Logo text
Wuthering Heights Cinematographer Linus Sandgren lets the story dictate the format.
As much as the Swedish director might enjoy shooting in IMAX, Emerald Fennell’s vision for his reimagining of Emily Brontë’s seminal novel had a different ambition than the one he achieved for Denis Villeneuve Sand Dunes: Part Three. The writer-director wanted her tragic romance starring Margot Robbie (Cathy Earnshaw) and Jacob Elordi (Heathcliff) to have a tactile, impressionistic quality, hence the decision to shoot the majority of the piece on standard 35mm film.
When it came to landscape shots of the Yorkshire Moors – as well as wide interior shots involving Edgar Linton’s (Shazad Latif) mansion – the filmmakers sought a higher resolution for detail, but without sacrificing film grain. Neither the 65mm standard nor IMAX will be adhered to both of them Of those requirements. Thus, Sandgren and Fennell chose VistaVision, a large 35mm film format that offered high resolution and enough grain to maintain continuity with the rest of the third-performance 35mm film.
“Every format is going to affect emotion, and for me there’s a big difference within film formats,” says Oscar-winner Sandgren. “We tested 65 formats, but Emerald was missing the grain, so we went to 35 people to see the grain.” Hollywood Reporter In support of Wuthering Heights 4K version. “The technical reason for using VistaVision was to capture landscape shots in high resolution [with a finer grain] Because it includes small details that you want to see better. Basically, all the real exteriors and large-scale interiors were VistaVision.
This particular system had its dominance in the 1950s, but fell by the wayside until Brady Corbett came along. Brutal Apparently he brought it back in 2024. Since then, VistaVision has been used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-winning film. Battle after battleYorgos Lanthimos Bugonia And upcoming films of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (digger), M. Night Shyamalan (It remains) and Greta Gerwig (Narnia: The wizard’s nephew). At a time when the movie industry is on shaky ground, VistaVision, like IMAX, offers a marketable large format that promises a unique movie-watching experience compared to the majority of today’s films and series that are shot digitally.
According to Sandgren, image clarity is a major selling point for filmmakers who have become enamored with digital clarity. “People started shooting digital, and they were used to the sharp image quality,” Sandgren says. “So directors who like the precision of shooting digital cameras can keep that image sharp using film formats like VistaVision.”
As for the month of December Sand Dunes: Part Three, Sandgren chose the strategic use of IMAX cameras to achieve the scope and scale that Villeneuve envisioned for his trilogy. He had previously used a camera to define sequences First man and No time to die. Compared to VistaVision, IMAX offers a larger, sharper picture, but generally lacks the texture that comes with the former.
Sandgren has provided a great deal of feedback to IMAX as part of their ongoing efforts to improve its technology, but he has yet to use the state-of-the-art camera system deployed by Christopher Nolan and D. B. Hoyt van Hoytema in the entirety of their upcoming epic, Odyssey. The historical knock on the IMAX camera is that it is heavy and cumbersome, which prevents its use during dialogue scenes. However, IMAX finally solved the problem beforehand Odyssey Shoot by surrounding the camera with a sound balloon or box-like enclosure. Sandgren admits he was intrigued by the possibility of shooting an entire film in IMAX, but would let the script control all the format decisions.
“I definitely like big, epic movies that use IMAX right. Some movies shouldn’t be IMAX, some movies should be IMAX. We’ve used it a lot in Dune: Part Three“Of course, you want these IMAX cameras to be quiet, and we’ve all given input on their new cameras to try to make them quieter,” Sandgren says. “However, there’s still a need for a balloon, which is as cumbersome as it sounds. It’s a complicated device. Maybe there are ways for AI to filter in one way or another.” [the noise]but you want the sound to be correct, too.
Like Nolan and Van Hoytema, Sandgren champions celluloid, having used it in all his other feature films before him. Wuthering Heights. He’s open to digital technology if the situation calls for it, but most of all, he just wants filmmakers to have all the tools at their disposal. Film shooting can often be a tough sell for studios and financiers due to the added expense and processing time. The director of photography alludes to one instance in which he was put at risk to secure film stock, but was largely fortunate to have supportive collaborators. When the topic of cost comes up, he points out that there are creative ways to achieve it if the desire is there.
“I’ve been in situations where I’ve had to pitch to a studio, myself, why we should shoot on film and not digital. One time, I actually talked to the director and the studio about shooting a movie, and then all of a sudden they backed out of it. So it seemed like a breach of contract, in my opinion.” “Obviously you need to make compromises to make the budget work. But if you open your eyes to all departments, maybe there’s a way to save the money the film spends in production.”
Sandgren’s parting words reaffirm his philosophy that the form of a film should be driven less by marketing opportunities and more by the roots of the entire project.
“Format doesn’t specify what it should look like. It’s the story that asks for format. It’s a tool to serve the story.”
***
“Wuthering Heights” Now available in 4K.
