Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey"

There's been a lot said about Christopher Nolan's new movie "The Odyssey." I've been watching different stories about how it was shot. Here's a 4 minute clip from "60 Minutes" from Facebook:

Direct link: facebook.com/reel/1629829631643231

And here's a longer 9 minute version from YouTube:

Direct link: youtu.be/1GEqDZ3hQSo?si=XJsIHU4pharV03wv

Wonder Woman Wet Plate Collodion Photograph

OK, so I'm a little late to this party.

I just saw "Wonder Woman" a few months ago as we checked it out from the library to watch with my oldest son as he just had his tonsils out and needed to be taking it easy. We all enjoyed it.

I watched some of the "extras" the following day, and there was one called "A Photograph Through Time" which was about the photograph that started the movie. (And the same photo was seen in "Batman vs Superman" as well.)

Present-day Wonder Woman looking at the photograph from Bruce Wayne.


The photo seen in a collector's book about the movie.

The man who plays "Charlie" (far right in that photo) talked about shooting that photo as the first day on set:

That was the first thing that we shot, before we’d even shot a scene [for Wonder Woman] we shot that photograph. It meant that when we eventually got around to shooting the scene that the [photograph] is from, we had to really painstakingly recreate it. Because we [took the photo] against a half-built set, in a way sets were still being built at that point. So by the time we came around to filming that scene, probably around five months later, the sets were much more developed. So we had to find a way to recreate the exact same image after half a year had gone by.

Anyway, the "extra" about the making of the photograph is pretty interesting. They worked with photographer Stephen Berkman and actually shot a traditional wet plate collodion photograph with (approximately) a 5 second exposure. They shot about 20 versions to get one that worked the way they wanted it to. There's a LOT more on the DVD/Blu-Ray, but here are 2 short clips about the photograph in Wonder Woman, and the 2nd video shows a lot more of the actual photograph (and the director and producer discussing it):

Direct link: youtu.be/Px6bjPksY2E


Direct link: youtu.be/R2DTz6RsWpo

Here's a little more about the making of this photo from Screen Rant and from Cinema Blend. But I recommend watching the DVD or Blu-Ray and seeing a lot more about this in the extras.

Eadweard Muybridge Movie

This isn't a true documentary, but it still looks like it could be interesting to see:

Direct link: http://youtu.be/7VAds0GH_8E

Did it annoy anyone else that he's upside-down on the ground glass as he should be at at 4 second mark, but he's going in the wrong direction? Oops. Not good to have a flub 4 seconds into your trailer.

Still, I'd like to see it…

Five April Photo Links

I haven't done a "news" post in a while... click each link in each story for all the details.

• 1: Kodak film will be alive in the cinema a bit longer. Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros announced that they will keep using Kodak film even as most studios go digital.

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• 2: The public recently got a look at the first photo book ever. It's called "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" from 1843 book by English botanist and photographer Anna Atkins. It's considered to be the first book ever to be illustrated exclusively with photographs (well, cyanotypes actually).

Direct link: https://youtu.be/ekUUuU7whe0

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• 3: Here's a great list of movies about photography that every photographer should see.

"One Hour Photo" was at the top of the list.

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• 4: Want to shoot a film only lit by candlelight? You are now able to rent a Zeiss f/0.7 lens - the largest aperture len ever seen in the history of photography.

In the 1960s, NASA commissioned Zeiss to make 10 of these lenses to use on the moon. In the end, 3 were bought by Stanley Kubrick and used in his 1975 film "Barry Lyndon" where he shot some scenes only lit by candles:

Short documentary on Kubrick’s use of this lens. Direct link: https://youtu.be/FmSDnPvslnA

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• 5: Photographer Troy Wayrynen caught a photo of a high school cross country runner snapping a selfie, and it won him first prize in the "Sports" category in this year’s "Best of Photojournalism" contest by the National Press Photographers Association.

Close-up of winning image.