Cinematography of Tenet | Hoyte Van Hoytema

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In Today’s video, we are doing a simple breakdown of the Cinematography of Tenet, shot by none other than Hoyte van Hoytema and director Christopher Nolan. We explore Hoyte’s camera, lenses, lighting, and composition choices in the movie on Tenet. As always, we focus on delivering the true message of the cinematographer and so you’ll find many direct quotes from Hoyte himself. Hope you enjoy!
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TIMESTAMPS⏰
00:00 Intro
00:53 Reason to shoot on IMAX
01:37 Reasons for camera choices
02:54 Christopher Nolan’s quote on the greatest DPs
03:42 Reason for spherical lenses
04:00 Lens choices
04:40 Framing
06:28 Lighting: realism
09:08 Hoyte on working with your heart
SOURCES ✔
Hoyte van Hoytema Interview
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TENET BTS • TENET- Behind the Scen...
For the Love of Film - Interstellar IMAX® Featurette • For the Love of Film -...
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[@prsnheretodo]

I watched it on a glorious 70MM film in Columbus Ohio. It was like an oil-painting!

[@AlterCineYT]

Yes!!😍 People who haven't watched it on 70mm IMAX have to watch it again, it's a completely different movie

[@MrPhenom444]

teneT is the Blade Runner of our generation. Snubbed and misunderstood at first, but should grow into the legendary status it deserves!

[@jeanpaulcsuka]

I've also made this point to people. I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[@ArunSingh-id6ey]

Hoyte is one of the brilliant DP. The way he shot the brilliant 'Let the right one in' is top notch. Considering the average budget which they got for that project. Man, he has a style of his own. ♥️

[@nireviews8492]

The fact that the film wasn't even nominated in the Oscars shocked me. Tenet has some of the best cinematography I've in a long long while. And easily the best of last year

[@AlterCineYT]

Agreed it's kind of crazy

[@marcogianesello6083]

Cinematography is one of its worst points by far, shot composition is bland, camera work either bland or erratic(and not in a good way), and the film enters the nolan catalogue of being in one of five different version of bluish grey, grey, or ocher grey. I'm thinking of ending things or Mank had faaaaar superior cinematography

[@logiknotlogic6586]

@@marcogianesello6083 so its wrong now for a cinematographer to stick to the colour schemes hes good with? The visuals of the movie are good for me. And the image from that imax camera is just stunning

[@alpha_berchermuesli5975]

whenever these things shock you, remember 1994, when Forrest Gump got best picture, best director, best actor, best editing and so on - with Shawshank Redemption, Lion King, Jurassic Park and Pulp Fiction in the same year. The Oscars are a joke. Forrest Gump may be a cute story but its message is clear: life is like a box of chocolates. stay stupid, follow rules and you can make it too, and despite being stupid, your dream partner will end up respecting you too. The film may be cute on its surface but that is all. It is plain uninspired, and manages to stay unpolitical in the most political charged scenes. Similarly Scorsese: Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, Aviator Shutter Island... it was not until he made a Academy-pleasing, film-narcissistic piece Hugo, that the academy finally honoured him with accolade.

[@visualsforyou7120]

I don't know if you made a mistake and meant to only refer to the Best Cinematography category, but Tenet actually _won_ an Oscar. It wasn't ignored.

[@francozapata1303]

Hoytema is a genius, i especially love his work in Dunkirk and Soldier tinker tailor spy. Good vid!

[@AlterCineYT]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@arnabsarkar8208]

It will be Tinker tailor soldier spy

[@tylerprince6250]

The entire prologue sequence of Tenet was one of the most intense things I've ever seen in a theater. I knew instantly I was watching a masterpiece. So great!

[@henrik1743]

It's INSANE that Hoyte started out his film career with filming small movies (some with actually pretty racist titles lmao) in the norway / swedish industry. And now he is the cinemotographer for Nolan, insane career.

[@albertschweiger192]

Been waiting for a cinematography video of Tenet forever, can't believe nobody did one yet. Hoyte's lighting on Tenet was unbelievable and you are spot on about th realism! Great vid

[@AlterCineYT]

Thank you! glad you enjoyed it

[@danielhuang2488]

i also think the point about realism was really great! there was something about Hoyte's cinematography (at least the films with Nolan) that i feel, but wasn't able to pin point and turn into words. as soon as the vid mentions realism, i was like, that's it!

