DP Bill Wages, ASC Reveals a Key to His On-Set Efficiency

As technology has rapidly progressed to speed up and assist our daily lives, we too have been tasked with speeding up alongside it.

In the film industry, time is often money (and often limited), and so the faster a production can move on to the next task, the better. Fast and efficient are two qualities sought after on a film set, and a cinematographer must find the most optimal and least stressful opportunities available in which to capture the actors' strong performances. 

In the video below, cinematographer William Wages, ASC, discusses his lens choices in the modern digital camera era, citing the FUJINON 19-90mm Cabrio zoom as his go-to lens due to the freedom it allows him to change focal lengths without switching lenses, its optical quality, size, and other advantages it affords filmmakers and others on set.

“The most important thing to me is for a lens to be completely transparent,” Wages explains in the video, “meaning it doesn’t impart color. It doesn’t impart anything artificial. I want it to be as clean a palette as possible so that I can change those things with lighting, filtration or color.” He notes the ability to change focal length without changing lenses as another point in the Cabrio’s favor.

Experienced film actors are accustomed to waiting a solid 10-to-15 minutes between takes as the cinematographer changes the lens in the interest of using a different focal length. With the 19-90mm Cabrio, however, that waiting period is decreased substantially, allowing the actors to momentarily stay in character without having to lose their momentum.

“Since the 19-90 came out and I’ve started using it," Wages admits, "I’ve not used any other zoom. It’s changed the way I shoot because of the ease of operation, the ease of not having to change lenses all the time. I just reach down and change a focal length. That’s made things go a lot faster, not only in feature films, but also in commercials and in TV series.”

For additional information about the 19-90mm Cabrio, please click here.