- Why do some videos feel more cinematic than others?
Well there's a few factors.
There's camera movement, there's camera settings,
how you're actually shooting, there is lighting,
so how all your lights are positioned,
but also your lens choice does matter.
So in this video I wanna dig into anamorphic lenses
and why anamorphic lenses feel more cinematic.
Now recently I had a client who wanted the cinematic look
and specifically requested the anamorphic look.
And when I was putting this project together
I was wondering what about the anamorphics
made 'em so much different than some of the other lenses
that are available on the market.
And because we had a smaller budget on this project
it led me down a rabbit hole to try and figure out
how could I get an anamorphic look on the tools
that I have access to without renting
these big, expensive lenses.
So there's three things
that I wanna dive into in this video.
First, I wanna talk about a brief history
of anamorphic lenses and why they became the cinematic look.
And then second, I wanna talk about
the five pillars of anamorphic lenses
so that you can really understand
why they are different than your traditional spherical lens.
And once you actually see these five things,
when you're watching a movie you're gonna realize,
oh yeah, that was shot on anamorphic and this is why.
And then the last section I'm gonna talk about
how this applies to us.
So how can we use what we know about anamorphic lenses
to be able to make choices on the gear that we use
so that we can get a more cinematic look
out of the footage that we're shooting.
Now, before we get into this
I just wanna show you side-by-side,
here's two different videos that I shot of my daughter.
One was on Sirui's anamorphic lenses,
I have the 24 and the 50.
And the other is on my Sony 28 to 135.
And I want you to tell me down in the comments
if you see any major differences
between video A and video B.
(upbeat music)
So what do you think about those two looks?
So video A was the 28 to 135 spherical lens
and video B was the Sirui anamorphic lenses
and I shot them both on the Sony A7S Mark 3.
So let's talk about a brief history of anamorphic lenses
and why they became the standard for the cinematic look.
So back in the 1950s the motion picture industry
needed to find a way to bring people back to the theaters.
So this is when anamorphic lenses
were adopted to making films,
because the anamorphic lens shoots a wider field of view
and then squishes it onto the piece of film,
or now our digital sensors.
And the reason that the motion picture industry
wanted a wider field of view
is that it became an immersive experience.
So at home you're in more of a square format,
a four by three format,
but then you could go to the movie theaters
and you get this long stretched out image
and it feels like you're there.
And so back in the 50s it was a very immersive experience.
And when you paired that with stereo sound
it brought people back to the theaters.
And because the image was squished onto a piece of film
you now have these five different characteristics
that change the look of the image
from a typical spherical lens.
So the first one,
and the one that we see all the time, are lens flares.
Anamorphic lenses have more pieces of glass
and they have curved pieces of glass
so when light hits the lens it creates lens flares,
especially when you're shooting
directly into your light source
you'll see these different streaks.
And the blue lens flare has become
like the standard for the cinematic look
because of a set of lenses that a lot of movies are made on.
Now, the second thing that changes
with these lenses is the bokeh,
so the space that's out of focus in the background.
Any sort of orb that you'd see on a spherical lens,
like if you have lights in the background,
they're typically circles.
But because you're squishing the image
those circles now become ovals
and then also there's, what's called the waterfall effect
where the out of focus sections have this painted quality.
So the bokeh actually puts more emphasis
on what is in focus because the elements
that are out of focus are less recognizable
and they actually look more blurry and stretched out
so you can't really tell what it is.
Now the third quality of these lenses
is there's organic roll-off.
Because of this waterfall bokeh
the sections that are in focus
to the sections that are out of focus
have more of a gradual roll off.
Whereas when you're shooting on spherical lenses,
especially with the new cameras and new lenses
that are coming out, it's very sharp.
So right now you can see that I'm super sharp
and my edges are super clean.
I'm shooting on the Sony A7S Mark 3
on my 35 millimeter at 1.8
and I have a very distinct border around me
where it almost looks green-screen from the background.
And the more out of focus that you have,
so if I was shooting at like a 1.2,
the more that this effect would be present.
But when you're using anamorphic lenses
there's less of the sharpness,
which gives it a much more smooth feeling overall.
Now the fourth reason
that these lenses are unique is the X to Y axis.
So I've been working with the Sirui anamorphic lenses.
They have a 1.33 squeeze.
And on these lenses it's like having a 50 millimeter
top to bottom and a 35 side to side.
And let me show you what I mean by that.
Now this was shot on a 35 millimeter spherical lens.
Now to get the same background perspective
take a look at the fish on the left
and the tree on the right
you have to shoot on a 50 millimeter anamorphic lens.
And when you de squeeze the anamorphic
you get that image of a 35 side to side
but a 50 millimeter top to bottom.
It's a different style of perspective
and distortion in the background.
And this is definitely much more present
on a two times anamorphic.
Now the 5th pillar of anamorphic lenses
is how the rack focus works.
Because you're squeezing the image
when you rack focus from the foreground to the background,
there's actually a stretching effect that happens
on the image and it almost feels like it's moving
without actually physically moving the camera.
And the big thing with anamorphic lenses is overall
the image just feels more organic and less clinical.
When you're shooting on anamorphics it's just not as clean.
There's more distortion, there's more chromatic abrasion.
When you move to the edges of the frame
it's just not as clean.
And then you have all of these factors
that look different than spherical lenses.
The reason that we think this looks more cinematic
than the spherical lenses that we're using now
is because we've seen it in the movies.
We've grown up watching all these big blockbuster films
shot on anamorphic lenses
and that look has been ingrained in us.
And when we see it, it makes us feel
like it's more of a film rather than a video.
So how can all of this apply to us
and the content that we're creating?
Because one of the big issues
when it comes to anamorphic lenses
is that they're expensive.
They're big, they're heavy, they're a lot of glass
and they're just not accessible to most productions.
But there are a lot of way as creators
that we can emulate these looks
if we want more of that filmic style.
So the big one is flares.
There's filters that we can use that we can add on front
that will add additional flares into our image.
Now also the organic roll-off
and the kind of blooming effect
that you'll see on anamorphics,
we can use the diffusion filters
and it's gonna make our lenses look less clean.
So this sample here is with my CineBloom 10%,
and you can see how the lights have a blooming effect.
Diffusion filters work great
and I've been buying a lot of different styles
of diffusion filters to figure out
which ones I like the best when I'm out shooting.
Recently, I've been using the CineBloom 10% from Moment,
but as I get more of these filters
and start playing around with them
I'm gonna do some more videos
where I really dig into diffusion filters
and kind of the different looks
that you can achieve using them.
Now, another thing that you can do is use vintage lenses.
Older lenses are just not as clean.
They have more imperfections
and those imperfections actually will make an image
a lot of times feel more cinematic.
And the other thing that I've been playing around with
are the cheaper anamorphics that are available.
So I have the Sirui 24 millimeter and the 50 millimeter,
which are made for APSC cameras
but on my Sony A7S Mark 3 I can use that clear image zoom,
and you can actually shoot anamorphic on this camera.
When I was shooting this project with my client
I was using these 1.33 squeezed lenses
paired with a CineBloom 10% and an ND filter
and I was able to get some really cool looks
and some cool lens flares
and it just had this much more organic quality to it,
rather than that super clean look
that I typically get when I'm shooting with my lenses.
Now like I said at the beginning of the video,
it's not just one thing that makes
your footage feel more cinematic.
So next, I highly suggest you check out this video here.
It dives into some other reasons
why some videos feel more cinematic than others.
I'll see you over there.