Key Points
Colman Domingo and Abigail Breslin lead the cast of the new film Chapter 51.
The director of the comedic thriller, Tyler Shield, says he used every available film format during shooting — including one invented for the project.
Chapter 51 hits theaters on June 23.
In an early moment of the trailer for photographer Tyler Shields’ new movie, Chapter 51, actor Colman Domingo explains that the audience is in for a ride.
“Everyone wants to know, what does it mean? What does it mean?” he says, in character, wearing a suit and standing in the rain under an umbrella. “If they wrote this in a script, no one would believe it.”
What follows are sweeping views of a sunset, a sports car ablaze, a man wielding a flamethrower, and dust sweeping across a desert. We also get glimpses of the cast, including Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, Definitely, Maybe), Emily Alyn Lind (Gossip Girl), Charlotte Lawrence (Bad Monkey), and Connor Paolo (Gossip Girl).
To achieve the movie’s unique look, Shields says he used every available film format, including one invented expressly for the project. “We used everything from hand-cranked cameras to VistaVision, Ultra Panavision, IMAX, and this new anamorphic IMAX format, with each tool chosen to create a specific feeling and a specific cinematic world,” Shields tells Entertainment Weekly. “The anamorphic IMAX system became one of the crown jewels of that process because it allowed us to create images that simply didn’t exist before.”
Shields, who wrote and directed the film, says the new format was invented following a conversation with Panavision lens designer Dan Sasaki about anamorphic lenses, which create a distinct widescreen look.
“Throughout the production, we were using some of the most iconic lenses in cinema history, including lenses from Ben-Hur and even some of Kubrick’s old lenses. But I wanted to do something that had never been done before,” he says. “I asked Dan if it would be possible to create an anamorphic lens for an IMAX film camera. At the time, no one had ever shot anamorphic IMAX. That conversation led to the creation of a completely new lens system and a new visual language for the film, which I believe will become one of the most sought-after formats in cinema.”
‘Chapter 51’ comes out June 23
Credit: Courtesy of Cineverse
The technical side of Chapter 51 complements the plot, which includes the making of a big-budget Hollywood film, in which three actresses are murdered by someone deemed the Hollywood Killer. “As fear spreads across the set,” the official description reads, “production continues under a new director. Years later, former FBI agent Thomas Scott reopens the case, unraveling a haunting story of ambition, obsession, and the cost of keeping the cameras rolling.”
“One of the unique aspects of Chapter 51 is that each murder suspect exists within their own cinematic world,” Shields says. “The film contains more than 20 fictional films within the larger story, and I didn’t want those worlds to feel artificial. If a sequence was meant to look like a silent film, we used a real hand-cranked camera. If it was inspired by the large-format epics of the 1950s and 1960s, we used the same Ultra Panavision systems and lenses associated with films like Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia.”
The biggest challenge, Shields says, was bringing those distinct formats together into one cohesive piece. “We were cutting between 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, VistaVision, Ultra Panavision, anamorphic IMAX, and traditional IMAX, sometimes within the same sequence,” he explains. “Each format had its own texture, color response, aspect ratio, and visual personality.”
The film was executive produced by Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson under the banner of his independent studio, Artists for Artists. “One of the things we’re building at Artists for Artists is the ability to champion bold filmmakers and unique stories,” the actor, who serves as executive producer on the project, tells EW. “Tyler has an incredible visual voice, and Chapter 51 immediately stood out because it felt ambitious, original, and unlike anything else out there. As a producer, it was exciting to help support his vision and bring this film to audiences.”
Working with Artists for Artists afforded Shields the space to test his ideas. “The biggest advantage we had was time,” he says. “Most productions never have the opportunity to experiment at that level. Over the course of making the film, I was able to discover what worked, what didn’t, and how different formats could coexist.”
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Chapter 51 arrives on digital June 23.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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