I flew back home from Tenerife, Spain last night as I was attending for a two week Cinematography workshop there. The Idea of the workshop was to capture one short film in three aspect ratios (4:3, Cinema Scope and 360 degree) and study the differences of the formats. And it was, indeed, inspiring. It’s not very often that you have a possibility to shoot the same scene in three different ways. It made me think more ways to compose the frames, for example 4:3 vs. Cinema Scope. Where is the depth of the shot, where to block the action, for instance. Kind of a basic things, for sure, but when you compare the formats at the same set, it really opens your mind to think. 360 degree (www.gopano.com) was another story: it was just an amazing tool that we never thought could deliver a story. But amazingly, it did. The idea was not to make the frame as a cylinder to view, but an opened, stretched frame that was something like 6:1 aspect ratio. Really mindblowing!

Now, it’s time to rest a bit and start the new year with a new gear. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year! (The frame below I shot with the Canon C300 and Vantage Films Hawk V-Lite’s 1.3X 24 mm).