The Two Takes Minimum Theory of Filmmaking

An actor expects two takes, minimum. There are some exceptions. I believe Sidney Lumet advised directors to do only one take of some unimportant shot, early on in a shoot, to show the crew they should always remain vigilant. Steven Spielberg has said he doesn't like to rehearse actors in front the camera, since the first time is always the most spontaneous. But of course that's just a preference, and he still does as many takes as he needs to get the right performance.

You would expect indie films to have fewer takes. I have heard of footage ratios as low as 4:1 -- for every one minute you see on screen, four minutes were shot. You only get that by being very very careful what you shoot. The inexpensiveness of digital recording compared to film has flipped the equation. Now there are probably more indie films which depend only on 1/100 minutes being worth watching (and plenty of bad minutes get in).

The Difference Between Tom Cruise and Michael Jordan

I think what professional actors do is amazing. They are like athletes: they have to perform on demand, and under incredible scrutiny. But film is not like sports. In film, you can take that shot at the goal over and over (and over) until you make it. The magic of multiple takes makes every film a real-life Groundhog's Day, reliving the moment until you reach perfection.

It's hard to know for sure, but my suspicion is this would be Stanley Kubrick's theory. As you may recall, the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey was notorious for his profligacy with camera takes. He wanted to reach a point where the action felt second-nature, something that requires repetition. And he would have appreciated the recent research that shows repetition to be a critical part of success. But this idea is not unique to Kubrick, even if the single-minded application of it is. Common sense has always maintained the notion, as with the classic joke... "Q. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? A. Practice!"

Even the most non-demanding directors will call "That was perfect, do it again" or "Once more for safety." It's not a hollow demand. Any number of things could have been missed on the first take (focus, sound, etc.), and getting all sets, props, lights, and actors aligned again later is costly. And so, even though the performance was "perfect," the actors are ready go again, once more, "for safety."

The great actors even relish this second chance. Trusting the editor, they will try a new variation on the performance in each take, or improvise new business or lines. It is the Japanese philosophy of kaizen, continuous improvement. Strive to beat your own record. Be a little better each time.

The One Time the Crew Should Behave More Like Actors

What occurred to me recently is that the best directors don't just demand multiple takes from actors, they demand it from everyone involved in the film. Composers, editors, costume designers, cinematographers -- everyone. I don't think this is an accident, and it probably wasn't far from the joke Martin Scorsese made in that credit card commercial... after looking at the lackluster pictures from his nephew's birthday party he calls up and asks, "Hey Timmy, how would you like to turn five again?"

Just as most producers budget for re-shoots (one big 'second take' at the end of the process), they should plan on paying for pre-production 'second takes' on costumes, sets -- etc. Now I don't mean doubling the entire budget. But a director should have the encouragement to do trial and error in every department. And there will always be things that don't add up 'on the day'.

Composer Marc Shaiman wrote and recorded an entire score for The Emperor's New Groove. As told in the never-released documentary The Sweatbox, it wasn't a bad score; it just didn't work. Somebody made the tough call to scrap it, even though the movie, at that point, was already legendary for its production delays.

Barring a parallel universe where everything is the same except that one decision, we'll never know for sure if that was the right thing to do. I might argue that Shaiman should have been given another shot provided he was willing to start from scratch. Yes, starting over would be a tough thing to do. I think it's one of the deepest and most primal fears of any creative person: they will be asked to throw everything out and start from scratch. But, in fact, this is a baseless fear.

A "page-one rewrite" is a chance to take everything you learned doing it the first time but have the complete freedom to deviate from previous choices. And at the end, you'll have something that is truly comparable to the original, something that you should be able to say "this is worse" or "this is better" about with confidence.

You can say "writing is re-writing" over and over, but you don't get it until you read an early draft of something like American Beauty and find it's a courtroom drama that ends with a statutory rape (SPOILER ALERT: The Best Picture-winning movie is not like this) and you realize how much the process of a 'second take' can open up creative possibilities. You start to think it is naïve, if not foolish, to presume that the first take is the best that can be done.

