Lens technology is progressively adapting to dynamic industry trends of motion pictures. Mindful of these rapid changes, today’s filmmakers are pursuing high-quality cinematic looks armed with tools built for speed, versatility, and cost-efficiency.
May 23, 2019, Cannes Film Festival : one year to the day, Angénieux went Prime presenting the Optimo F40, first lens of a series of 12 Full Frame lenses, the future Optimo Prime Series. This major announcement was made in presence of Band Pro Film & Digital Inc, partner of the project with Angénieux and Jebsen Industrial Technology Co Ltd, and in front of rental companies, distributors and cinematographers who were in Cannes to attend the “7th edition of the Pierre Angenieux Excellens in Cinematography”
For his entire career, Denny Clairmont was a big fan of Angénieux and a great support. In this 2015 interview, this legend of the industry tells his friend Jon Fauer, Film & Digital Times, how Angénieux was part of his life for decades.
After the F21 last week, the Angénieux team is pleased to present the first F50 lens of the Optimo Prime Series. The Full Frame series which was presented last year at the Cannes Film Festival and at Cinegear generated much enthusiasm and is highly expected by cinematographers and rentals.
The first pieces of the series are expected to be delivered to customers during Q3 this year. In the meantime, and despite new working conditions, the production teams are working hard to respect the planning and form the first Silver set (F21, 28, 40, 50, 75, and 135). We are just one lens away since only the F75 is missing. Cinematographers will be able to try the Silver set when shootings start again.
The Optimo Prime series means a return to the prime market for the French brand since Angénieux had been dedicating its production to zoom lenses only for decades. However, it is like a “return to the sources” since Pierre Angénieux actually started with prime lenses before making zooms. If you are interested in the incredible story of the Angénieux brand, we recommend the 2019 Angénieux book called Angénieux and Cinema, From Light to Image, available from major bookstores, commercial sites or the Angénieux e-shop at www.angénieux.com.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to see the Optimo Prime Silver Set soon.
One particularly fruitful collaboration of recent cinema has been Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and Uruguay born Cinematographer Cesar Charlone. Fernando Meirelles and Cesar Charlone have collaborated since 2002. They made together City of God (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), Blindness (2008), and recently The Two Popes (2019) – a Netflix production. All movies have been highly acclaimed for that. For The Two Popes , Angenieux Optimo zoom lenses were on set most of the time. Cesar Charlone graciously accepted to tell us more about his experience.
« Les Misérables » tells the story of the suburbs, an area that French film director Ladj Ly knows well. He lived in Montfermeil, a suburban neighborhood outside of Paris. “Les Misérables” is a long-matured first feature film. The documentaries he did before were just the path to this movie. After the Prix du Jury at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the film was selected to represent France at the 2020 Oscars, and nominated by the Academy in the Best International Feature Film category. Director of Photography Julien Poupard (AFC) shot the entire film using only Angenieux zoom lenses.
After 50 years almost fully dedicated to high-end zoom lens design and production, Angénieux announced in 2019 a complete set of high-end Full Frame prime lenses – the Optimo Prime series, in partnership with Band Pro Film & Digital, Inc and Jebsen Industrial Technology Co LTD. Following the worldwide presentation in 2019 of the FF Optimo Prime F40mm, Angénieux is pleased to present for the first time in France at MicroSalon AFC 2020 (Jan 16 -17) the Full Frame Optimo Prime F135mm and to unveil the unique user-features of this Angénieux new lens series.
“Invasion” is a sequel of popular Russian Sci-Fi Movie Attraction (2017) directed by prominent Russian director Fedor Bondarchuk*. Attraction, that spoke about an extraterrestrial spaceship that crash-landed in the Chertanovo district of Moscow, was the fourth Russian film transferred to Imax 3D format and became the highest-grossing Russian Sci-fi movie with more than 1 billion rubles.
In cinemas worldwide from October 2 to 6, 2019 “Roger Waters Us + Them”, a film by Sean Evans and Roger Waters - concert visuals and live actions production by Grasshopper Films. Roger Waters is an English rock musician, singer-songwriter, and composer. He is best known as the bass player, co-lead vocalist, lyricist and the principal songwriter in the rock band Pink Floyd (https://rogerwaters.com/)
Cinematographer Brett Turnbull (http://brett-turnbull.com/) photographed Roger Waters’ concert in Amsterdam at the Ziggodrome during the “Us and Them” tour on June 19, 2018, as well as all the other scenes of the film. Brett Turnbull has an incredible experience in filmmaking : music videos, drama, documentaries, but also multicamera live events, mainly concerts: Beyoncé, The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Coldplay, U2, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, Paul Mc Cartney, Iggy Pop, The Who, Rihanna, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, Adele, Peter Gabriel, David Gilmour, Radiohead, Nick Cave, The White Stripes, One Direction, Queen , Pet Shop Boys, Kings of Leon, Bjork, Noel Gallagher, Shakira, Kylie Minogue, Tom Petty…
Angenieux zoom lenses have always been “a staple choice” for his work all along his career.
We had the privilege to get his feedback on Roger Waters’ concert shooting.
“Overall technical requirements for live event productions vary greatly for this kind of work. Typically we'll be shooting with anywhere between 6 to 24 cameras, depending on the scale & ambition of the show. Combining a variety of grip solutions, from traditional cranes & dollies, to specialist robotic & aerial systems. One constant factor is always the need for versatile, fast, high quality zoom lenses. Filming any live event with a paying audience, the director and cinematographer do not have the freedom to put cameras wherever they want, or move them at will during the performance. So every camera position needs to offer a variety of shot sizes, often in low light."
On July 20, 2019 in the US, July 21 in France, the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The retransmission of the incredible images of the success of this mission remains one of the most significant broadcast events of all time. To create these images, NASA selected, among other equipment, the lenses of a small French company: Angenieux optics. The Angenieux 6x25 zoom mounted on a Westinghouse camera and Angenieux 75mm prime lens on a Maurer 16mm camera were on-board the command module of Apollo 11.
