J.J. Abrams and Dan Mindel teamed up to produce a movie with the look and style of the original series. To achieve this, they used silver halide film and custom anamorphic lenses that were remanufactured using existing vintage lenses that were in storage. The reborn lenses were mated to modern cameras and the movie was recorded on celluloid. There were three film stocks used, now much more advanced than the film of the past, which were: KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219, KODAK VISION3 250D Film 5207, and KODAK VISION3 50D Film 5203. The tungsten-balanced (ISO 500T) film was used in the UK, whereas the daylight balanced films (ISO 250D and 50D) were used in the Abu Dhabi desert. Dan Mindel comments that the new films have a much wider range of contrast than the film of the 1980s, which made them much easier to use.
On the finished movie, Mindel says:
"I've just seen the movie for the first time, and it ended up looking fantastic," says Mindel. "To see the film rendition at full resolution is so incredible. I recently shot another movie digitally, and the differences between that and what is possible with film are huge. Film is so high-tech in its present form. It looks the way my eyes saw it, and that is something that is very difficult with digital cameras. Film sees so much more. To me, it's just gorgeous. It's phenomenal."
"...just gorgeous." Just another reason to use film.
