Lenses

On July 20, 2019 in the US, July 21 in France, the world celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The retransmission of the incredible images of the success of this mission remains one of the most significant broadcast events of all time. To create these images, NASA selected, among other equipment, the lenses of a small French company: Angenieux optics. The Angenieux 6x25 zoom mounted on a Westinghouse camera and Angenieux 75mm prime lens on a Maurer 16mm camera were on-board the command module of Apollo 11.

On a specific day in September 1984 (a year George Orwell definitively made famous), in a small courtyard off the Rue Rollin in Paris, the final results are – at last! - to be posted of the competitive exam to enter (or not) the Louis Lumière Film School’s prestigious Camera Dept. Myriam Vinocour has been waiting all summer for this moment because, mere months ago, right after she took the exam, she ranked twenty-fifth… but only the top twenty-four were taken. But who knows? Perhaps Lady Luck is in a good mood and one of the twenty-four stood down?

The idea for the Technovision Classic lenses goes back to the iconic Technovision Lenses from the 70’s of last century that had been used for hundreds of impressive widescreen feature films like Leon (DoP Thierry Arbogast, AFC), Subway (DoP Carlo Varini, AFC), Evita (DoP Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC), Apocalypse now (DoP Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC) and many more. Due to the change to digital and scalable modern sensor technology a full frame version is the desired achievement. Coverage the larger sensors of cameras such as the Sony Venice, RED Monstro and the Arri Alexa LF was a design key element to offer a future proofed creative product.

Grenoble is a town in the French Alps surrounded by high mountains that prevent you from ever seeing the horizon. In the cold season, the sun may appear then suddenly disappear several times a day.

Michael B. Chait, director of Evolution Wolf Hound, a World War II Action Movie photographed by Westley Gathright, speaks about the shooting with P+S Technik‘s Evolution 2X anamorphic lenses.

The P+S Technik LensChecker proved to be a valuable tool for the fast workflow of the 2^nd unit on Sony’s new Charlie’s Angels feature film. The 2^nd unit camera crew led by DoP Klemens Becker (Bourne Franchise, Gladiator, Blood Diamond) had the chance to test one of the first devices on set in Hamburg.

In 2017, the Ministry of Culture offered cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman to honor him by making him “Knight of the National Order of Merit.” Being offered that so-evocatively named reward pleased the man no end... but he never finished filling the proper documents and never went to fetch it.

Alexis Kavyrchine has always been grateful to his Russian ancestors for giving him a) those last and first names that seem plucked right out of a Dostoevsky or Tolstoy novel; and b) that tall stature, blond hair and blue eyes which, by chance, he also inherited.

Denis Lenoir is already a confirmed cinematographer when he reads Pierre Bourdieu’s essay, Photography: A Middle-brow Art.
The idea that ‘‘bourgeoisie dunces’‘ are particularly successful in photography - a way for them not to downgrade - has always interested him. Born in that milieu and a “lazy, lousy student,” Denis Lenoir totally recognizes himself in that analysis.

The Optimo Ultra 12x got in Münich the Cinec Award 2018 in the Optics Category. It was a challenge for Angénieux whose aim was to offer to DPs a new generation of lenses with an even higher quality for large format feature and high-end digital content production.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Bulgaria is one of the most communist countries in the world. The "Russian Big Brother" does not even bother to dispatch an occupation army there as the Bulgarian population fully adheres to the system. Propaganda is beyond effective and one risks one’s life at the mere hint of a protest.

In the dead of winter 2016-2017, Laurent Machuel is traveling across the north of the United States. One evening, he finds himself in the middle of a road stretching through the icy vastness of the plain. He sees the sun setting before him right in line with the road and, turning around, the moon rising at the other end in perfect symmetry.

As a child, Eric Gautier spends a long time in his grandmother’s flower shop in the Paris suburb of Bondy. He daydreams while devouring the Tintin comic albums (conceived and designed by Belgian artist-auteur Hergé), not knowing yet that his desire for cinema would be born right there in the midst of mortuary crowns and that, much later, he would say: "I owe everything to Hergé".

In the 1960s, the combined peculiarities of the Belgian and American administrations deprived Yves Cape of any kind of citizenship until he was to turn 16. Born in Belgium, the only son of an American father and a Belgian mother, young Yves had to carry a ‘‘Stateless’‘ safe-conduct – a traumatizingly pink document - until he was ordered to choose between being Belgian or American. He went for Belgian. With no regret whatsoever.

When cinematographer Yves Angelo first met Agnès Jaoui about the film they were to shoot together, Place publique, the actor-director expressed one wish... which doubled up as a tall and quintessential order: "Cinema is all about dreaming, I want it to be beautiful".

Every summer, in the house near Paris that his grandfather shared with his family, Julien Poupard made a short film with friends as passionate about cinema as he was. His father, a producer of institutional films, looked on that enthusiasm with a favorable eye and gladly provided his son not only with his equipment, but also – and no less important - his encouragement and advice.

In Liège, a small French-speaking town in Belgium and the self-proclaimed “waffle capital of the world,” a child was born that no one could predict would become an internationally known cinematographer. Like so many kids, that child, Benoît Debie, has a character trait that all parents dread: he hates school. But he also has another trait, far more predominant - and deeply embedded: whatever he undertakes, he is determined to succeed.

Shot in and around Paris in the dead of winter, David Oelhoffen’s Territoires is a "twilight urban western" that stars Reda Kateb and Matthias Schoenaerts. Long before principal photography was scheduled to start, cinematographer Guillaume Deffontaines, AFC, worked closely with the director to make the (intense) seven-week-long shoot as smooth as possible.