Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood – Vintage lenses, with a twist

Published in the August 2019 issue of American Cinematographer as a sidebar to the main feature.

In Hollywood, timing is everything. And so it was for Panavision’s T Series anamorphics, which make their 35mm screen debut in Quentin Tarantino’s much-anticipated Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood.

Here they join a bevy of lenses recruited for a hodgepodge of formats contained within this homage to old Hollywood: 2.39:1 anamorphic for the main narrative, and 1.33:1 spherical black-and-white to emulate the old television shows and movies that fading star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), appeared in.

When Robert Richardson, ASC went to Panavision to gear up, “his original plan was to use the same package he’d used in the past—C Series and E Series on a [Panaflex Millennium XL2] film camera,” recalls Dan Sasaki, ASC Associate and Panavision vice president of optical engineering. However, Sasaki adds, the filmmakers “wanted to shoot inside 2 feet,” and the close-focus capabilities of those vintage lenses—the C series having been designed in the 1970s, the E Series a decade later—simply wouldn’t accommodate that approach. 

So the lens engineer introduced Richardson to Panavision’s T Series, which were first introduced in 2017.“Those have the most modern coatings, the best close focus, and the latest technology available,” he says. “We used cylinder designs we’d not even considered in the past to keep the anamorphic aesthetic, but eliminate the limitations of fall-off that occurred with our older lenses. So it’s more of a modern twist.” 

The problem was, they’d been designed for digital cameras, period. As it happened, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerwas prepping around the same time, and Sasaki had just reconfigured the rear halves of those lenses for that 35mm and 65mm tent-pole, which premieres in December. “We realized we’d made a mistake by not making them film compatible,” Sasaki admits. “It’s amazing how much film work we’re doing. Not only in 35mm, but large format as well.”

When Sasaki suggested the T Series to Richardson, “there was a bit of a hesitation,” Sasaki recalls, noting that the cinematographer expressed concern that the lenses were “going to be too modern, not fit the mood, not cut in well. But as it turned out, he liked the way it worked on film. And liked the fact that [up through the 135mm prime] they could be used at T2.3 without having any compromise in quality.” 

According to 1st AC Gregor Tavenner, “the T Series are modern lenses with a very deep contrast and a more perfect resolution, which is very attractive in certain circles. It becomes another arrow in the quiver. It’s a magical collection of choices that Panavision has.” In addition to the full range of T Series primes—28mm to 180mm—the production also carried the series’ ALZ10 42–425mm (T4.5) zoom, among other Panavision anamorphiczooms. “It’s a beautiful lens, built upon a legacy,” Tavenner states.

He estimates their use of C, E, and T Series was about evenly divided. (Panavision’s Ultra Speeds also came into play for night sequences.) “There was no blanket recipe as to which series you use,” says Tavenner. Decisions were shot by shot. “Different focal lengths react in different ways.” For instance, “I found specifically that an older 28mm had a more attractive field of view than the modern 28mm. So they all have their advantages.” 

 “With skill,” Tavenner continues, “you can intermix the series seamlessly. Even if there is a technical difference, you can counteract that with choices of filtration or light. You can accentuate the differences or smooth the differences.”

For his part, Sasaki retooled all the older vintage lenses to improve their mixability. “We played with swapping out elements to give them flare characteristics that were a bit more consistent,” he says, “because some of the lenses would flare one way and others another way. We tried to match them.”

Much of the action for the fictional TV Western Bounty Lawwas captured on spherical zooms. “We had two older Panavision zooms, which are still very attractive to this day: a 6-to-1 20–120mm [Z6S (T3) Panavised Angenieux zoom] and a classic 20–100mm [Z5S (T3.1 Panavised Cooke zoom],” says Tavenner. Standard Primes, which Panavision introduced in the late ’60s, played a supporting role.

The fact that Tarantino insisted on doing both film and digital dailies meant the camera team could minutely inspect the various lenses’ performance. “A first-generation film print projected on a movie screen—it’s a gift from the gods,” Tavenner enthuses. “You see these nuances of color and control and lens quality, the very subtle differences in lens design, and the tweaking that we do.” 

Tavenner appreciates the old-school approach taken throughout the production. “Not only is the movie an homage to the ’60s, the way it was made is an homage to the grand, classical way of making movies.”