Clip 1
The “colour news reel” effect works extremely well for the sequence as it makes the film look less like the typical bright Hollywood film and seems to be more realistic. It does not glamorise the film or the real landing on Omaha in 1944, which the scene is based on. But it places the viewer in the middle of the action more than any other film I have watched.
Clip 2
The lenses Kaminski had Panavision create were stripped of there protective coating, allowing the light to flare in the shots. Some of the lenses were more prone to flare than others, so Kaminski had the option of changing how much flare he needed for a particular shot.
Photograph 7
This still is one of the most obvious shots with the special filter being extremely noticeable. You can clearly see the flare stretching up past the characters face. The strong whites bleed into the surrounding colours. For most shots this is very subtle but when there are bright whites or fire in shot you will be able to see it clearly.
Photograph 8
This shot is shows how the lens could have a more subtle impact, once again the whites merge into the action and the fire in the right hand corner flares up to the beam. The use of these lens and filters along with the change in the shutter helped to create a look similar to the 1940s news lens.
Photograph 9
Much of the jerky movements throughout the Omaha beach landing was created by adjusting the rotary disc shutter. The disc is normally a semicircular mirror that rotates in front of the film gate causing the light to hit the film. Kaminski and Spielberg decided to narrow the angle of the shutter disc from the standard 180 degrees to 90 degrees for most of the film and as little as 45 degrees for the fighting scenes such as Omaha Beach. This was all to make it appear more like the old news cameras.
Photograph 10
An image shaker was also used on the camera to create heavy or light shakes during a planned explosion or for the illusion of a near by explosion. The device fits to the side of the lens, and it could be controlled remotely so that the vibration would be confined to the lens only and not the camera body. This allowed the shake effect to come in perfectly on cue.
