On this week’s podcast:
The Film Talk – Part 65 – Star Trek
Gareth and I talked in-depth about many aspects of the new Trek pic – with a special focus on how the picture fits into the new Obama Administration re: the villian from the last Bush blockbuster becoming the first hero of an Obama franchise, etc.
One thing we didn’t get into was the whole ‘len-flare’ debate. A lot of folks ‘out there’ are complaining, (I’d say bitching actually), about the heavy use of lens flares in the film.
For me the lens flares were a key component to the picture and an aspect I liked best about the whole production – before I go into why, I’d recommend anyone interested in the lens flare issue visit this blog by Todd Vaziri who, as he says in the post, was the “sequence supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, one of my duties on “Star Trek” was to create synthetic lens flare aberrations for our visual effects shots that matched stylistically and technically with the first unit photography.”
Millimeter Magzine: Back On Trek
Ok, with Todd’s comments in mind re: “The flares give the film a unique flavor of spontaneity and intensity, paradoxically giving the film a documentary-style grittiness, as well as a fanciful, otherworldly, abstract quality”, I’ve got two things I want to point out:
1) Easy Rider. Sure there had been lens flares seen a couple of times in Hollywood cinema before Easy Rider – but this breakthrough indie picture used them repeatedly; in short they did what was previously verboten – before Easy Rider old school Hollywood would see any take with a lens flare in it as ruined – and the shot/scene would have to be redone.
With Easy Rider however the lens flare become cinematic shorthand for ‘the real’ – the flares on this show were telling us that not only were we seeing something different from standard commercial fare – we were seeing ‘captured truth’. This is what the youth were really about. Man.
This is why the lens flares in ‘Star Trek’, (both real – and rendered, as in the CGI exterior space battle shots) are so effective – by having the flares constantly in our face we’re reminded that something real is happening – we’re outside the conventional Hollywood safe space and our characters are really under duress, under threat.
2) John Alonzo.
Who?
The great photographer behind such classics as Chinatown, Farewell My Lovely, Scarface and….Star Trek: Generations.
What? Star Trek: Generations?
Yep, (notice the lens flare in poster art above), and here’s the thing – while the film itself maybe a forgettable confection known mainly for integrating a television and movie franchise, the scenes ‘shot in space’ are done in an extremely interesting way. While the sets of the Enterprise remain mainly the same as in the ‘Star Trek – The Next Generation’ television show – the way Alonzo chose to light scenes in which a window onto space is part of the set is fascinating.
The light pouring through these windows is blinding.
There are no ‘gray areas’. No shadows whose edges are soft – this is light from a thousand suns pouring in through the window, (with no atmosphere to cut it/dampen it) – the way these scenes are shot is telling us we’re no longer on Earth. We’re someplace else.
It’s the same deal with the new Trek picture. The constant lens flares actually resemble ‘light leaks’ more than anything else – as if the light is so bright it’s breaking into the camera housing itself.
It’s no coincidence that the very first line spoken by the first Captain we see in the film is a command to activate the polarizing filter on the viewscreen.
Out amongst the stars the light is different. It’s just another aspect of this film that is thought through and smart – and another reason why the pic is such a triumph.
Ha, this is the very thing I've been boring people about since I saw it last Thursday, but no-one wants to hear it.
Should have known you'd pick up on it.
Definitely added to the sense of reality of the picture.
Very interesting article. I personally love the use of lens fare in the new Trek movie. The first time I really noticed lens flare in a movie was the first Die Hard film, which uses it to great effect.
Very interesting article. I personally love the use of lens fare in the new Trek movie. The first time I really noticed lens flare in a movie was the first Die Hard film, which uses it to great effect.