Ramifications of WALL-E
At the time of WALL-E, Pixar was moving towards a more realistic virtual lens package
“Up until WALL-E our virtual lens was just a lens that used field of view instead of focal length,” explains Jeremy Lasky. “You would say, ‘I want a 50-degree field of view.’ And that’s what you got and dialled in anything you wanted.” However, filmmaker Andrew Stanton wanted WALL-E to look like a lost sci-fi movie from the 1970s that had been rediscovered. A major point of reference was Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
“I was looking at the aspect ratio, lens distortion, lens breathing – which is when you shift your focus – and the amount or lack of depth of field you get when putting something close,” states Lasky. “We had never gotten depth of field exactly realistic before; flares are different in anamorphic and I said to Danielle Feinberg [director of photography for lighting, Pixar] and Jim Morris [president], ‘I wish we could figure out how to make this.’ Jim said, ‘Why don’t we rent a 35mm camera and some Panavision anamorphic lenses? I have a buddy who is a DP, Marty Rosenberg, and you can direct a shoot.’
“We set up in the atrium in our building. Jerome Ranft, one of our sculptors, made life-size EVE and WALL-E models. We did charts and tests. Then we took that to figure it out, with software, how to make those lenses work in our computer, and how we would change those settings to get something that we like. We could all look and say, ‘I know that a real lens will do this, but in CG that is unfortunate looking. Let’s dial that down a bit.’ That’s something that gave us the unique look to the lenses, but based on the education of having to shoot a real thing.”