[@AlterCineYT]

@@danielhuang2488 That goes so well with what Hoyte mentioned in the end, that when you watch a movie and you feel something, that comes from the fact that the DP filmed it with their heart and feeling :)

[@oracleofvalerius]

I love that movie, so well shot and not so pixel sharp which really tires the eye. Thanks for putting this together

[@AlterCineYT]

Glad you enjoyed this John!

[@VariTimo]

In the talk where he was talking about center punching, he’s talking about how he wasn’t really able to do that with Spectre because he didn’t operate on that one and the operator had a different intuition for the film.

[@crapshot]

I may not have loved this movie but the cinematography is world class. It should've have definitely won for Best Cinematography at the Oscars.

[@AlterCineYT]

Or at least nominated!!

[@crapshot]

@@AlterCineYT yes totally. Keep up the good work sir.🙏

[@rocketoil]

"People are arfaid of the unknown"

[@oniriscope]

I have been waiting for this notification for months! May the gods of cinema bless you guys. Thank you for this and bravo for the narrative upgrade!

[@AlterCineYT]

Thanks so much! Haha how did you know we were doing a video on Tenet!

[@oniriscope]

@@AlterCineYT I didn’t, I just kept a huge amount of hope that it would at some point appear in my notifications & it did Hahaha!

[@AlterCineYT]

@@oniriscope Haha! Thanks for the support feel free to recommend a movie, next up is Emmanuel Lubezki (finally)

[@CortesFantásticosOficial]

Yes, thank you for this. I Love the cinematography of this film.

[@AlterCineYT]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ubarhd1]

What a brilliant DP 👏🏻👏🏻

[@anthonymartensen3164]

A beautiful movie. Ahead of its time.

[@oniriscope]

Just rewatched your TENET cinematography breakdown. Your absence weights (heavy) on this platform… Hope you guys are okay! And that we’ll be able to get more of your helpful contribution to aspiring filmmakers on KZbin. Take care guys!

[@trannel73]

I got my first 4K oled tv couple of weeks ago. Yes. Totally not cinema experience (but to be honest the cinema experience always overwhelms me and I cannot focus on details. So I need to watch @ home again. As soon as the 4K stuff is available on disc 😅. UHD Blu-ray’s these days give me proper image quality to nerd into. Thanks for bringing me these insights. I was wondering why interstellar and tenet had some shots with and without the black bars / different aspect rations. Now I understand. Thank you so much 😍

[@nitheeshjr7666]

Awesome ❤️

[@AlterCineYT]

❤️❤️❤️

[@mmgh7298]

Amazing content

[@VariTimo]

The main camera for 65mm 5-perf was the Panavision 65.

[@krishnansrinivasan830]

Awesome :)

[@spideymoin8146]

Excellent work AlterCine. Please do Cinematography of Inception/ TDK/ TDKR. They all have breathtaking Cinematography. Please 🙏🙏🙏

[@AlterCineYT]

Thank you! Will do in the future for sure, stay tuned :)

[@spideymoin8146]

@@AlterCineYT Yeah always stays tune. For Inception, TDK trilogy Wally pfister is the cinematographer. Won the oscar for Inception. If possible please make videos on his Cinematography and his works like Inception and TDK trilogy. As a fan of his work I am missing his Cinematography in Nolan films.

[@AlterCineYT]

@@spideymoin8146 Yes will do Wally Pfister is/was incredible :)

[@spideymoin8146]

@@AlterCineYT Thank you so much AlterCine. He worked as a cinematographer for Nolan films from Memento to The Dark Knight Rises. I thought I was the only one who is missing his work. But after reading the comments of studiobinders video on " Wally pfister cinematography style", I came to know there are fans of his work like me who are actually missing his work with Nolan. I am providing the link of the studiobinders video, please go through the comments and replies. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3fZqZ1tad-tba8 .

[@monkynutzuk]

At 8:25 I like how they randomly used a black magic pocket cinema camera as a prop lol

[@logiknotlogic6586]

It more looks like the sigma fp

[@monkynutzuk]

@@logiknotlogic6586 deffo an og bmpcc, I read and article about it. Also you can see the lens release button

[@mg6945]

It's a shame though that regular 70mm is a very wide image. While I don't have a problem with the aspect ratio changing, in fact I sort of love it, I've definitely seen enough complaints from people about it happening. But hey, I guess that's what you gotta do.

[@linusfotograf]

But if you shoot on spherical lenses it doesn't go super wide, yes?

[@mg6945]

@@linusfotograf That's only on regular 35mm, where the image is 4:3. 70mm is naturally a wide 2.20:1 image. The only way to fix such a thing is to matte it, like what Paul Thomas Anderson did with The Master since something like 15% of it was shot on regular 35mm alongside 70mm.