Yes, sometimes it is. Sometimes that first draft of the screenplay is the purest, and best. And it takes acumen and humility for a director to acknowledge that their notes have not improved the script, or music cue, or costume. Why does every great director seems to resist the impulse to say yes on the first try? Is it because they wish to take credit for the best ideas, not necessarily "their" ideas? The great ones challenge, they cajole and yes, sometimes they yell. But when they they throw down the gauntlet to the crew, asking, "Is that the best you can do?" they inspire the team to do something better.

And so my "two takes minimum" theory of directing is this:

Comparisons are impossible without at least two alternatives. You will never know for sure if you've made the best choice. But with two (or more) choices, you can always be confident you had a solid basis to make a decision.

Corollary: If it is hard to decide between two choices, they probably aren't that different, so just flip a coin.

Rickey's Self Abuse by Flickr user Lomo-Cam used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

But -- sorry, almighty Thor -- it was worth it. Hype achieved. The prime virtues of The Avengers are old-fashioned: great character work and crackling dialogue. Writer/director Joss Whedon (Zak Penn is also credited on the screenplay) even seems to do some course-correction on the characters he inherited, making them better -- wittier, more psychologically interesting -- than they've ever been. Black Widow, Hawkeye, The Hulk and even Agent Coulson suddenly pop as never before. And Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark has always been funny, but never quite so funny as in this film. Whedon not only has the comic book sense to see how the Avengers will fight together (and against each other), he has the writerly sense to see how they will spar verbally.

If you are among the few who haven't already seen the film, I recommend a packed auditorium and soon. Even if you don't keep reading this review, you are bound to encounter spoilers. This movie is so water-cooler-friendly, I guarantee you will hear plot details discussed in public. (Also, I recommend seeing the 2D version, as there have been quality-control issues with the 3D prints).

Okay, now for my nitpicks... and spoilers.

Alright, now that the initial halo has worn off, there are a few things that bugged me in the film. Just remember, I loved the movie and these truly are nitpicks.

1. Loki's mind control.
It seemed a bit easy for Black Widow to snap Hawkeye out of it and I'm not even sure her breaking Prof. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) was shown on screen. The bit where Loki tries to mind-control Iron Man and it doesn't work was funny, but why didn't he try to do it to more people/heroes? Also, the staff was apparently the thing that was making them all argue with each other, but that was not well shown in editing. Loki's whole plan was pretty convoluted (turn all the Avengers against each other while blowing up only one engine of an invisible flying battleship?) and as well as he was written and performed ("mewling quim") he never became coherent in the way most other characters did.

2. The Chitauri.
Faceless, boring. The end battle was chaotic and fun but not up to the level I imagined. When you see that Thor's hammer plus Captain America's shield equals awesome blast wave, or that Iron Man's batteries can be energized by Thor's lightning, you expect that they'll use these combinations (and the like) in battle.

3. Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders).
The movie featured her as much as any second-tier character but she never developed as a character, only eye-candy. As Natasha Romanov was to Iron Man 2, Agent Hill was to The Avengers. She must be popular in the comics? I get the sense that there can and should be more to this character.

4. The music.
Some critics have wished that Alan Silvestri's score felt more iconic. I agree, although I'll acknowledge that he inherits the musical themes from other films he didn't compose. I do, however, think his work on Captain America was stronger.

5. The limits.
Thor is basically a god and Hulk is established as invulnerable. Iron Man is more interesting but you get the sense he *could* die, and you'll note that Whedon makes his "sacrifice play" the climax of the film. Meanwhile, Black Widow, Hawkeye and even Captain America feel exposed compared to the rest of The Avengers. Whedon does such a good job giving them strategic skills that you almost buy them as full-fledged members of the team. But aren't they in considerably more danger? Within the imaginary physics of this world, what are the weaknesses of these characters? By the end of the film, I only get a sense that gods like Loki can be temporarily stunned or contained, never actually harmed.

6. Trial of Loki.
They must be saving this for Thor 2? Why not show us Loki being tried in Asgard for a few seconds, just to tie off the thread of the movie's main villain. Even as the relationships between Thor and Iron Man or Thor and Captain America -- and especially Thor and punch-happy Hulk -- were drawn so skillfully, the story between Thor and his brother Loki gets interrupted and never really picks back up.

Reportedly there is 30 minutes of deleted material, so that may have filled in some of these gaps but a call was made to cut it to keep the story moving. The story moves at an almost perfect clip, knowing when to slow down for a set-piece or juicy conversation, and when to speed up. You see that care was taken to put in exposition for those who were coming fresh to the series, or to refresh memories. So it wasn't just that Joss didn't have to do the usual exposition, it's just that he did it so entertainingly that you don't mind it.

