Zack Snyder's unconventional cinematography for Army of the Dead is confusing viewers who're streaming the film at home on Netflix.
Many people have taken to Twitter to complain about the movie's visuals, which are typically blurry or appear smudged. Further complicating matters, this "Dead Pixel" glitch only seems to appear on certain television sets, leaving viewers to wonder if the problem is really their TV and not the movie.
As it turns out, this is not the result of a dead pixel in one of the film's cameras, as some have speculated. Rather, it's because Snyder -- who, in a career first, served as both Army of the Dead's cinematographer and director -- shot the zombie action flick using the Canon 50mm f/.0.95 lens, specifically the full-frame Rangefinder lenses. As reported by Games Radar, this lens was developed by Japan during the 1970s and is nicknamed the Canon Dream Lens for the ethereal look it creates (as a result of its shallow focus).
While Snyder's use of this lens was mostly a stylistic choice, it also served a practical purpose when he replaced costar Chris D'Elia with Tig Notaro during post-production in Aug. 2020, following the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against D'Elia. In order to work around the restrictions on filming at the time due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Notaro had to shoot scenes on her own that Snyder and his crew would later digitally integrate into the movie. When that wasn't possible, Snyder instead added an out of focus digital scan of Notaro, blending it into the film's already smudged-looking footage.
Snyder broke down this complicated process in a previous interview, explaining "Some of the trickiest shots were where [Notaro's character Peters is] walking in the group -- I had to match the [camera] pans, and it was difficult to get the perspective to match. It was a few months to get all the individual effects and make it seamless." As a thank-you for her efforts, Snyder gave Notaro a replica Oscar for Best Out-of-Focus Actor.
In addition to Army of the Dead, Snyder also used the Canon 50mm f/.0.95 lens to shoot the Knightmare sequence from the epilogue for his Justice League cut. For now, it's unclear if he intends to continue using the lens on future projects the same way he did on Army of the Dead or if the latter was meant to be more of a one-off experiment.
Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead stars Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi, Matthias Schweighöfer and Ana de la Reguera. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Source: Twitter, Games Radar