As for selecting the Anamorphic lenses for the production, Sandgren declares, “the easiest place to find that glass, with the greatest variety, was at Panavision, Woodland Hills, with the help of Dan Sasaki.
“The movie had to look sharp. The C-series Anamorphics I used on La La Land are beautiful, but I felt they were a little too expressive with their edge flaws and flaring characteristics. Although Dan did a lot of work recoating the more modern T-series Anamorphics for me, they were too clean for my taste.
“Then, my focus puller, Jorge Sánchez suggested the G-series Anamorphics, that I found to be clean-looking, with good contrast, well-balanced aberrations and impressive flares, and a nice poetic expression to the image. They are also consistent at T2.6 across the range, and not quite so heavy as the alternatives. So, we went with the G-series, and used the 40mm and 75mm lengths most of the time.”
“For the IMAX cameras, we used the IMAX Hasselblad optics, but Dan also made a special, additional set of Panavision IMAX lenses that enabled closer focus. I have to say that Panavision, along with many other vendors on the film, were willing to spend time adjusting or making new things to help us. It’s a lovely thing that they were just as interested as we were in making a great movie and they were intrinsic to the process.”
Sandgren’s core arsenal of cameras included: Panavision Millenium XL2s 35mm; Panaflex System 65 SPFX and Panaflex 65mm HR Spinning Mirror Reflex 65mm; plus 15-perf IMAX MKIV and IMAX MSM 9802 high-speed cameras. However, production on No Time to Die coincided with production on both Tenet (DP Hoyte Van Hoyteme FSF NSC ASC) using IMAX cameras, and Death on the Nile (Haris Zambrloukos) using Panaflex 65m’s, some of which were pre-booked by those productions. This meant Sandgren having to share or relinquish a number of his large format cameras and add ARRI 765 65mm cameras to his inventory, which were then used for the film’s intimate dialogue scenes.
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