What do we learn from the scene where we meet Black Widow? That her skill is in manipulation and information gathering (as well as kung-fu). It's a fun scene, though it seems to be just character stuff, until we see a parallel scene later in the film where she confronts Loki. It's one of the best scenes in the film, and the payoff to the scene doesn't work unless you've seen the earlier scene of what Black Widow does. (It also informs the scene where she goes to bring in Bruce Banner.) That's what I mean by making the exposition entertaining.

In retrospect, The Avengers makes the films that lead up to it feel worse, because you see how much better a "comic book film" can be done. Why o why didn't Whedon do them all, one laments. The original Iron Man was also good, but I think The Avengers tops it. Only The Dark Knight, from another universe entirely, would seem to rank in the same pantheon. Dark Knight had real, human issues of justice and evil on its mind. The Avengers never gets to that level of gravitas. But it's a whole lot more fun. And in my universe, this kind of fun is a tesseract worth fighting for.

Produced by Judd Apatow, the movie is firmly in his school. It will not feel out of place with 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up or previous Segel/Stoller collaboration Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Segel plays Tom, a chef who wants to marry his girlfriend of one year, Violet (Emily Blunt). In the opening scene of the movie, they get engaged. But life events keep getting in the way. The life events are real and (mostly) believable, and the reactions that the characters make are understandable. This should be expected in basic screenwriting, but for a romantic comedy, this is unusual. Nigh on a miracle.

There are other unique elements to the film. You would not expect a romantic comedy to have a strong theme of disfigurement, but a minor character chopping off a digit early in the film presages mishaps with hunting bows and frostbite to come. There is a real sense of peril in this comedic world, and I liked that. It didn't buy the soggy ending, and I don't approve of jokes that encourage bigotry, but I have to give respect to this aspect of the storytelling.

The acting is great. Segel and Blunt are both dripping with charm and you can't help but root for them to get married (forgetting marriage is not going to solve all their problems). Supporting players are generally great, with Lauren Weedman, Chris Pratt and Rhys Ifans as my personal faves. Alison Brie, playing Violet's sister, is unconvincing with her British accent, but gets a fantastic scene where she puts on an Elmo voice. It slays.

How does Segel's performance here compare to Jeff Who Lives at Home? In Jeff, Segel played a superstitious naif, a character unlike anything I've seen in his other roles (except perhaps his doe-eyed Gary in The Muppets). Segel does not appear to be a classic movie star at first glance, but Engagement is making me think he might be the real deal. So what kind of movie star will he be known as 20 years from now? An actor who trades on an affable persona -- like a Tom Hanks? Or will he be more chameleon-like -- a Mike Myers? So long as he has collaborators like Stoller who can protect his persona, I think he's on track to become the rare Hanksian leading man. But of course, there's always the chance that life events will intervene. His awareness of that, as shown through the knowing script to this film, makes it seem more likely to me that he'll stay on the trajectory.

Lucas McNelly (@lmcnelly) on crowdfunding. Always a must-read. Part 1. Part 2.

Laforet: New Zeiss wide angle SLR Lenses – and how they stack up against their Canon EF counterparts (and the CP2s)

ScriptMag: A Story of Casting on a Budget

Open Culture: Ray Bradbury Gives 12 Pieces of Writing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

Randy Coppinger on shotgun mics: Mysteries of the Shotgun Microphone Revealed! and Shotgun Mics Battle!

Time lapse of Hitchcock's Rear Window - Awesome!

Tyler Cowen's short, amazing review of MIRROR, MIRROR

paidContent: Did ‘Hunger Games’ Create A New Digital Marketing Template For Hollywood?

SlashFilm: The Mystique of Mondo And How It’s Changing The Face of Movie Posters

YOUR WEEKLY WISDOM:
Pick one piece of filmmaking advice and ignore it.

OLD POSTS UPDATED:
Film Collaboration Websites - added StudioVox and The Film Collaborative

IF YOU MISSED IT THE FIRST TIME:
That song "Somebody I Used To Know" by Gotye is topping the charts. In case you missed it, check out the post all about how the amazing music video was made.

