Cinematographer Sandra Valde-Hansen (The L Word: Generation Q, Now Apocalypse, White Bird in a Blizzard, Kaboom) found herself capturing scenes in diverse weather and lighting for Natalie Morales film Plan B. This road movie, now streaming on Hulu, follows a pair of teenaged friends during a day-and-night search for emergency contraception. To support the production design filled with rich night exteriors, Valde-Hansen chose ZEISS Supreme Primes to shoot large format at wide apertures on the Sony Venice camera.
When the pandemic hit, production was forced to abandon their plan to photograph the story in snowy weather. So, we embraced the warm tones of fall, Valde-Hansen says. The golds, ambers, and reds. We discussed wanting to capture the visual intimacy of teen films made of the 70s, like Battle of the Sexes, in which Natalie was an actor, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But they were not going for retro, they wanted Plan B to have an overall clean and modern look to go with the contemporary story.
Anamorphic lenses, Valde-Hansen notes, might have been a natural choice for an approach rooted in decades past, but one of the discussions I had with Natalie was based on recent testing with anamorphics for The L Word: Generation Q. For that show my co-DP, Moira Morel, and I had tested numerous anamorphic sets. We found that they werent fast, really fell apart when shooting wide open, and concluded that the falloff in sharpness on the sides would not work for the shows aesthetic.
Valde-Hansen evaluated her options. I thought, OK, what did we want out of an anamorphic? We wanted intimacy, natural perspective, natural magnification, and very shallow depth of field. We wanted to be able to see the world these girls live in, and to go out into that world, but we also wanted it to be very intimate. Once it was clear anamorphic presented challenges, I started looking into large format.
She had to pack her film tests into a weekend. Thats when I was able to test the 2500 ASA on the Sony Venice plus the T1.5 on the ZEISS Supreme Primes. I was absolutely blown away by the combination. The lenses were beautiful. They were very clean. I proposed to Natalie that the pros of anamorphic matched the pros of large format, while the cons of anamorphic were not present in large format. She was all for it.
Fall in Syracuse leads to early evenings and unreliable weather, issues Valde-Hansen encountered during a scene in a playground over the course of two nights. It was cold, it rained, it snowed- our time was heavily truncated because of the weather. It was crazy, we had to light quickly-but the speed of the Supreme Primes helped us overcome some of the issues and keep on schedule.
Equipment choices, Valde-Hansen says, proved critical. Ultimately, it is an indie film so we couldnt just get big lights when we needed them, we had to be stay on budget. More importantly, she says director Natalie Morales wanted to avoid extensive lighting for night exteriors, preferring deep blacks that other lenses with poor contrast might have compromised. She was OK with things falling into blackness. We strongly agreed that when its night it should be night.
Valde-Hansen appreciated the authenticity that the Primes brought to sequences like this. One thing about the Supremes that I absolutely love...they create such a naturalistic look without compromise to sharpness or contrast. This really allowed us to keep that naturalism throughout the film. All together, seeing how beautiful the Sony Venice is at 2500, and how clean the Supremes look at f/1.5, I knew Id made the right decision.
With Plan B successfully concluded, Valde-Hansen moved onto to the second season of The L Word: Generation Q (streaming on Showtime) with the same camera/lens combination. Ive been working with the Venice and Supreme Primes for a year and a half now, and Im really impressed. Using these lenses with amazing color rendition, great skin tones, nice fall off, no lens distortion, and consistency all the way through, is just wonderful.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
Cinematographer Sandra Valde-Hansen (The L Word: Generation Q, Now Apocalypse, White Bird in a Blizzard, Kaboom) found herself capturing scenes in diverse weather and lighting for Natalie Morales film Plan B. This road movie, now streaming on Hulu, follows a pair of teenaged friends during a day-and-night search for emergency contraception. To support the production design filled with rich night exteriors, Valde-Hansen chose ZEISS Supreme Primes to shoot large format at wide apertures on the Sony Venice camera.
