Recreating Euphoria
When season two of Euphoria dropped earlier this year it was announced that the entire season was shot on 35mm Ektachrome film. An impressive feat, since up until that point Ektachrome had been discontinued in 35mm motion picture film stock.
Ektachrome has long been a favorite of filmmakers and photographers for its lush colors and saturated images. In terms of processing, it’s a 3 step developing process (recipe available in Analog Cookbook Issue 1). You can purchase developing kits from Freestyle Photo or B&H, and since it’s reversal (producing a positive image) you can load your freshly developed film in a projector and call it a day.
In the cinematography class I teach, we set out to recreate this Ektachrome film look in our 2 hour and 45 minute time slot, and based our scene off of the party scene in the first episode of the season. For reference, the filmmakers from the show discuss this scene in detail in the BTS series Enter Euphoria linked below.
In this scene, the main characters appear in flashes at a party. The effect is an old photo you might find laying around of a friend caught in the moment. It’s a nostalgic look, and indicative of a season that is so nostalgia-laden that the group of high school students on screen could just as easily be students from 1993 as they could be Gen Z lovers of early aughts fashion (backless shirts are back baby)!
We used three different camera set ups on a dana dolly to achieve this look:
The Ursa Mini Pro with Lensbaby Composer Pro II and Sweet 50mm Optic
Black Magic Pocket Cam with Bolex Kern Paillard lenses
Arriflex SRI with Ektachrome film and an angenieux 10-150 lens
Lighting
In Euphoria they achieved this look with a 20k spotlight.
We had a Mole Richardson 2K Studio Light, added some CTO and used a flicker box to control the strobe. We also added some haze (because it’s a party, why not) and my students wanted to use LED tube lights to cast a blue light on the back wall.
Ursa Mini Pro + Lensbaby Composer Pro II with Sweet 50 Optic
For the first camera set up we went with an Ursa Mini Pro and Lensbaby Composer Pro II. I love the Ursa Mini Pro and Blackmagic products for color grading purposes. Budget-wise you also get a lot of bang for your buck.
A student requested that we use the Lensbaby Composer Pro II. Lensbaby makes products similar to tilt shift lenses. Whereas tilt shift lenses would be used in architecture or real estate photography to ensure that lines are parallel and there is no distortion, Lensbaby caters to filmmakers and photographers who want to embrace distortion through selective focus. The result is a dreamy, surreal effect.
The Composer Pro itself is just a ball and socket and the optics are interchangeable. We used the Sweet 50 Optic. Since we were using the Ursa Mini Pro for a film look, it felt necessary to really dirty up the look. While we’re getting something in with this combination, I found myself wanting to lean into the old photo aesthetic a bit more. The composer pro felt more Instagram filter than authentic.
Blackmagic Pocket Cam with Bolex Kern Paillard lenses
We set out to see if we could get even closer to the film look by using vintage c-mount lenses meant for 16mm cameras on a Blackmagic pocket camera. In order to do this, we used the original 1080p pocket cam because the sensor on the original BMPC is a super 16mm sensor, whereas the current 6k BMPC has a super 35mm sensor making it impossible to use super 16mm lenses. There’s a good breakdown of this from AbelCine here.
We used a $15 adapter to be able to use the c-mount lenses on the camera, effectively creating a knock off digital Bolex. While the look may be closer to 16mm than 35mm, and color grading and other variables aside, the Blackmagic pocket camera footage felt closer to the Euphoria aesthetic than the lens baby Ursa Mini Pro combo.
Arriflex SRI with Ektachrome film and an angenieux 10-150 lens
We wanted to see how the scene looked on Ektachrome, so we pulled out the Arriflex SRI and loaded it with film. This camera had not been used in 5 years and was hastily loaded. We had a lot of issues with the camera jamming and unfortunately the film didn’t turn out quite as nice as I would have hoped.
We could have opened up a stop or two for sure, as we were pretty underexposed. In the frames that did turn out, you can see the look almost feels too vintage. Euphoria is so much about present day, that this feels like we went a little too far. This is something cinematographer Marcél Rev discussed in his choice to steer clear of 16mm. “The closest thing to what we had in mind was 16mm Ektachrome, but it was too grainy — 16mm wasn’t quite right for the show as we saw it.” (IndieWire)
Final Thoughts
Overall, the Pocket Cam was my favorite. However, if we were to do this again I would shoot 16mm, pull while shooting and get a cleaner process and scan to see if we could get a bit closer with 16mm. I would also love to shoot this again using the Digital Bolex D16 to see how it compares to the Pocket Cam.
Lighting wise, I would love to see this look with a skypanel at 5600k in order to get a cooler daylight look. I would also kill those LED tubes in the background completely and focus on perfecting that camera flash.