Gary Adcock, the Executive Director of Filmscape Chicago, saw an opportunity to provide an educational session targeted for PERG member companies by hosting PERG Lens Tech Day at Filmscape, Chicago. On August 27th, the day before the Filmscape show opened, lens technicians from PERG affiliated companies were invited to Panavision, Chicago for a day of short but fascinating presentations—Snahal Patel from Zeiss, Jean-Marc Bouchut representing Angenieux for BandPro, Art Adams and Mike Best from ARRI, and Mitch Gross from lighting manufacturer, Prolycht.
Zoe Borys, VP/General Manager at Panavision, Chicago, says that the local film community wanted to support and welcome the various lens manufacturers that made the effort to come to Chicago for Filmscape. Panavision had the space to provide plenty of social distancing. The respective participants all confirmed they were vaccinated, and attendees completed Panavision’s attestation before entering the facility. “It was an ideal time for lens techs from the local rental houses to collaborate and learn from one another.” Anna Schmidt (Chief of Staff at Dynamic), who was on hand for the event, relates that each of the presentations unique, informative, and fun. Everyone got a lot out of the event. About fifteen lens techs and senior staff from Able Cine, Camera Ambassador, Daufenbach Camera, and Keslow camera attended.
A major topic of conversation is about the character of the lenses—characteristics that affect Bokeh, flair, sharpness, which go beyond the baseline standard of an extremely high-performance lens appropriate for today’s high resolution camera technology. Jean-Marc Bouchut’s presentation was about detuning Angenieux Optimo zooms. Jean-Marc hinted of other exciting things coming soon from Angenieux.
Snehal Patel (Zeiss) demonstrated the unique blue flare characteristics and other virtues of the Supreme Prime large-format T1.5 primes.
Art Adams (Cinema Lens Specialist at ARRI) explained just what exactly “signature” means when talking about the Signature series prime and zoom lenes from ARRI. He provided some insight into what it takes to create the look from the manufacturing and development perspective. His talk included detail about how ARRI gathers user feedback for developing their products. The Bokeh of ARRI’s four Signature zooms match that of ARRI’s popular Signature primes and cover an unprecedented range of focal lengths from the wide zoom 16-32, the workhorse 24-75mm, the longer 45-135mm, and the giant 65-300mm (110-510mm with the 1.7x extender). With the resolution of digital cameras, DPs need to strike a balance between having high performance lenses to support today’s high performance display technology and building in optical character and beauty through the lens choices (in many ways, a role formerly that of the film emulsion). Accomplishing this with a zoom is a real puzzle that ARRI has taken pains to solve with the Signature series.
Mike Best (Project manager for Pro Camera Accessories at ARRI) introduced attendees to everything that is new about ARRI’s fifth generation wireless multi-axis lens control hand unit, the Hi-5. Mike and Art both stressed the value of feedback from rental companies in the development of products. Rental companies have eyes on the issues that might otherwise be unknown to the manufacturer because they don’t come through as a repair.
Panavision’s optical technician, Al Collins, generously provided tours of the Panavision facility including demonstrating Panavision’s unique lens projection room. The custom projector was developed to cover every lens from Panavision’s 65mm format down to a 2/3-inch broadcast camera lens. As lens character was a main theme or the day, Al enjoyed comparing Panavision’s new Artiste Primo series lenses, which can be tuned to provide more of a “vintage” look relative of regular Primo.
Mitch Gross (Sales rep for Prolycht) demonstrated the Orion 300 FS, a new full-spectrum LED unit from Prolycht. The form factor is much like a stills photo head, with a Bowens-mount that accepts various front-end attachments including a focal spot (iris, shutters, and gobos), soft box, and Fresnel. Mitch discussed the light’s RGBACL (red, blue, green, amber, cyan, lime) light engine, which enables very accurate color, with wide gamut, and notably, accurate color when dimmed very low. With all the wireless and color control features that people have come to expect from high-end full-spectrum LED, a highly capable, less expensive alternative to lights like the ARRI Orbiter would be a welcome addition to the lighting arsenal.
With the scheduled NAB show cancelled, and the Cinegear show greatly diminished, the continuation of the pandemic has made large trade shows seem a bit unrealistic. With these limitations in play, it is heartening to find opportunities where a small event is can be responsibly held and provide a benefit to PERG members. PERG thanks Gary Adcock and Filmscape for reaching out and doing the organizing. Giving some background Filmscape, Gary told us “Filmscape was founded as a non-profit to provide continuing free education for the extended film and television community in Chicago and beyond. We were proud to host a live multi-day event that combined the in-person networking opportunities with classes and technical training that spans the entire industry. This year, we added an additional day of education specific to the professional rental community to share the latest product developments directly with the frontline rental markets in the Midwest. We hosted three educational tracks of in-person and online classes, geared towards the needs and interests in grip & electric, production and post, and the camera and sound departments. This year we expanded our class offerings to include a broader range of topics beyond just the technical aspects of filmmaking to include legal and business issues. We took the opportunity to stream a range of sessions from special industry guests like Bobby DeChillis, rigging gaffer on the Mandolorian and world-renowned Producer/Director Lilly Wachowski discussing inclusivity as part of her reason for shooting her current Showtime project ‘Work In Progress’ here in Chicago.” PERG will also be hosting livestreams from some of Filmscape’s educational sessions on the ESTA YouTube channel. Filmscape’s sponsors are Able Cine, DePaul University, Dynamic, IA Local 476, Keslow Camera, Koerner Camera, Litegear, Panavision, and Ratpac Controls.
PERG is grateful to the event sponsors, Panavision, Dynamic, and Koerner Camera for getting behind it and making the event possible, and of course the presenters for their participation and terrific presentations.
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