Harnessing the spirit of the Wild West with Flex Zoom lenses

When it comes to cinema, the Hollywood-style movie trailer is an art form in itself. The format generally includes action, drama, character introductions, special effects and a teasing glimpse of the plot – all told in a visually interesting way in three minutes or less. Of course, the team putting a trailer together usually has the luxury of all the footage from a full-length feature film to choose from in the edit. Not so for Ember Films' DoP Jonathan Jones.

The multi-Emmy Award-winning director and cinematographer, whose work ranges from natural history TV programmes to commercial projects, shot his own movie trailer from scratch to showcase what a creative filmmaker can accomplish in a very short time. Unsurprisingly, it proved a complex undertaking.

The project needed intricate planning plus equipment that could be used very quickly, with no compromises in terms of quality. Jonathan used the Canon EOS C500 Mark II, teamed with Canon's first premium full-frame zoom lenses for professional cinema productions, the CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F / FP and the CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F / FP.

"It was a very tight shoot," he explains. "We had just two days to film everything, and literally every shot we took is in the trailer. And we didn't do any more than a couple of takes with each scene."

Although set in the Wild West, the trailer is not what you'd typically expect from the genre. Rather, it's a more nuanced, modern take on the Western, focusing on the characters and, of course, stunning visuals.

"The original home of large format lenses and zooms was the Western genre – big filmscapes, large zooms into eyes, all those things," says Jonathan. "So we went and did a recce of a permanent Western film set that I used 10 years ago in the UK. I knew it could be perfect. Because we had such a tight schedule, we couldn't keep moving the unit to a new location. We had to find a project where we could tell the whole story without really moving more than 10 metres, and that's exactly what we did."

Goodbye Justice, the fictitious film the trailer is celebrating, is a love story set around the mid-1860s, just after the American Civil War. It's a time of unrest, slavery has been abolished and there are people with opposing views all living in the same place.

A trailer shoot also pushes equipment and lenses to their limits, as it's crucial every detail is captured in often-difficult conditions, such as harsh backlight, dimly lit interiors, explosions, fast action and the subtleties of romantic scenes. That's where the high bit depth codec in the full-frame Canon EOS C500 Mark II came in, ensuring accurate colours were captured and a range of frame rates could be used to match each shot.

For Jonathan, one of the key things he looked for when using the Canon Flex Zooms was the way they captured skin tones. "Achieving accurate mixtures of skin tones is the holy grail," he says. "Skin has such minute details and amazing curves, and it reacts really interestingly to light. So if you're looking at multiple different skin tones, that's such a great test.

"Our male lead has black skin, our female lead has very pale, white skin, and our villain is an older gentleman, so has aged and weathered skin. That's a great space to set your lens look. How does it react? What is it like if we shine really strong light at it? What if we bounce light?

"You could see within seconds that these lenses just worked brilliantly. We didn't use any effects filters at all. The Canon Flex Zooms are going to be used predominantly in drama, movies and commercials – the high end of the spectrum. You could use them for literally anything, but really it's going to be aspirational productions."

Zooms are especially useful for quick setups and, of course, instant changes in focal length without having to reset cameras and accessories. Jonathan found they were perfect for his needs while making the trailer.

"I used zooms due to the setup and the speed at which we shot," he says. "To do what we did in two days, we had the timing down to five-minute intervals. It's that tight. You couldn't add lens changing into that. So I might be on the dolly and say, 'Right, let's look at a 50mm. No, let's go 85mm.' Within a second, you're there with the zoom. And optically, they are so close to primes now that you would have to nitpick, put them side-by-side, and really pixel-peep to notice the difference.

"Historically, zooms were almost like a secondary option. But what's great about these Canon Flex Zooms is between the two, they cover 20mm to 135mm. That's all you need. Even if the shoot is predominantly a prime lens shoot, I will always have zooms on set because if the schedule gets pushed I can put the zooms on so we can cover a scene incredibly quickly."

Jonathan says the varied shooting environments involved in the Goodbye Justice trailer were handled well by the two Flex Zoom lenses, which were easy to work with in a range of scenarios. "These lenses are quite clean, quite classic, and controlled in terms of flare," he says. "If you want it to flare and you bring the light in, they flare beautifully.

"I didn't have to light any differently than if we were using any other camera or lenses," he continues. "We had the directional hard sun outside, so we used a lot of bounce and diffusion. We did nighttime interiors where I used a lot of practicals. So I would do little candles, but then fill it with soft light panels, bounce light, reflectors.

"I kept it pretty simple because I didn't want to make this film over-stylised as it's set in the Wild West in the 1800s. What we really were looking at was texture. You need the best equipment to capture this, and that's where the CN-E20-50mm T2.4 L F / FP and the CN-E45-135mm T2.4 L F / FP really paid off. They are so fast to use and the look is clean and natural, not overly 'digital' or clinical."

Working as director as well as DoP on this complex and demanding shoot was something that Jonathan is used to, and it helped that he could always trust his Canon equipment. It never got in the way of his creative vision and very hands-on dual roles.

"With all cinematography, there's no one rule fits all," he says. "It's all about the aesthetic. It's all about the direction and what the intention is in each shot. I looked at the monitor and knew my waveforms and everything were good – nothing burning out, nothing too dark. What worked well was a really naturalistic kind of exposure. My Canon kit delivered."

With total confidence in the speed and ultimate image quality of his equipment, and the natural look this combination helped him achieve, Jonathan could focus on getting the best out of the actors and scenery to create a trailer that Hollywood would be proud to produce.