With each new project, months of preparation are spent on location scouting, production design, rehearsals and constructing a shooting schedule - all processes that take time to mature. But when it comes to Format (camera, lenses, aspect ratio), the discussion on this important decision is often abandoned in favor of the peace of mind provided by the familiar, the acceptable and the best our budget allows. It's easy to forget that this choice is similar to choosing a brush and canvas. In Dikla Sachs’ film 'Babong' , we try to remind ourselves of this choice - with every single scene.
‘Babong’, currently in its second edition, is available here for viewing for a limited time.
In an article I wrote about the Large Format cinematography of the TV series ‘Just for Today’ (yesTV), I referred to the lengthy process of choosing the shooting format. Beginning with our artistic instinct, through testing and experimentation, to finding the technical solutions that allowed us to express what we were aiming for. With the help of our rental house Movie Mobile, we went through similar processes for the series ‘On the Spectrum’ (yesTV) which was shot with ARRI MASTER ANAMORPHIC lenses from ARRI RENTAL BERLIN, as well as on the current series I am working on - ‘The Cook’ (yesTV), which is shot in Super 16mm format using a long range Super 16mm zoom, also from ARRI RENTAL.
Babong is a different beast. This independent film, which began as an experiment with one 8-minute scene written and directed by Dikla Sachs, turned into an evolving work of art, growing organically from within; Every few weeks we go out to shoot a scene or two, inspired by previous scenes, by a cast that intrigues us, and by the zeitgeist. Babong has a life of its own and every time it is screened it is a different film. These are not versions, but editions, and every new part Dikla writes provides fertile ground for re-searching the form, or in this case, the format, which is appropriate for the moment and which we most desire to experiment with.
But why would one want to use multiple formats on the same film? Well, one use of this method is to differentiate time periods or stories within stories. I did something similar in the TV series ‘Uri & Ella’ (HOT TV), directed by Yuval Shafferman, where we used vintage anamorphic lenses for a few flashback scenes, while the rest of the series was shot with the spherical Ultra Primes. Damien Chazelle shot ‘First Man’ in S16, S35 and IMAX with Hasselblads for the moon landing sequence. Before him Danny Boyle shot ‘Steve Jobs’ in S16 film, S35 film and Digital S35 with the Alexa, using each format for a different act in the film and a different time period in Jobs’ career. Another example would be Xavier Dolan’s ‘Mommy’, where the changing aspect ratio helps express the emotional state of the characters. Usually a change of format would be used to make a scene or a sequence stand out, but it was actually Christopher Nolan’s use of multiple formats that inspired me the most. Nolan would cut from anamorphic Super35 to IMAX in the same scene, only because the huge IMAX format was a better fit for those grand moments. It didn’t matter that the aspect ratio changed back and forward mid scene, or that crop lines appear and disappear several times - in fact, most viewers don’t even notice it - all that mattered was that each moment was fitted with the best format.
That is what we’re going for with Babong, only on a much smaller scale. Whether it’s the Hi-Res, 35mm Full Frame of the SONY VENICE, coupled with the GENESIS G35 50mm T1.4 that enabled us to come out of a character’s ear all the way to a beautiful, yet eerie, Close Up, with an extremely shallow depth of field, or the Hasselblads’ Medium Format coverage that helped us fit more characters into the frame and be close to them in a tight space, while still using a relatively long focal length (60mm), or using the Alexa Mini in portrait mode (with an L bracket), as we might do with a stills camera, to better fit single characters into a frame, accommodating their body language and at the same time accentuating their solitude.
We have to of course consider that if Babong were a normal production, meaning all shooting days were scheduled consecutively, it would probably be very difficult (if not impossible) to utilize so many formats. Scheduling and gear reservations would become a nightmare, with days that may include several formats and thus require several camera/lenses combinations. The fact that we treat each day as if it were a separate production, allows us the flexibility of choosing what, where and how we want to shoot.
This creative playground is made possible not only thanks to the cast and crew who volunteer their time and talent, but also thanks to our co-producer Shani Yancu, CEO of Movie Mobile rental house, who helped turn this indie film into an amazing platform for testing new gear and workflows, as we collaborate with rental houses like ARRI RENTAL, and lens manufacturers like White Point Optics, the folks who created the re-engineered Hasselblads for ‘Just for Today’. For post production we work with Studio LUX, where our colorist Tomer Bahat designed a manageable workflow with custom LUTs for all the camera/lens combos we use, and with Ronen Nagel, our sound designer from Sound Around sound design boutique.
And so, just in the current release, you can see the use of Medium Format with Hasselblad lenses, 35mm Full Frame with Genesis G35 lenses, and Super 35mm in Portrait Mode with ARRI/Zeiss Ultra-Prime lenses. Meanwhile, Dikla and editor Yftah Paul Shoshan are cutting three more parts, in three different formats (Large Format, S35 and S16), to be featured in the 3rd edition of Babong.