Wong Kar Wai's "Fallen Angels" and 6.5mm non-fisheye lenses

[grapejohnson]

I recently watched Wong Kar Wai's movie Fallen Angels and was absolutely blown away by the cinematography. Has anyone else seen this? I loved Chungking Express, but this was so much moodier and interesting.
I read an interview with the cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, who said that he shot the entire movie (save for one scene on 18mm) on a 6.5mm lens. It was shot on film, presumably 35mm, so I'm wondering what the hell kind of 6.5mm lens can have such little distortion. You can see it in certain shots, but at other times there's relatively none at all, just enough to make things seem kind of unreal. I love that effect, it's like a half-corrected fish-eye. A google search of "wong kar wai fallen angels" has a ton of examples, here are two.

How can they make a lens 6.5mm and not fisheye, and is there consumer lens anything that looks relatively like this?

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I suspect the movie was shot on 16mm film stock, so a 6.5mm lens is the equivalent of a 21mm on a 36mm x 24mm frame. That being the case, the amount of barrel distortion shown in the upper image is excessive rather than otherwise.

 

[sevo]

How can they make a lens 6.5mm and not fisheye, and is there consumer lens anything that looks relatively like this?

Well, it does distort a lot - some format filling fisheyes won't be that far off that mark. Given the period and origin I suspect a 6.5mm Cine Nikkor as the lens - not cheap then, even less cheap (if existent at all) now.

 

[millus1974]

The film was shot on 35mm so it was a 18x24 (looking at the aspect ratio it's a 1:85 so it's been shot on 4 perforation) but you have to think the differences between a photographic lens and a movie lens, they cost 10 times more than a classic "Good Lens" to take pictures, they are built with the best specific and the best glass available at the time, they just sold few thousand lens every year but they have to performe perfectly on the entire frame, and we have to remember they have to cover less film than a classic Nikkor or Leica Lens, maybe the most ridiculous thing is that you have to wait a lot of time to receive them from ARRI or ZEISS 🙂

I have just shot a commercial with a Zeiss Ultra Prime 8mm, it's a huge lens, heavy and expensive (we rent it 1 day for almost 300 euro) and the most important thing...it's a rectilinear lens not a fisheye, just to understand the difference in this short video you can see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NthqAwjgcWg

Anyway to back on topic, that movie was a little too much deformed for my taste 🙂 but Wong Kar Wai it's a great Director.

Emiliano

 

[d__b]

It's probably my favorite WKW movie! I like the cinematography specifically because of the deformity... It really suits the mood of the film.

 

[sevo]

they just sold few thousand lens every year

A few thousand? There must be many motion picture lenses built in numbers much less than a hundred - many are only available from one or two rental places. Throw in that some of the major studios will own one in-house and a few celebrity DPs will shelve their favourite lens, and you still are below twenty in total.

 

[grapejohnson]

It's probably my favorite WKW movie! I like the cinematography specifically because of the deformity... It really suits the mood of the film.

i completely agree!

 

[Haigh]

I can't comment on the tech side of his films but having seen the camera work in his "In the mood for love" and the sheer beauty of it ( loved the languorous pace as well ) other RF members might also enjoy it.