Frame of Mind from Steven Alan on Vimeo.

[via @_jeremybaril]

At the age of 28, writer/director Drake Doremus brought a film to Sundance for the second time (2009's Douchebag was the first). It won the Grand Jury Prize, then went on to a profitable theatrical run. (The movie was reportedly shot for $250,000 and made around $3.5M worldwide).

Like Crazy is the story of two college students, Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin). They have a passionate love affair and Anna, who is British, opts to overstay her student visa to extend the lovemaking. This creates problems with US Immigration, who bars her from the country. Anna and Jacob drift apart, see other people, but can't seem to shake each other. And so the romance is rekindled when Jacob visits Anna in London. Further complications separate them, and by that point in the film you're either rooting for their love or pretty sick of it.

I fell into the latter camp. Much hay was made of the film's "French New Wave style" but I'd say it is more a 'French New Wave awareness' than a conscious use of the style. The film is told very conventionally and linearly, with a few artsy montages here and there, and some plot gapping which forces the audience to fill in the B between A and C. Dramatically, the first part where the lovers have a passionate affair is cute but dull, since there is no conflict. (They fall in love with each other instantly.) It is only when Anna and Jacob become separated that the film gets interesting. But then, they do things that defile their sacred relationship, and as an audience member I stopped rooting for them to get back together.

Not that the actors didn't do a fine job, especially considering the dialogue was reportedly improvised. Both Yelchin and Jones were exceedingly natural and believable, and Jennifer Lawrence and Charley Bewley (as the other woman/other man) were good enough that I wish the film had spent more time exploring how their characters were dealing with the situation. Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead, as Anna's parents, also deserve a nod.

Shot on Canon 7D, Like Crazy features the contrasty look (low dynamic range) and blown highlights you would expect from the camera's limitations, while making great use of shallow depth of field in the many artsy closeups. If there was rolling shutter artifacting, I did not notice it. Impressive, since a majority of the film is shot hand-held. Overall, this a textbook for DSLR shooting and essential viewing to anyone who plans to shoot this way.

The DVD

This is a very easy review because the disc features absolutely no bonus features whatsoever. Not even a commentary from writer/director Drake Doremus. Is this movie a thinly-disguised version of his own relationship with his Austrian ex-wife Desiree Pappensheller? We'll not find out here. How did the filmmakers land such a great group of actors? What was the improv method used? Anything they learned shooting with the Canon 7D?

This is a huge oversight. Paramount, the film's distributor in the US, should really have provided something for fans, even if this is a small film. It's not like they don't know how. Their recent Hugo Blu-ray features outstanding bonus content.

Overall

Even given my personal reservations with the film, I am highly recommending this to all indies who aspire to get to Sundance on a low budget. You can make up for the lack of extras on the DVD by renting instead of buying and then following some of the links I provide below. Enjoy!

MORE:
FirstShowing.net Drake Doremus interview
Interview with Drake and cast (YouTube)
Complex.com Drake Doremus interview
Sundance interviews with some of the actors (YouTube)

Cinema5D: Canon 5DmkIII vs RED Scarlet test

DareDreamer: Three Reasons Not to Buy the 5D Mark III Right Now

Philip Bloom's first impressions of the Canon 5DmkIII and his video review - The big takeaway seems to be to plan on doing a sharpening pass in post. UPDATE: Stu agrees with Bloom.

LATimes: Slingshotting 'Battle Royale' DVD off 'The Hunger Games'

Letterboxd - Currently in invite-only beta. I tried it out. It's kind of like Pinterest for film nerds. A good way to keep a movie diary.

Film Bakery: The Secret World of Color Correction

MovieLine: Disney’s Dark Arts Exposed in Little-Seen Sweatbox

Cartoon Brew: How much does YouTube pay their top animators? - These revenue numbers should apply to all filmmakers, not just animators.

Wired: From Reddit forum to screenplay

LATimes: Internet to surpass DVD in movie consumption, not revenue - Wow, that was fast.

YOUR WEEKLY WISDOM:
If you know the story you are telling, you know the answer to any question a crew member can ask you.

