Camera Flares

[Michael Chris]

Why?

 

[ST-One]

Son of a gun; yet another thing to be divided over and pick endlessly at, will it ever end? Save us Jebus!

With em, without em, makes no difference to me.

Let the lens flare wars begin!!

No, no, no.
Abrams just told me that you have to put it like:

'Begun the lens flare was have.'

(He's a Warsie you know?)

 

[Mr. B]

Camera flare is a consequence of optical flaws in lens, and is consequently stupid.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Even the title cards have lens flares!

(and is it me or do those officers at the front of the shuttles look like the cardboard stand-ins Lucas used at the end of Star Wars to pad out the crowd?)

 

[David cgc]

Any opinions on this? I can't recall ever really noticing cinematographic choices in earlier Trek movies (and especially not in the visually boring Berman era TV series).

Nemesis had a lot more flares (and bloom) than was customary in Trek effects.

TMP had a nice lens-effect. I don't know what it is actually called, but it was like a split-lens-effect, one half focused on the foreground, one half on the background.

That was a split-diopter. A sort of camera bifocal, it allowed each half of the field of view to be focused on a different point. Wise had to use one because the projection used for the monitors was dim, so the set had to be lit dimly so they would be visible, so the cameras had to be set to a wide f-stop, reducing the focal range.

Camera flare is a consequence of optical flaws in lens, and is consequently stupid.

So, Mr. Cinematographer, what do you suggest?

A) Ignore visual continuity between live-action and special effects shots altogether. On-set stuff has lens flares because it was shot with a real camera, space stuff doesn't because it wasn't, and that's that.

B) Shoot the film so as to avoid all lens flares. Indeed, for consistency, shoot it to avoid all limitations of film, including lens flares, bloom, underexposure, overexposure, grain, and a million other things that that the visual effects team would normally have to introduce to their shots so they look real as opposed to clean and perfect?

 

[Eric Cheung]

Even the title cards have lens flares!

(and is it me or do those officers at the front of the shuttles look like the cardboard stand-ins Lucas used at the end of Star Wars to pad out the crowd?)

They look more like the painted cotton swabs form the pod racing scene in Episode One to me.

 

[M'Sharak]

Son of a gun; yet another thing to be divided over and pick endlessly at, will it ever end? Save us Jebus!

With em, without em, makes no difference to me.

Let the lens flare wars begin!!

No, no, no.
Abrams just told me that you have to put it like:

'Begun the lens flare was have.'

(He's a Warsie you know?)

Will we get lens-flare sabers?

 

[davejames]

I really like the look myself. The bridge shots in the trailer (such as the one with Pike) have a nice documentary feel to them, where they look like they were caught right in the moment and weren't overly planned and rehearsed.

I also like how he's got the camera tilting and gliding around the sets in a much looser way. The camera work in the previous Treks had just gotten WAY too structured and predictable over the years.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Here are the opening credits from TNG (although Berman wasn't around for the very beginning of TNG -- this opening is from the Gene Roddenberry years):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL8nnMpV2Eo

Berman was a producer on TNG from the first episodes on.

 

[ST-One]

Let the lens flare wars begin!!

No, no, no.
Abrams just told me that you have to put it like:

'Begun the lens flare was have.'

(He's a Warsie you know?)

Will we get lens-flare sabers?

We can only hope

 

[Rii]

How do they take away from realism when they actually scream 'we are using a camera'?
That is precisely why it ADDS realism.

I wasn't aware that Starfleet assigned documentary crews to follow bridge officers around on Federation starships.

 

[ST-One]

How do they take away from realism when they actually scream 'we are using a camera'?
That is precisely why it ADDS realism.

I wasn't aware that Starfleet assigned documentary crews to follow bridge officers around on Federation starships.

Now you know.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

How do they take away from realism when they actually scream 'we are using a camera'?
That is precisely why it ADDS realism.

I wasn't aware that Starfleet assigned documentary crews to follow bridge officers around on Federation starships.

Now you know.

Kirk and Sarek even watched some of the footage in ST III.

 

[tranya]

My God, TrekBBS, what have I done?

I did what I had to do, I did what I always do: Turn an innocent question into a fighting chance for TrekBBS to argue something endlessly.