People don't remember modern movies because they don't have memorable scenes and catchphrases

Cinematography Captcha test - pick all the photos with good bokeh

* Is the director/cinematographer still in charge of what the camera sees? Or is it the Steadicam operator? *

Camera Raw data compression using write-only memory has failed

It's all based on intangibles

They got so caught up in how they were doing it, that they forgot what they were doing Making the movie became more important than telling the story

This lens is critically sharp without being clinically sharp

With this new 18-bit audio recording, we have the most accurate recording in movie history. So how come I can't understand what the actors are saying?

You can measure a lens' goodness, but not its badness

This year, there were more new cine lenses than new movies

A vintage lens with a backstory.

Wizards Guild Film Festival A film festival of old movies It runs all year Double feature - Watch the movie and the remake(s) The only WFH film festival All movies shot with vintage lenses All movies shot and edited on real film All movies made before you were born Movies where the title is not followed by a number Movies made before DEI, quotas, and social justice

Little River Film Festival World's smallest film festival See two films at the same time Stereo headphones Everyone gets an award - no snubs No red carpet. There is a nice asphalt driveway

Vintage pan heads - to make vintage moves

If cinematography were transportation, we'd be discussing bigger, faster, magical, zen horses

The Vintage Cinematographers Association - If you want a movie that looks like it was shot in the '60s, get a cinematographer who shot movies in the '60s. Don't fake it by saying the '60s had a green tinge.

Don't make movies about the 1960s that look like they were shot in 2024

In the future, movies will be more famous for their popcorn buckets than for the actual movie

There is no way to scientifically measure or describe subjective attributes such as bokeh, vintage, flare, or de-tuning in a meaningful way that can describe a lens or predict what the image will look like. There are no descriptors that will help to select a lens.

I don't need a magic lens. I use a regular lens and the magic comes from me

If you're giving your film a '90s look, it's not by lens choice or color grading. The '90s were the same color as the '80s. If you want an authentic '80s look, study photographs from the '80s, not films or lenses.

I'm using an 16K camera with my vintage de-tuned lens

I've worked in the past as a lens whisperer

Do-overs/Mulligans - Movie remakes, but with the original cast

Specially built movie theater to show vertical video - Multiplex skyscraper

Anamorphobia

Vegan movie film stock

De-tuning eyeglasses

Every movie made before 1980 was shot with vintage lenses. They just didn't know it at the time.

Where did they get vintage lenses 60 years ago?

Sixty years ago, we didn't have vintage lenses or even bokeh

The Theory of Emotional Optics - Happy Lenses Have Better Bokeh

This is the first cine lens to feature both a tourbillon and a ratrapante.

This Bokeh-puller is the only member of the crew who works from home

First person to use Meyers-Briggs for lens testing

You can't make a vintage lens on purpose/without being a time traveler

I don't want a lens with a backstory - like cooking show or online recipe

I am a vintage lens pioneer -- I did it 60 years ago

Focus-pullers say autofocus doesn't work with cine lenses. We have self-driving cars that can navigate between two cities. Photographers love autofocus.

Investing in lenses: buy new, sell as vintage

Every time I make a joke, they make a product out of it

The intangibles industry

The structure of TV series has changed. From 39 episodes per season to 6. When it was 39, it became a regular family event. Now they're a hybrid, somewhere in between a TV series and a movie. Number of episodes will keep decreasing until movies converge with TV series - 4-hour movies Also, in the past, TV was synchronous. Now, it's on-demand.

Three chiropractors in the LA area are now qualified for lens de-tuning

The lenses I shot with 60 years ago are now vintage, but the cameras are just old junk. Glass is immortal

Reverse retro lens - new lens design made from old, melted-down glass

No easy way to compare lenses

Talking about lenses, cine equipment rental houses start to sound like a boutique wine store sommelier

Rental houses have become spiritual guides for cinematographers, to help them on their journey to expressing their unique vision with a lens

Creating the idea that the "look" of a movie comes from the lens

Can a lens be the star of a movie?

This is the first equipment that can actually measure both bokeh and the cinematic look The resulting data is a three dimensional shape that can then be interpreted

Five warning signs that your lens is not as vintage as you think it is

Lenses have become like people -- Now they have character flaws that make them charming and lovable - backstory

This lens is more interesting than the movie

This lens is a rescue

Vintage lenses that are rehoused sometimes called rescues

Everything old is…

Our first vintage lens with time travel features. It can shoot pictures from when it was young. It will be used in filming "Indiana Jones and the Pushbutton of Perspicacity."

