Making a Real Life anime: Cinematography Breakdown

Published on December 3, 2021

Cinematography & Filmmaking

anime, Cinematography, cowboy bepop, focal length

Netflix’ Cowboy Bepop

If you have been following us for a while you know that Yannick and I love anime. Every time that we get the chance to make a CopyCat about it we get excited. So when Cowboy Bebop came out we had no other choice but to do another anime inspired video. In the past we already covered things like DragonBall Z, Boku no Hero, Demon slayer, Pokémon and so on. But every time we did these we still stuck to the stylized look, like the drawn speed lines, colorful backdrops etc.

So to challenge ourselves we wanted to see how far we push the cinematography to get that typical anime look without having to use any cartoon like assets.

The Cinematography of anime

In our video we talked about a lot of different tips and techniques to achieve the wanted look. But something that we didn’t discuss is focal lengths for example. You can get a close up by moving your camera closer ofcourse, but depending on which lens the feeling of the shot is completely different.

For example: When we use a wide angle like 20mm and go really close to the talent it feels like you are standing there with them. You will experience the same emotions the talent is having. But when you take the exact same framing but with a tele lens like a 100mm for example the meaning chances. You still want to see what’s going on but this time you take distance. In a fight scene this means you know stuff is about to go down so you take cover to protect yourself.

This you notice already a lot in regular movies, its such a great way to give shots a certain feeling. But especially in amines they love to use this, they try to push this to the limit as you can see in this example.

Storyblocks

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