When do you all use a wide angle? I was curious to see if it's in all the same situations...looking for interesting ideas I guess. Let me know.

"I don't have time for film school...I'm too busy making movies" lol

I dont think most here do use a wide angle lens, just because few have them. NotaMono can elaborate on the "whens' and "wheres" even better than I can, but if you have access to one, use that sucker.
R. Michael McWhorter

And you shall know us by the trail of dead.

I freakin hate Wide-Angle lenses. They are good for certain cituations of course, but too much of it will ruin the movie. The most recent example for me that comes to mind is Luc Besson's "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc". That movie was ruined for me because of the over usage of the wide angle. Maybe its his style or something, I dunno. But it sucked. That movie couldve been really good too.

I guess my point is use it sparingly. Wide Shots and special shots where you need to emphasize something. Although it would be better I think if you need to emphasize stuff do it with the focus if you can. It looks more professional to me.
These are just my opinions, but does anyone else agree with me?

Thomas Verrette
tommy21485@earthlink.net
Imperial Pictures

I used to use a wide angle all the time in film school. I made a philosophical shift away from it at some point though. I wouldn't hesitate to crack one out if I felt it was the tool for the job, though.

There are no "If/then" statements for most things in regards to cinematography. It's as creative a craft as any in that it is your job to decide how the look of your project should feel. Often times I think students just use the camera as a tool to convey the exact physical space that they've chosen to plop their action in (This may be why I get so ruffled when people say "Story is everything"). When you control a frame, and all sorts of other optical options you'll realize that you don't need to recreate where you actually are in the world, but can create a more metaphorical "space" for the action to take place in and you can do it in an effectively subtle fashion.

I'm sorry if that's sort of a broad philosophical answer to a fairly specific question. I can offer some common specifics as to when people use wide-angle lenses.

1. You need a wide shot and can't get all you want in a longer lens. This is the most practical purpose and probably the most common.

2. You want to distort features (Facial, spatial or geographical). If you want a sequence to feel just a little awkward or more intense a lot of people crack out the wide-angle lenses. If that's still not enough they crack out the "Fisheye" lens.

3. A lot of people will use the wide angle with the steadicam or when going handheld to reduce jolting and just to make sure they're getting everything they need in the frame.

I'm sure there are more cases that people would list as specific instances when you might want to use a wide-angle lens, but that should be a start.

It may be helpful to know the properties of a wide-angle lens when thinking about using one. Specifically their apparent warping of physical space towards the edges and an increase in perceived depth of field. Note: Many wide-angle lenses are indeed slower because at wide-open apertures they're much more susceptible to vignetting.

If you want to check out some excellent cinematography that employs a wide-angle lens check out "Fallen Angels" directed by Wong Kar-Wai and photographed by Christopher Doyle. It's an excellent lesson not only in using wide angle lenses to create the feel of the space but also in hand held camera operation.

I hope that's more helpful than confusing.

Nota "Doesn't even want to touch on the 'Squishy' Lens" Mono

Reasons I use wide angle:

1. I absolutly LOVE widescreen, and since the best you can really get is cropped or 16x9 (still cropped on your camera) you cut off quite a bit..The wide angle lens compensates.

2. You see more. A lot of the time, I don't have much room, especially on indoor shoots...the lens gives me more to frame with so I can position to my liking...if too long, ill just zoom or move in.

3. It's cool! I like the curved edges...but it can be too much, ie the fisheye effect. I have a raynox 0.5x wide angle lens, and only sometimes do i think its a bit too rounded. sometimes.

I used a wide angle for years back in the day when I made skating movies(which got me into this film thing) but I was wondering how everyone used them in a narritive sense(thanks for answers). I used it for skating to get more into the frame, as you know, filming moving objects, like skating, can be tough so the wide angle helped like crazy.
I just recently used one on a short comendy I did and loved the outcome. It gave the short a look, which help the humor in my opinion...you can check it out in the end of March...it's called "Toby". Thanks again!

"I don't have time for film school...I'm too busy making movies" lol

AKIRA KURO-MOTHER F'N-SAWA!!! The master of all that is the wide-angle lense. I want to marry the wide-angle lense becuase of this man. Well, maybe he didn't use the wide-angle lense, he may have, I really don't know. But man, the wide shots he had... mmmm that's good movie making.