[@linusfotograf]

​@@mg6945I thought you were talking about 2.76:1 using anamorphic. 2:20:1 is not too wide in my world.

[@mg6945]

@@linusfotograf It's definitely no 2.39 or 2.76, but compared to the tall IMAX ratio of 1.43:1, it is pretty wide. Although Nolan does crop to 16x9 for Blu-Ray to try and remedy this, but still it's noticeable enough to be an issue to some people (Again not me though)

[@lilmilontiktok]

PLEASE upload more often!!

[@marcom.3554]

For those with an eye for beauty, Dunkirk and Tenet are on the top 5 most beautiful films of all time. Dunkirk being number 1.

[@BRENTxBEAR]

It's really sad that there are no real IMAX screens near me. I've never seen any of the movies filmed in IMAX in a real screen. I've seen them in the smaller digital IMAX screens, but even I know it's not the same, since I've been only to one real IMAX screen so far in my life

[@cmh6690]

Où voulez-vous en venir ?

[@posebukse]

*Hasselblad

[@AlterCineYT]

Good catch. Typo :)

[@lechatlisse1227]

What happened to Alter Cine?? Over 4 months and no posts... Sad...

[@isubodhsingh]

Loved this but really need Subtitles for this video. Please.

[@AlterCineYT]

Subtitles will come soon! Look out for the "CC" on the bottom right later when it processes

[@isubodhsingh]

@@AlterCineYT Cooool...👌

[@itsatekiar9750]

Please do DUNE next

[@NileStudios]

Great information, Good to know I'm not alone in my way of filming

[@ivpt]

The lighting in the movie is very bare-bones, Hoyte only uses practical light and bounceboards, with some LED panels when the shot is too dark

[@cinevibe1761]

can someone tell me HOW THE FK WAS TENET NOT NOMINATED OF OSCARS??????

[@danielhuang2488]

some say it's because nolan had the beef with warner bros, so they didn't promote it as much in the oscar race

[@AlterCineYT]

It is indeed crazy

[@rohithkumarsp]

coz it was a genuienly bad movie

[@keny333zy]

@@rohithkumarsp it’s not bad its just very complex

[@ankitbhatti4287]

@@rohithkumarsp it's the best movie of 2020 it's just not for dumb people like you

[@lechatlisse1227]

What happened AlterCine????

[@spectrafilms]

Tenet was beautiful but night sequences were too dimly lit and wasn't a fan of it, maybe it has something to do with the IMAX format itself, same story in Oppenheimer.

[@Monsieurcelin]

I’m so jealous of the future generations… In a little over 100 years from now, teenagers will have Imax in their phones 🤬… Lol…

[@linusfotograf]

I know you're kidding but that defeats the purpose of immersion to me. A phone is not for movies

[@Monsieurcelin]

@@linusfotograf You won’t be here when that’ll happen, just like filmmaking pioneers are not here to see that you can make a whole movie in a cell phone… I don’t blame you for feeling any type of way…

[@linusfotograf]

@@Monsieurcelin IMAX is useless on a phone. It’s only a great format on bigger screans. It can’t compete on a damn phone is all I’m saying. Recording movies on a phone is another thing. It looks terrible but some people seem to enjoy it for some reason.

[@Monsieurcelin]

@@linusfotograf Sir you can think what you want about it, but you won’t be there to decide if it’s necessary or not… Technology and human needs grow really fast… 2021 is Primitive compared to the future generations….

[@linusfotograf]

@@Monsieurcelin But you don’t understand. IMAX is a whole system which is based on huge screens, high resolution cameras and surround sound. IMAX in a phone is not something to aspire to. It would look and sound like any other movie.

[@sanghamithrank9035]

This film had worst cinemtography ever in Nolan's career. But in oppenheimer, Hoyte van Hoytema restored his legendary status. The scenes in tenet where secret talks being done between characters is an example of bad cinematography, I didn't felt any mood, it was completely bland. Maybe the choice to go for the balnd kind of realism negetively impacted this film, Then John david washington's acting was the worst also. He catches a bullet with a gun and in 1 second, he got over it. If it was decaprio and wally pfister eg- Inception, Those scenes would have been one of the best scene in the films.

[@Old-School-Liberal]

What happened to this channel????

[@rastapopulus4107]

cinematography is absoultely stunning, but many characters in the film where written so badly, without a well told motivation and flat. A better Bond but nothing worth watching three times...