Cinematography : Amazing cinematic shots with an anamorphic lens adaptor by Jules Stevens

Hi all - I recently made a promo with a kowa anamorphic adaptor and thought people might find the set-up interesting. I got some amazing, cinematic shots. If you're not interested in the tecky stuff please just enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think! http://youtu.be/8Nk7pOGEfzg I used a kowa 8-Z anamorphic adaptor, mounted on a voigtlander Nokton 35mm F1.2. I also had a Tokina .4 achromat and a Cokin Diopter +2 for the Close ups. It was all shot at night which presented problems as I found the Lumix isn't very good in low light. I was shooting at 50fps which reduced the amount of light I had even further. I also found that if the lens was fully open it was difficult to get a focus. Not because it was too shallow, but because it wouldn't focus on anything with the adaptor. As you can see I over-cranked the ISO (accidentally went to 3200 when I thought I was on 1600), but I couldn't set lights up on the banks of the Thames at 3am, as we didn't have permission to be there. I wish I'd got someone to stand close by reflecting a bright torch off a white shirt though. I can only hope that I get away with the graininess in the spirit of low/no budget film making, and it looks like 16mm. I couldn't ask the actors to go back into the Thames for me! I think the Lumix in low light has given the film a real 'look' but in all honesty I wasn't impressed by how much colour information it recorded. This camera really needs light to work well. You can also see the notorious shutter wobble a few times. Weirdly it doesn't bother me in this video, as I think it suits the slightly surreal mood. Same goes for the sodium street lights making the flicker. I wanted to keep the shutter above 100 (I was shooting 50fps), but I could have decreased flicker by reducing the shutter speed. However, I decided to embrace it, and instead increased the shutter, which made the flicker more pronounced. Staying close up to the actors, using the diopters, gave me a picture I liked the most. The bokeh looks lovely and soft and cinematic. Shots where I had to focus to infinity were difficult - the bokeh is ugly in those shots (in my opinion), taking the shape of a kind of horizontal tear. But I couldn't film the whole video in close ups! It was difficult to shoot this as a one-man-band. Having to screw two different diopters on or off every time I wanted to change my proximity to the actors made it quite fiddly. I was also moving lights (I had x3 LED panels). I had some other taking lenses, but it wasn't practical to change during the shoot. Lastly, I know its normal to crop the super-wide picture you get from shooting 2x anamorphic on a 16:9 sensor, but I decided to embrace it. It's fun, and a bit silly, but its a music promo, so why not. Hope you enjoy. The track by Durlston George, his debut single, is lovely.