Vantage One4 glass elevates the ordinary
Dark Satellites (aka Die stillen Trabanten) was originally a Clemens Meyer novel comprised of a series of vignettes “as dark as the world, as beautiful as the brightest of hopes,” according to the publisher’s description. Characters at the margins of contemporary German society are loosely connected by the cavernous main train station in Leipzig, where chance encounters lead to longing and love.
Director Thomas Stuber and director of photography Peter Matjasko had translated other Meyer tales to the screen before. This time, they allied with Vantage Film’s new Leipzig facility, and shot with Vantage One4 lenses, high speed spherical glass designed for large formats that offers super close focus and compact design.
“Hawk and Vantage lenses have always had a significant uniqueness, very different compared to the alternatives,” says Matjasko. “I shot commercials for ten years, and used them whenever I could. On the previous Clemens Meyer projects, we were always looking for something special. I’m generally not interested in anything that is clean and ordinary. On Dark Satellites, we finally had the opportunity to shoot with Hawk.”
Using Red Monstro cameras, the filmmakers tested almost every variety of Hawk anamorphic glass, which comes in ten different sets, each tailored to render distinctive results. Philipp Grimm, Branch Manager at Vantage Leipzig, and Vantage Film co-founder Wolfgang Baumler helped out with the testing. Matjasko settled on Vantage One4s, spherical glass for large format cinematography. The final aspect ratio was 1.85:1.
“The look reminds me of large format still photography, the way the focus falls off and the bokeh registers in the background,” says Matjasko. “It’s almost anamorphic in a way, even though there’s no distortion. I’ve never seen anything like the One4s before. The Red camera has a certain unexplainable grittiness, and the combination felt like the right way to elevate these tiny stories and to pay our respects to these ordinary characters.”
Matjasko often used the sensitivity of the Red sensor to shoot with little or no light in the nighttime train station. The T1.4 speed of the optics worked in tandem. He says that the lens-sensor combination sometimes resulted in some pleasant vignetting. “That’s something I quite like,” he says. “Everyone’s adding a little bit of vignetting in the grading, but this way, you feel the glass, and I can control the sense of it – and that’s something that I miss. The One4s have imperfections, yet they are consistent throughout the set. The images instantly feel special.”
Cinematographer Peter Matjasko on set
The cast includes stars such as Martina Gedeck and Nastassja Kinski. The shoot lasted 35 days, from mid-August to early October, 2021. Given the story’s emphasis on characters, Stuber wanted to focus on faces. Close-ups were common.
“For Thomas, the actors always come first,” says Matjasko. “I was looking for a way to create portraits using the face as a landscape, but also adding something special. The One4s are one of the most interesting lenses available. They really translate to how we see things. That’s something that everyone says in interviews, and it has to do with the large format. But it’s actually true. With 35mm formats, there was still a bit of mystery, and now, with large format, everything tends to be too clean, in my opinion. These lenses do a great job without going over the top and showing off, and thereby losing the mystery.
“The One4s have fantastic resolution, but the image is obscured in a way, as if you were going through layers of emulsion,” he says. “With emulsion, even if it was in focus, it would still feel a little bit out of focus, because you’re going through emulsion layers of different colors. And that effect is similar to what these lenses produce, from my point of view. It will be hard to convince me that there’s another spherical option available that looks more filmic and interesting and out of the ordinary, yet still in a gentle way.”
The project, co-produced by Warner Bros. Film Productions Germany, was made possible in part because of the vagaries of film funding. As the biggest city in Saxony, Leipzig serves an active film production community. Vantage Film recently opened an efficiently designed facility that benefits from the city’s important European air freight hub. Branch Manager Philipp Grimm oversees the operation, which offers a complete range of services, including testing and demonstration capabilities. Vantage Leipzig shares the building with Maier Bros., a rental company offering professional film lighting and grip equipment.
“The support of Vantage in general is always fantastic,” says Matjasko. “With Vantage and Maier next to each other, it’s so convenient. It’s easy to focus on being a cinematographer instead of hassling with production. Philipp is doing a great job, really pushing it in a good way. Compared to Berlin or Munich, Leipzig is somewhat under the radar. But with a great place like Vantage, you can immediately get any gear and support you need. It’s a major improvement.”
Grimm adds, “In Leipzig, the community is very strong and united. We socialize together and discuss projects and opportunities. We help each other. It’s like family. It’s very special for Vantage to be part of that community.
Dark Satellites hit screens on December 1st 2022. Since then, Matjasko has gone on to shoot Boy Kills World, a dystopian action film on which Sam Raimi served as a producer. The lenses on that project were also Vantage One4s.
Watch the trailer here.
Images: Sommerhaus Films