OLD POSTS UPDATED:
Film Lights Comparison - added link to Shane Hurlbut's Home Depot Lighting Kit
HD Cameras Comparison - lots of updates centering around the 5DmkIII

No longer. We now live in a world where camera bodies with interchangeable lens systems are standard. The prices on camera bodies have fallen a great deal, but the lenses are still expensive. If you're buying -- really, investing -- in lenses, you better know what you want. It's going to cost an arm and a leg and several thousand dollars. (The good news is, lenses go obsolete a lot lot slower than camera bodies, and thus hold their value. The bad news is, that means used lenses are still expensive.)

Having just produced a shoot where I had to put together a fairly complicated package of lenses, I thought it might be worthwhile to do a brain dump. I want to organize the categories of lens by cost and use so that I can easily reference it for the next shoot. I'll also talk about the different types of lens mounts (EF, PL, B4 etc.) and adapters therefor. D.P.s and A.C.s out there, leave your comments and corrections below.

Lens Packages (organized by cheap to expensive)

Kit Lens

Purchase: $80-300
Rent: Don't bother

Your cheapest option will be the lens that comes bundled with the camera body from the manufacturer. On small sensor Canons like the T3i, it's an 18-55mm IS II zoom. On larger bodies, like the 7D or the 5DmkIII, it's a 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom. I'll be frank: these lenses are not good. But they are a good value. They beat all comers in the price-range Pro photographers who wind up with one sell them, so you can usually find good deals on used ones. At prices lower than a few hundred dollars, it's rarely cost-effective to rent. You can rent a much better zoom.

As you'll see below, zoom lenses are really great for run-and-gun indie filmmaking, because they save lots of time on set that would normally be spent changing out and cleaning lenses. The problem that you'll run into when you compare the images that you get with these lenses is that they are a) slow (don't let in as much light) and b) soft (don't give you tack-sharp focus) and c) color unfaithful (washed out and fringing colors).

MORE:
I don't shoot Nikon but you can read about their kit lenses in this article from Camera Labs

Three Cheap Primes

Buy: $1,100 - $4,500
Rent: ~ $300/wk

For crop sensors, a wide (24mm or less), a normal (35mm) and a telephoto (85mm or more). For full-frame sensors, a wide (35mm or less), a normal (50mm) and a telephoto (100mm or more). This is a bare-minimum prime kit that will require you moving the camera a lot more often (to get the framing you want with the lens you have), but covers the three basic ways a lens tells a story. Wides give you that Sergio Leone-style distorted close-up, teles give you that nice soft-focus closeup. Normals are neutral, giving you about what the human eye sees.

The advantage of primes over a zooms is that they are 'faster', meaning they let in more light, allowing you to do more with depth-of-field as well as spend less time and money on adding light to a scene. The disadvantage is the time it takes to change them out and the chance of getting dust on the sensor every time they are changed. Having only three lenses will minimize changes while maximizing the advantages of primes. However, some shots will still be impossible, especially when shooting in tight spaces. You'll wish for a full set of primes every time you have to move the camera but not change the angle.

Wide Examples

Normal Examples

Telephoto Examples

Purchase Example: The cheap basic set for a Canon T3i will run you $1,070 (24mm $360 + 35mm $350 + 85mm $360), and remember these are photo lenses, so they aren't designed for pulling focus or racking exposure.

Rental Example: Lensrentals.com will do a Zeiss ZE 35mm for $78/wk, Zeiss ZE 35mm $99/wk, Zeiss ZE 100mm Makro Planar $98/wk plus $29 shipping for a total of $279. (Or course, be sure to get quotes from several rental houses. Most places promise they can beat the competition.)

Decent Photo Zoom(s)

Buy: $1,300-$3,000
Rent: ~$140-200/wk

Example: The Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Zoom, for example, gets you a basic range of lens lengths with a fast f-stop for $1,300. I wish it went wider and longer, but it will cover what you get with the basic prime kit and save you time spend changing lenses.

Disadvantages: Because these lenses are for stills, they are not designed to zoom or change focus while filming. You'll basically have a lot of the drawbacks of the photo primes, and it won't be as fast (allow in more light).

Zeiss Compact Prime Kit

Buy: $24,000 (B&H)
Rent: $1200/wk

The CP.2 Primes are the cheapest cine lens that make a full kit currently available, as far as I know. I've worked with them and they're great. D.P.s accustomed to Zeiss Master Primes might look down their noses on them, but it's my opinion that they are more than adequate for low-to-medium budget films.

