American Cinematographer - November 2019 - 64

Stormy Isle
1.19:1

TECH SPECS

4-perf 35mm

Panavision Millennium XL2

Bausch & Lomb Baltar, Petzval

The cinematographer and director discuss an upcoming sequence.

and modern film, in terms of visual
language - and Bresson's Pickpocket,
which influenced [our] use of close-ups,
especially actions with hands. These
helped steer The Lighthouse away from
the purist photographic confines of the
turn of the century, and more toward
early modernism.
You shot with vintage Bausch &
Lomb Baltar lenses. What made those
the right choice?
Blaschke: After The Witch, I had a
sturdy foundational knowledge of
vintage lenses. However, because of our
film's era, the black-and-white, and the
camera style, The Lighthouse was going
to be more 'photographic.' I wanted
more of an optical footprint, for the
lenses to have some say in how we
experience the period and the light.

My first test was to explore
vintage lenses outside my familiar
Super Baltars, Kowas, Cooke Panchros,
and Panavision high speeds. I wanted
to see how much optical character we
could introduce before things moved
from transportive to kitschy. I asked
Panavision for some 'off-menu' vintage
lenses to look at. The technician introduced some Cooke Series 1s; a detuned
'mystery' modern lens; a rehoused,
uncoated 1905 triplet; and the Baltars. I
told him I was very familiar with the
Super Baltars, but he said, 'These aren't
Super Baltars, these are Baltars.' They
were designed in the 1930s, and our
serial numbers dated between 1941 and
1944. They pass a lot of blue and ultraviolet light, which was great for our
orthochromatic look. I found them to be

American Cinematographer: Tell us about the orthochromatic look used in
The Lighthouse.
Blaschke: For the first decades of photography, we could only record ultraviolet and blue light. This is why 19th-century photographs display such bright, blank
skies and dark skin tones - skies carry a lot of blue light, while skin tones reflect
mostly red light with some green. Photographic plates were not made sensitive to
green light until the 1870s. Emulsions that were sensitive to blue and green [and
ultraviolet] light were then designated 'orthochromatic.' We now could record two
out of three of our primary colors, but skin tones would still record rather darkly, and
clouds would not separate strongly against a blue sky. Also, variations in red/orange
tones were exaggerated, so blemishes and textures on a face were emphasized. This
look not only evokes a bygone time, but further weathers the appearance of our
salty, beaten-down characters in The Lighthouse. Interestingly, well into the 1950s,
orthochromatic film remained popular for portraitists who photographed male
subjects. It would make them look further bronzed and rustic. The famous Karsh
photograph of Ernest Hemingway is a textbook example.
64

November 2019

ASC 100th Anniversary

Kodak Eastman Double-X 5222
Black & White Negative Film
Digital Grade

the most glowing, beautiful portrait
lenses I'd ever seen, stopping short of
getting too soft or flarey. They had even
more bokeh character than the Cooke
Series 1s, and less contrast. Their most
beautiful feature is how highlights glow
and shimmer. Their smoothing character
could balance out the micro-contrast of
the Double-X and the orthochromatic
filter. I had to shoot a thorough test of all
the lenses to find when a bright source
haloed too much. In the case of a bright
window, I found the limit to be a reflective plus-6 stops.
Were there other lenses as well?
Blaschke: We had the slow,
uncoated 50mm [T3.5] triplet design from
1905. Before [Panavision vice president of
optical engineering and ASC associate]
Dan Sasaki rehoused it, it was made of
brass and was the size of a thimble. We
used this for a couple flashback images.
Our most unusual lenses were
three Petzval designs made by Dan
Sasaki. It's a lens type that goes back to
1840. A Petzval lens swirls out-of-focus
backgrounds in a distinct way, and the
effect gets very heavy toward the edges.
This is not a subtle look; we used them
only for heightened moments and flashbacks. Dan had a 58mm and an 85mm
already made. As I use a 35mm focal
length a lot, I asked him about making a
35mm, and he did!
Tell us about the filter you created
with Schneider Optics to emulate
orthochromatic stock.
➔

American Cinematographer - November 2019

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