How was revenant filmed?

Revenant's photography is the famous natural light master emmanuel lubezki, who won the academy award for best cinematography for the third consecutive year. The film elevated Lubetzki's skills to a new level. The film was originally planned to be shot with 35mm and 65mm film, but due to the border inspection, the film has to be checked by X-ray machine and digital camera. Lubetzki thinks that although the latitude is not as big as that of film, the digital camera can also show the scene at that time well in low light, and there is not much noise, which can't be done by film shooting before.

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Finally, the equipment digital camera was used to shoot the film, and nearly 13% of the lens used the digital camera ARRI ALEXA 65 with large-size sensor. The CMOS sensor of this machine has reached 54. 12×25.59mm, and the width of the sensor has exceeded the size of Hasselblad H5D-50C. The green frame in the picture below is the size of Quan Huafu, more than three times larger than Super 35, and it was the strongest camera on the earth at that time. The lens is a medium format lens of Hasselblad HC series, which mainly adopts 24mm fixed focus. When shooting grand scenes, ALEXA 65 cooperated with rocker arm, guide rail and camera stabilizer, which played a great role in rendering the scene.

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In addition, the cameras of ARRI ALEXA XT and M's Super 35 are also used as hosts. In terms of lens use, Master Lubetsky prefers Zeiss Master Prime series lenses, and fixed-focus lenses of 12mm, 14mm and 16mm are the most commonly used in films, among which Lubetsky is most satisfied with Leica Summilux-C's 65433.

Shooting environment

Speaking of the filming of this film, we can't help but say that the shooting environment is bad. The whole movie was mainly finished in the remote Canadian Rocky Mountains. Some shots were taken in the Squamish River in Colombia and the Kutney River in the United States. The last scene of the film was finished in ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. Because the main shooting location is near the North Pole, in the cold winter, there are only a few hours of sunshine a day. Even shooting on the back of the mountain, the sky is still dark during the day. When the temperature drops to 0 degrees, there are some problems in the zoom and focus lens of Master Prime's wide-angle zoom lens, which leads to the inability to zoom and the thermal displacement of the lens. Shooting has been going on for several weeks, but it still hasn't improved. Instead, a large number of fixed-focus lenses are used for shooting, and different lenses are divided into cold-tone and warm-tone lenses.

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Natural light shooting

The beautiful pictures seen on the screen are all taken by natural light, and the pictures are more realistic without any supplementary light. However, due to the small angle of the sun, only a few hours of light every day often need to wait for a proper sunshine and a day, but the light only lasts for half an hour to 1 hour, just like in sunset photography, the beauty of a moment is always fleeting. Make-up, props and extras are always ready. When the light comes, they will strive to complete the 1 take (one-time) shooting.

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A more subtle vision

I still remember that when Lubetzki won the golden statuette with Birdman last year, he used many long shots, and he also used this technique in revenant. The difference is that Lubetzki is more mature. At the beginning of the film, fur hunters were rounded up by Indians, and photographers used a more flexible long lens to shoot, from the horizontal following movement to make the characters move faster, to the digital editing of each bloody killing scene, and then to the careful rehearsal of nearly 100 people. The seemingly simple picture was shot for a month and a half.

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There is another special feature of this film "The Resurrection". Wide-angle lens is widely used in Lubetzki, which is rare in previous film shooting, and it is used to establish and support the whole long-lens shooting, thanks to the role of large camera stabilizer. When shooting by hand, he flexibly adjusts the shooting angle to make Xiao Li's performance more stereoscopic.

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Deliberately highlighting psychological expression techniques

Lubetzki's portrayal of the characters' emotions can be said to be incisive, using a large number of ultra-wide-angle lenses to close up the actors' faces, which is deliberately rare in other films, but the effect is very shocking. The picture is fixed on Xiao Li riding away from the Indians and accidentally falling into a cliff. When the scene just woke up, the photographer's 14mm wide-angle lens recently focused on 7 inches. At this time, in order to achieve a 4-inch close-up, the prop group made two shots to achieve a close-up. At this time, in addition to the clarity in the middle, the bad distortion of edge imaging has also increased. The lens with such a prominent theme is not abrupt in Lubetzki's hands, but it is a good way for Xiao Li to express his psychological feelings at that time, which is simply the finishing touch.

finally

The director once said that "no one can finish our work alone", and the whole shooting process of The Returnee is the final embodiment of Lubetzki's ingenious use of natural light. Light, like the seasoning of a main course, permeates all aspects. Being fond of photography, being good at grasping the light and looking for the relationship between light and shadow in the picture are the wealth that Lubetzki gave us in revenant, which is also the reason why he is excellent.