Cooke Panchro Prime Kit

Buy: ?
Rent: $1600/wk

PL mount only. (See below for information on this mount.)

Cine Zoom

Buy: $44,650 (B&H price for Canon CN-E 30-300mm T2.95-3.7 L S EF Mount Cinema Zoom Lens
Rent: $???/wk

Cine zooms are designed for use in filmmaking. They 'breathe' less when racking focus, and they maintain the same f-stop throughout the zoom range, so you can zoom while filming. They are, consequently, insanely expensive.

Macros & Super-Telephoto

Buy: $600-$1360
Rent: $100-$350/wk

Consider also renting a macro lens (for taking extreme close-ups) and super-telephoto (really long lens, generally 300mm or more) for your shoot. Prime kits often don't cover these extreme possibilities.

Macro Examples

Super-Telephoto Examples

Mount Types

A mount is how the lens attaches to the camera. You should know what kind of mount your camera takes. The good news is, if there is a lens that you like but it is not available in your mount, there is probably a mount adapter that you can use. You have to keep in mind that the cameras are designed to work only with lenses that focus light in a certain place, so the mount adapter may have to bend the light, meaning loss of exposure and sharpness.

Canon EF

This is the standard modern mount for Canon DSLR cameras. Lenses with EF mounts will work on both the T3i and 5dmkIII, for example, although the same lens will show more image on the Mark 3 because the camera body has a larger sensor. That's why the image you see on a 35mm lens on the T3i will approximate framing ("field of view") on an image seen through a 50mm lens on the 5d.

The conversion factor is 1.6 for crop-sensor Canons and 1.5 for Nikon DXs. Example: 50mm x 1.6 = 80mm. (So use an 85mm lens -- the closest to 80mm -- to approximate the field of view of a 50mm on a full-frame sensor.) Beware "EF-S" lenses that are made only for APS-C (crop-frame) sensors. These will not work right on full-frame cameras. I expect full-frame cameras to drop in price, so I wouldn't invest in any lenses that weren't forwards compatible.

Just to throw another wrinkle in, when shooting video on these cameras, it doesn't actually use the whole sensor. So if you are being really precise in planning a shot, you'll need to take the video crop into account. You can see why most big productions just carry a full set of primes and pick the lens on the fly for each shot.

Note on Canon FD: FD was the standard canon mount from 1971-1987 (citation) and there are adapters available to allow you to use these lenses on an EF mount. Focus and exposure will all be manual, however.

MORE:
Video showing different lenses on different sensors from Petapixel.
Digital Picture's table of crop frame multipliers

Nikon

There are adapters that will let you use Nikon lenses on Canon EOS bodies, like this one by Fotodiox.

I haven't used them, and I don't know much about the various kinds of Nikon mount. Here's a Wikipedia link if you need to learn more. [LAST UPDATED 3/30/12)

PL

Standard mount on standard film cameras, like Arri's 16mm and 35mm cameras. Consequently, the widest range of cinema-designed lenses have this mount.

The Canon C300 and RED's cameras can be ordered with this mount. As far as I can tell, no one yet makes a solution to adapt PL lenses to an EF camera.

B4

A bayonet mount that seems to be mostly used on ENG-style cameras. RED cameras can be fitted with this mount. Honestly don't know much about this or some of the other rarer types of cinema mount.

Adapting Still-Photo Lenses for Follow-Focus Use

Lots of still-photo lenses 'breathe' when you rack focus which means objects changes size. Some cinema lenses 'breathe' too, so you may find this effect is not noticeable/not too bad. The other thing cinema lenses have is the distance markings so the AC or camera op can see where the focus is pulling to. This can be fixed by using a follow focus that has the white ring and manually marking each shot or by having a third-party company mark the barrel of the lens.

Anyway, there are a number of ways to add gears to cinema lenses so you can pull focus. I haven't had time to research them, but I will post links to the recommended solutions once I have.

Recommended Lenses

Celebrity DSLR shooters like Philip Bloom, Stu Maschwitz and Shane Hurlbut recommend lenses all the time. Based on their recommendations and my own experiences, here are some lenses that seem to be popular purchases among independent filmmakers...

Canon 5DmkII / 5DmkIII

Canon 7D / T3i / 60D / T2i