We have lens geeks, like wine geeks or coffee geeks. Coffee grinding Lens grinding This lens has notes of…

What I'm having trouble with is this: There are lenses I bought new that are now vintage lenses. They weren't vintage when I bought them. Does this make me a time traveler?

Retrograde Cinematography Magazine -- Hubert Wilkington-Smythe, editor

An AI lens evaluator. Instead of scientific data, it outputs adjectives describing Intangible characteristics such as "the cinematic look," bokeh, and flare, all to be used in advertising literature.

The FOMO Lens Company

A meeting of the Council of Elders discussing the true meaning of "the cinematic look."

Lens churn - like the stock market

Artisanal lenses

This is our first lens with Autocorrect

Having trouble finishing your movie? This new camera setup has Autocomplete.

All Bokeh lens - How it works - Bottom lens is the camera lens. Top lens is a TOF camera that builds an internal 3D model of the scene. The AI Bokeh-Puller software uses this info to make sure that no part of the picture is in focus.

Senior lens designers are having nervous breakdowns after being told their lenses are too sharp, and can they maybe add back a little of the flare that they spent years removing.

Lens designed for shooting prequels

Snow White and the seventeen cine lenses. Poor Snow White. She has to choose just one.

Start with the highest quality image, you can always mess it up from there. The reverse doesn't work. Try or not try, there is no undo.

Some of this is so primitive, I'm surprised they're using electricity

This is a new pharmaceutical to treat restless camera syndrome

Cinematographers are like Eskimos. They have 100 words for describing bokeh

Dial-a-defect de-tuning system

Cine lens real estate agency - to arrange new lens housing

On page 327 of the Bokehpedia, it says...

VLIT Vintage lens in training

Arriflex Lego lens - Can be assembled in many different ways

Wow! This lens has a real photographic look to it.

Bokeh is a Japanese word that means… bokeh. If you look on the Internet, the word has many origin stories - it's interesting that they're all different

The Calvinball team from Unseen University

Goldilocks and the three lenses The first lens was toooo sharp. The second lens was toooo soft. But the third lens had a great cinematic look and luscious, swirly bokeh to die for.

My Buzz Lightyear lens. It focuses to infinity and beyond.

I've never seen a movie review that mentioned bokeh. Or the lens. Or the focus. But I've seen zooms mentioned.

Cinematographers use lenses the way photographers use filters

How to make a vintage lens 1. Buy new, sharp lens 2. Wait

I'm waiting for the animated remake of the live action remake.

Cinematographers know about magical lens properties that photographers didn't know existed.

Before a vintage lens is rehoused, a sorceress puts it through a spell checker.

The whole vintage lens thing raises time travel questions. I know, because I have done this.

Anthropomorphic lens

Can you de-age a lens?

When you notice the cinematography, it's most likely the lighting or the camera angle, not the lens.

How to give your movie that photographic look

What happens if you use a vintage filter on a new lens?

A filter for a vintage lens to increase the sharpness

Lens sharpener - vintage lens too soft? A few passes through the sharpener will fix it

Sci/tech awards are cinematic Calvinball

Look in the old photography magazines for lenses that got bad reviews. These will be your new magical lenses.

Prime + time = vintage

Vintage lenses are like transcendental numbers. There are more vintage than any other kind.

Movies shot on Polaroid film -- Disco-Tech Shoebox editor

Lens marinade De-tuning through marinating

Multi-morphic - anamorphic in all directions

If the movies are made by AI, I'll build an AI to watch them This is a viewer, specially made to watch movies made with AI. So you don't have to.

Cinematography is limited by the moves that can be made with current equipment.

Cinematographers don't have a signature style in the way that still photographers do. They create a new style for each movie. And they attack problems differently

"Butterfly" lens detuning

De-collimator for de-tuned lenses

Imagine buying a camera lens, not knowing it would become vintage?

Pre-vintage lenses Lenses that age like wine Here's something nice in a 1985 Cooke Varietal We sell no lens before its time (See if we can re-animate Orson Welles)

VFX by using photo editing on individual frames

I tested 879 cine lenses so you won't have to, and here are the 537 I would use again.

* Does this new gadget add to the vocabulary of cinematography? Will it let you make shots you can't make now? *

How to re-tune a de-tuned cine lens.

