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How Julian Lomaga shot his film using LOMO anamorphics

My name is Julian Lomaga and I am a cinematographer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My most recent project that I worked on as Director of Photography was for a passion project, a short film that was shot in Toronto, Mississauga, and Richmond Hill. The title of the film is “Your Dog” (working title).

The first time I read through the script, I knew that I wanted to shoot this short film on LOMO anamorphics. I made this decision because of how these lenses portray such a unique and different style, which suited the script’s content entirely.

The story of “Your Dog” is a very dark, twisted, and disillusioned piece of writing that is totally fuelled by a narrator’s voiceover. As the narrator speaks throughout the story, it becomes morally ambiguous to the viewer, and this is supported by how the story is told visually. Therefore, lomo anamorphics give me that “look” that I really needed to make the piece stand out to the narrator’s twisted story. Shooting wide open at a 2.3 gave me “central” piece of focus that was at a certain place on the image while the rest of the image just “wraps” around the character when they are distraught or confused. Shooting at a 5.6 gave me a “sharper” focus when the character is happy or joyful.

The LOMO anamorphics are also just beautiful lenses themselves. They are these vintage, custom-made pieces of glass that just operate so strangely but work damn well, and create just beautiful images. The best description I can find for the look that these lenses create is messy yet unique and different. They do not work like your standard pieces of glass but for a reason, and really if it looks too soft, strange or different then it either doesn’t fit the piece you are working on or you need to reevaluate your definition of cinema as an art form.

Technically, I shot with these lenses on a RED Epic Dragon. I was not able to shoot at 6K unfortunately because of a major vignette on the picture and shot at 4K. A very different approach I took as well was to shoot in 4K Full Frame, which gave me vertical loss but gave me a slightly wider picture. This wasn’t the main reason I shot in FF but because of my loss of vertical, it really gave me the motivation to make this a very stylistic piece towards how the character is portrayed and what their life is like, their life is this confined space. As the story progresses, I made the decision to shoot the last part of the story in 5K FF on a spherical wide Sigma zoom lens at 16mm, giving me this huge, epic picture to work with. Obviously, it is difficult to explain as for me to not give away the story, but the jump in frame size is drastic, and I love how it is capitalized from tight anamorphic to a super-wide spherical landscape.

Overall, everything went smoothly on this shoot. Toronto Anamorphics was excellent, with hasty service and support. These lenses should be a part of your arsenal as a cinematographer.

If you would like to see any of my work, visit www.julianlomaga.com.

Julian Lomaga

Cinematographer/Editor

CSC Affiliate

Toronto, ON/Alexandria, LA

www.julianlomaga.com

CA: 905.629.9207

US: 318.308.7601

julianlomaga@gmail.com

2016 Anamorphic Prime Lens Chart

This chart was created by Tom Fletcher to consolidate published information on the primary offering of fixed focal length anamorphic lenses in today’s rental market.