Stay Festive My Friends

When I started working with my friend Eli Hershko, I had the chance to shoot some product commercials using his set of homemade anamorphic lenses — and needless to say, I’ve been hooked ever since. He told me about a company called Aivascope that released a custom anamorphic adapter that can be mounted to the front of most lenses that would give a 1.5x squeeze factor. When shooting, anamorphic lenses will squeeze the image horizontally into a compressed vertical or “squished” image. Then in editing, you “desqueeze” the footage back to it’s original form which gives a very wide image with specific cinematic characteristics. For one, the edges of the frame will have a beautiful soft bokeh while the subject in center remains sharp. They’re most known for how they refract and flare hot light sources. The most overused aspect of anamorphics will give you the classic long horizontal blue flare that is seen in countless Hollywood movies. Which until now was only a staple of films with a budget that could afford shooting on anamorphic lenses, which run in the thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousand of dollars.

Since this is a new product, the first lens that I received would tighten and get stuck when macro focusing. After discussion with the owner he explained what the problem was and sent out a brand new unit which has worked flawlessly. Overall it can be a bit finicky but my main goal was to use this lens for certain types of run and gun shooting and interviews. This video I shot in Port Jefferson shows the characteristics I discussed, albeit a bit gloomy and underexposed in some shots (done on purpose) I highly enjoy the cinematic look.

And while I’m being festive, here’s the video I shot and presented during our annual holiday party as revealed in my last post—showcasing some visual effects work I’ve done the past year.