Instead of getting a vintage lens, think like a vintage person

Charlie De-Tuner: Only the best lenses can have star-mist De-tuning is done by our Special Defects department Our new dry-aging lens facility, where we turn new lenses into vintage lenses

How to give your movie that "photographic" look

Film stock settings for digital cine cameras

If you follow the rules, your movie will never get made

Using a vintage lens when it was new Using a vintage lens before it was cool

How old am I? Old enough to remember when movies were magical, when they were fun, exciting, and new. They had catchphrases and scenes that people remembered. Before the movie industry became a pack of grave robbers and corpse reanimators Before all the ideas for new movies were used up

Oval filters for anamorphic lenses

Do It Yourself lens detuning kit - Random detuning Using heat to get that "Cooked" look

New line of lighting equipment that produces the same sort of light as older lighting equipment. Vintage lighting. Modern lighting equipment is too good

New product - Render garden - for small projects that don't need a farm

Turns out the sci/tech awards are about as interesting as a bowl of earwax. An article about you is more important than an award. Presence on the web is more important.

Superwide -- Shoot with your regular wide angle lens, then use Wilkington-Smythe's "uncrop" tool in Photoshop to make it wider.

Top Gun: Maverick is a Star Wars remake It's the trench run on the Death Star.

Transformative movies - the movies that changed you

I do VFX for photography

AI autobokeh replaces autofocus.

Photographing a butterfly, I wait patiently as it darts around. Finally it pauses and I move around to get the perfect framing. About to press the shutter, I stop. The bokeh is wrong.

Watch movies with the sound turned off and you will learn a lot

It seems that there's a film event every week Film festival Awards ceremony Equipment show Conference Meeting

Indiana Jones and the pushbutton of procrastination / perspicacity Knob of Knowledge Door handle of dysfunction Button of Big bulky bokeh

Cinematography is primitive because it will cost union jobs if you make it more advanced

The Federation came and took all of the computerized zoom lenses I designed because they violated the Prime Directive

When there's a really wonky scene, from your LED volume screen, that's a moire.

Pimp my cine camera

I studied filmmaking at the Riskaversity.

WWII was in black and white. Vietnam was the first war in color.

Focus-pulling for doorbell cameras

Bokeh-puller - in charge of the out-of-focus part of the image

"Guess who's coming to my house" - A new musical, shot entirely on a doorbell cam.

Instead of a LUT, our VFX team uses mathematical transformations that allow the images to interact with each other. It gives them an authentic 2050s look

Creating a backstory for your vintage lens.

I am the only person, born in the twentieth century who is not the subject of a biopic.

Believing that a lens is the most important thing in a film is like believing that the typeface is the most important thing on a page.

Heirloom vintage lenses

Wequel - sequel to a prequel (Wicked II)

What's with all the horror movies?

Krinkl, like bokeh, is an imaginary thing. It's an imaginary word describing an imaginary quality.

Post-bokeh - bokeh you didn't know you had when you shot the scene, that shows up later Pre-bokeh - bokeh you thought you had but, in post, it's gone Fore-bokeh - foreground bokeh Back-bokeh - background bokeh

If movies were boxing, you could say we only have middleweights right now Heavyweights were so twentieth century

Steadicam moves are unnatural, distract, not programmable, not repeatable, disorienting, hard to understand where you are. Fixed camera, ptz moves are natural. Multiple viewpoints vs always-moving camera

Camera moves around - action, adrenaline, excitement. Camera fixed - drama, tension, suspense.

This movie was good because they didn't have enough money to screw it up

Movies about 1960s look like they were shot through a time tunnel in 2024 using modern techniques

I lived in New York for over 60 years. In the 1980s, New York did not have a green tinge.

We're seeing actors who should be sidekicks playing major roles

Twenty top cinematographers define "The Cinematic Look"

In the old days, movies opened slowly, to maximize buzz. There was a hierarchy of theaters. Now they open quickly, in 4500 theaters, to maximize cash. Technology made mass distribution easier. Now there's no real buzz. And most of the buzz is meta-buzz. Guess which movies you'll remember ten years later.

Crying baby matinees

In cinematography, the newest thing is vintage lenses.

Why are they still using geared pan heads? Asking for a friend.

I have the World's most exclusive set of vintage lenses. They have provenance. All purchased new by the original (and current) owner. Still on original cameras. Used to take pictures of famous people.