After bringing back its previously discontinued Ektachrome film stock for “Euphoria” Season 2, Kodak has created an entirely new film stock for Season 3.
Today, Kodak is officially making VERITA 200D available to the general public, after collaborating on its creation with “Euphoria” cinematographer Marcell Rév, who used the 35mm and 65mm versions to shoot the upcoming Season 3 premiere set for this Sunday.
The medium-speed, daylight-balanced film stock is being billed as “classically cinematic,” rendering colors and skin tones in a way that more closely mirrors older film stocks, and differs from the pristine look of Kodak’s flagship VISION3 stock.
According to Kodak’s description of its new product, “VERITA 200D delivers detailed highlights, high color saturation, deep blacks, and warm, natural skin tones. Compared with Kodak’s VISION3 color negative films, it features a shorter yet exceptionally rich dynamic range for a more classical cinematic look.”
In an interview about Season 3, creator and director Sam Levison told IndieWire that the film stock aligned with his overall vision for the new season’s look.
“We wanted to be a little bit more classical,” said Levinson. “We wanted it to feel a bit more like an old Hollywood film.”
Kodak’s VP and head of motion picture Vanessa Bendetti said conversations with Rév started over three year ago when the cinematographer first started to describe what he and Levinson were looking for — and while the specifics were distinct to their vision for “Euphoria,” the conversation itself was similar to many others she’s had with filmmakers.
“As Kodak has refined its image quality over the years, filmmakers are actually looking to disrupt that at this point because they’re trying to differentiate from digital,” said Bendetti in an interview with IndieWire.
It’s something cinematographers have been complaining about for years: The engineering of the new film stocks has gotten too good, too clean, too realistic in its dynamic range and color rendition. It’s a pristiness that is the opposite of why filmmakers are reaching for celluloid against the perceived hyper-realism of digital cinematography. For decades, cinematographers like Ed Lachman and the late Harris Savides would try to “beat up” the stocks (under-expose, push, flash frame, use old lenses with aberrations), and work with colorists to get newer film stocks to perform more like film stocks from older eras.
“That’s the request I get every single day, ‘Can you bring back older stocks? Because their reference material is the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and they’re remembering the look and feel of the EXR films or the early VISION line,” said Bendetti, who went on to explain that simply bringing back old stocks isn’t so simple. “One of the challenges with doing that is that people don’t understand that the components, the materials that were included in the formulations from those bygone product lines, are not available anymore. So we have to totally reinvent those stocks.”
‘Euphoria’ Season 3
With VERITA 200D, Kodak’s film design team worked with Rév to test and refine the new stock to create a new film structure that matched not only the desired look, but was practical and performed in the modern-day workflow. Bendetti said she hoped the creation of VERITA is just the first step in expanding the KODAK product line for filmmakers looking for alternatives to VISION3. Recently, she brought Kodak’s film design team out to the ASC Awards in Los Angeles to hear directly from cinematographers who were passionate on the issue.
Because VERITA originated with Kodak’s collaboration on “Euphoria,” the company has waited to officially announce the new stock until the release of Season 3, but the stock has already been employed on other projects. Cinematographer Patrick Scola used VERITA on “The Death of Robin Hood,” an upcoming June release from A24 — and celluloid-faithful duo behind “The Brutalist,” director Brady Corbet and DP Lol Crawley, took it for a test drive on their ad campaign for the French wheat beer 1664, featuring Robert Pattinson. Later today, check out Kodak’s social media channels to see a brief sizzle reel featuring VERITA shot footage, including shots from the new season of “Euphoria.”
“Euphoria” Season 3 premieres this Sunday, April 12.
For more information about VERITA 200D, visit Kodak’s website.