Revealensation

 

On Thursday, Christine! and I added something very special and magical to the shooting set up.

Once I saw how a large magnifying lens made the set photograph, I had to have it. It gives the exact plane distortion I have been after without knowing it.

I call it my "free-range polaroid" kind of an alfresco complex of lenses that create dream-like aberrations in the Halfland set's and puppet's raw capture.

I'll be happy to show the effect in our next test posting but meanwhile, please marvel with me at how Christine! has so brilliantly engineered a rig to hold the over-sized lenses to the Manfrotto articulated arm! She used in-house hardware to mimick the old-but-effect "helping hands" ball in bracket tightened down type of gear (seen lower left). Upper right shows our test lens on the rig and the actual giant lens for the shoot in my hand. We wore safety goggles during our first attempt to clamp down on the glass lens with the strong clip in case it shattered.

Seems to work very well and will allow me to angle the magnifier in the path of the camera's lens at various angles during the shots.

I got so excited when I glimpsed the effect that I had to lie down on the floor for a moment or two.

This lens may be the big key to the look of the film.