Disney’s Wedding Season with Adam Etherington.

Adam Etherington DOP talks to us about Disney’s Wedding Season production and why he chose to use a set of rehoused TLS Canon K35s, Canon FDs and Cooke Speed Panchros for the production. In his own words.

Disney’s Wedding Season is a show that travels at a thousand miles across two distinct timelines. Our brief was to create a high-calibre energetic and colourful aesthetic that reflected the relentless high-octane energy of the narrative world, but that enabled the audience to locate the narrative positioning whilst moving constantly between the 'present' and 'flashback' non-linear timelines.

Katie’s Wedding party is the point of axis within the storytelling. Time before that moment is told in flashback, and time after as a ‘present day’ narrative. Therefore, we needed to create two distinct aesthetics with enough nuanced inherent separation in the style and visual approach to enable the audience at any given moment to know whether they were in the present or the past. This was achieved in collaboration with other departments, and through a synchrony of different elements: defined colour palates, distinct camera movement approaches, focal length choices, and very importantly the selection of a different lens series for each timeline.

After much testing, we decided that we had to use TLS rehoused Canon K35 and FD lenses for the ‘present day’ timeline, and TLS Rehoused Cooke Speed Panchro lenses for the ‘flashbacks’ timeline. The inherent idea was to adopt a classical ‘s35mm’ format lens series for the flashbacks, and a wider ‘full frame’ lens format for the present moments. We shot using the Arri Alexa LF and switched resolutions as well as lenses each time we shifted the timeline, in order to utilise a different portion of the sensor and exploit a different field of view.

We selected the TLS Rehoused Cooke Speed Panchro lenses for the ‘flashback’ scenes because of their renowned beauty. The delicate rendering and gentle focus roll off offered a classical aesthetic with subtle nuanced flare and sympathetic rendering that was characterful yet that still offered a high level of optical performance. We then built a lensing strategy of longer focal lengths, centring around the legendary 75mm Hollywood portrait S2 lens as a favourite.

For the ‘Present Day’ timeline, we were excited to get the chance to combine TLS Rehoused Canon K35 lenses with the then recently developed TLS Canon FD rehoused focal lengths.

We needed lenses that covered Full Frame to maximise the Alexa LF resolution, and that gave us great optical performance with a wide range of focal lengths. The Canon K35’s and FD’s offer great optical performance, but with an aesthetic that is still nuanced in the way that only vintage optics can be. The lenses render a stunning image with fantastic resolution, great falloff and beautiful colourful flare.

The strategy for the ‘Present Day’ was to use primarily wider focal lengths, which meant we needed more than just the limited range of the wide end of the K35’s. We found the additional TLS Canon FD’s to be a great match, with the increased range and matching coatings giving us a fantastic collection of wider focal lengths to work with.

The TLS rehousing has revolutionised the process of working with the K35’s, transforming a lens that was previously a focus puller’s nightmare into a lens that delivers incredible performance with technical reliability. The fact there are now also the Canon FD’s available to compliment the set has been a game changer in terms of their range and flexibility. There is no way this creative approach with these optics would have been possible without TLS’ amazing work. Their engineers were true pioneers when it came to making the rehousing of beautiful old cinema glass accessible to the wider market, and they have maintained the commitment to excellence throughout their development since. Having known the team as long as I have, I’ve been lucky enough to watch their rehousing process develop and evolve from the earliest prototypes to the renowned world-class product that it is today. The quality and calibre of the engineering that goes into their lens rehousing has created an optical unit that enjoys all the beautifully nuanced image rendition of characterful vintage glass, but with a technical dependability that often exceeds the quality of modern design.

TLS always go above and beyond. The people there are the beating heartbeat of the company and are always generous with their time and expertise. The team in the office are amazing, and I know that when I speak to the engineers, I’m getting a straight answer backed up by a level of expertise that you can trust.

See more works from Adam on his website https://adametherington.com and on his Instagram account @ae_dop.