
Vincent lives in Los Angeles, Anthony in New York City. They met on a dating app and have been talking for months, but the physical distance between them has kept them apart until now, when Vincent flies to New York to stay with Anthony for a long weekend. Their first day is marked by awkward moments and fumbling connections that nevertheless give way to a profound intimacy that's both welcome and frightening to each of them. As they grow closer together, they can't help but recognize that Vincent's departure is also drawing nearer, and once the weekend is over, they'll again be thousands of miles apart.
Written and directed by Tyler Rabinowitz and shot by cinematographer Oren Soffer, the 16-minute short See You Soonstars James Cusati-Moyer as Vincent and Jonny Beauchamp as Anthony. The project was the latest in a string of collaborations between Soffer and Rabinowitz, going back to the latter's New York University thesis film. Shot in New York City over four days in the summer of 2019, See You Soon premiered online on June 27, timed with the celebration of this year's Pride Month. (The short can be watched here.)
The filmmakers captured the short with an Alexa Mini camera and Panavision Ultra Speed lenses, all sourced out of Panavision New York. The design of the movie, in terms of how we used lenses and camerawork to create intimacy, was done to address what both Tyler and I feel is a lack of representation of intimate gay relationships, Soffer shares. As queer filmmakers, it was really important for us to craft a visual story on screen that we just dont see much of, certainly not depicted in this way.
Soffer recently connected with Panavision to shine a light on his and Rabinowitz's creative approach to the project. (Note, the following conversation contains spoilers.)
Panavision: Were there any particular visual references that you and Tyler looked at for inspiration?
Oren Soffer: When Tyler sent me the first draft of this script, our process actually started with music. He said, While reading this, listen to White Ferrari by Frank Ocean. I want this film to feel the way that song sounds.' So that was the first piece of media that we consumed while thinking about how this film was going to feel, and then we started to figure out how it was going to look. We actually didn't exchange a ton of references; I think we made a conscious choice to follow our gut instinct on a lot of things. The two [features] that we did look at in terms of tone and mood were Call Me By Your Name [directed by Luca Guadagnino] and Weekend by Andrew Haigh, but stylistically we deviated from both of them a little bit.
We wanted the whole film to be about capturing the emotion between these two people, so everything about the visual style was going to be naturalistic and very minimalist and not very stylized. It was all to service the world of these two guys and what they feel spending this weekend together. We wanted to strip away any distractions in terms of the visual style and just let it be.
How did you arrive at the Ultra Speeds for your lenses?
Soffer: After the thesis that Tyler directed at NYU, Panavision helped us out on music videos that I shot and he produced and/or directed. They've been so supportive of these projects over the years, so when it came time for this project, Panavision was really the first place we thought of, and I reached out to Marni Zimmerman to see if they'd want to do another one.
Tyler and I had a conversation early on about anamorphic versus spherical, but it was not a long conversation. We wanted a sort of traditional aspect ratio, not widescreen, just to bring these two characters together in the frame and emphasize that this story is about the connection between them. And the Ultra Speeds were my first choice; they're my favorite spherical lenses. The glass is stunning. Shooting wide open, like I tend to do, creates really aesthetically pleasing visual flaws' in terms of the astigmatism, the bokeh, the falloff and everything. It was perfect for the mood that we wanted to create with this project. It was a little bit dreamy, a little bit ethereal. And I like that the lenses are really fast, so when you shoot them wide open, you get really quick falloff in terms of depth of field. That sense of separation between the characters and the background was part of the visual language that we wanted. We wanted them to feel isolated from the world, together with each other and separate from the environment.
It really underscores the intimacy between them.
Soffer: Intimacy was the key word that really informed all of our creative decisions: aspect ratio, lens choice, how we shot with the lenses, and also shooting on longer focal lengths, again to decrease the depth of field and emphasize that sense of isolation. We only shot wide-lens close-ups a few times, for key moments in the film when we wanted to create a sense of physical presence, to bring the audience within the world of the characters. As they were becoming more intimate, we were shooting with longer lenses to create this tension, like there's a separation hovering over them because they both know that eventually they're going to have to not be together. But then, for the scene where they have their fight, that's actually where we shot with wider lenses closer up, bringing them together in the moment that they're coming apart. It was an intentional, subtle subversion of the audience's physical proximity to the characters.
Early in the movie, there's a long-lens shot of the couple walking toward the camera, a day exterior with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. What focal length would that have been?
Soffer: That was a 150mm Ultra Speed, which is the highest focal length in that set, and it was with a 2x extender, so effect
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...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...