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- The Vintage Lenses of "Widow’s Bay"
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The Vintage Lenses of Widow’s Bay
I really enjoyed Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay, an immensely fun horror-comedy series. Lots to love about the show, including its excellent cinematography, which is the focus of this hourlong interview between the ASC’s M. David Mullen and Christian Spengler, one of the show’s primary DPs.
There’s tons of fascinating info in the interview, including the fact that they shot on both film and digital “to build the LUT, gate weave, halation and grain in Baselight,” and that they used the ASC’s recently-refurbished Todd-AO lenses, which have their own unique background:
The American Society of Cinematographers has unveiled a rare cinematic treasure: the ASC Todd-AO Lenses. The newly refurbished set of vintage primes was rediscovered in the Society’s historic Hollywood Clubhouse…
Todd-AO lenses were originally part of a groundbreaking cinematic system developed in the early 1950s to revolutionize widescreen filmmaking. Created by producer Mike Todd in collaboration with the American Optical Company, the Todd-AO system was designed to compete with Cinerama by offering a high-resolution, single-camera alternative that could deliver immersive visuals without the complexity of multiple synchronized projectors.
Crazy to think what’s hiding in random closets in LA. I was inspired by this article to go looking in my own closet and I found exactly what you would expect: 8mm versions of popular 1980s films directed by me and starring me (and seen only by me) and an assortment of He-Man action figures I convinced myself would one day be worth a lot of money (I was wrong).
If You Build It, They Will Come
I couldn’t help but be amused at The Wrap’s report Licensed Shows Now Drive Over Half of Netflix’s New Subscribers. Not picking on The Wrap specifically, other sources report similar trends on streaming services. It’s more that this to me is just “well, duh” territory.
What makes this trajectory more notable is the effectiveness of licensed series on Netflix. Currently, licensed shows account for roughly 40 percent of the series on the platform globally. Because they generate over 50 percent of series-driven sign-ups, these titles are meaningfully overperforming their share of catalog volume. For rights holders, this underscores the commercial power of their IP. Classic dramas, comfort comedies and multi-season libraries convert casual viewers into paying subscribers at a higher rate per title than the average original production, proving that third-party IP is an indispensable, high-value asset for streaming platforms hungry for sustainable growth.
Right but why is this? Could it be because most of the time originals end up having little to no cultural footprint? What else would happen if you follow the Netflix model where you just dump all the episodes onto the service, with no weekly airings? Unless the streamer in question is something niche like a Shudder or Criterion, there's little appetite from people wanting to try something about which they've heard nothing.
Some originals do break through, eg Bridgerton, as the article notes. But these seem to mostly be outliers! Give us weekly shows, please!
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
RAMageddon is coming for streaming. (link)
Why some parents are still afraid of video games. (link)
I saw both cuts of the Cannes hit Hope. (link)