Cinematographer Ante Cheng is no stranger to Sundance, having premiered the feature film Gook at the 2017 Festival to rave reviews. He and director Justin Chon are back to tug on audiences’ heartstrings with their 2019 U.S. Dramatic Competitor: Ms. Purple. Teddy Lee in Ms. Purple Image courtesy of the Sundance Institute. DP: Ante Cheng FILM: Ms. Purple (dir. Justin Chon) SUNDANCE CATEGORY: U.S. Dramatic Competition CAMERA: Alexa MINI GLASS: Todd-ao 55 mm anamorphic & Canon 300m DP Motto: Look for an emotional response to the image. cinema5D: What made you go with the MINI? AC: We wanted to design an expressive visual language for Ms. Purple, in an efficient package suitable for our indie production. We chose the versatile Alexa MINI for the extended handheld takes, also convenience of the EVF design and built in NDs. We liked the grain at 1280 ISO and built a custom Fuji film stock LUT. Behind the scenes of Ms. Purple. Photo Courtesy of Ante Cheng. cinema5D: How did you land on the optics? AC: During a lens test, we came across the Todd-ao 55mm anamorphic, the way it renders faces is just beautiful. The image characteristics varies through different stops, we would set it to the mood of the scene. And the focal length is perfect to move instinctively with the actors. We carried the Leica Macrolux diopters for a quick way to get past the minimum focus. 95% of the film was shot on the Todd-ao 55mm, and the rest 5% on a canon 300mm. The...
Published By: CineD - Saturday, 26 January, 2019