Aspects of ...

Film "We set up our little guidelines," he said. For one, he banned the sophisticated zoom lenses that make life easier for today?s cinematographers, returning to the fixed focal-length lenses of the past. "I did some research and found some script continuities for a couple of Michael Curtiz films," he recalled, referring to records of the lens and exposure used in every shot, in case retakes were necessary. "I found that he restricted himself to at most five lenses, usually three or four. I talked to Panavision, and they happened to have some older lenses that they?d made that didn?t have all the new coatings on them and also were a focal length that isn?t really used anymore. One of them was a 32 millimeter, a wide-angle lens that nobody uses anymore but was one that Curtiz used a lot." -- Stephen Soderbergh on making his new film The Good German which he has made using Hollywood studio system techniques.

[tech]The film has also been shot in 1.66 : 1 aspect ratio, basically European widescreen standard, which is a shame -- square academy ratio was traditional back then although modern projection systems can be a bit frumpy with it. Perhaps it's an open mat which means that more of the picture could appear when the film goes to dvd, ala Stanley Kubrick's later work.[/tech]