“Anamorphic’s Biggest Fan”: DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Matt Mulcahey, FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
March 1, 2023
That new focus required new tools, with cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw transitioning the series to anamorphic lenses and large format cameras. With the movie now out on all formats—including physical media and streaming on Disney+—Durald Arkapaw spoke to Filmmaker about the influence of Alien, selecting the right sequences for IMAX and why she’s “anamorphic’s biggest fan.”
Durald Arkapaw: I feel like the lens choice is actually the first thing the audience responds to. Everything is going through that lens. So, it’s a big deal to change the lenses and the format. When we first spoke about anamorphic, Ryan was really open to it. The majority of what I shoot is in the anamorphic format. Ryan always makes fun of me because I’m anamorphic’s biggest fan. [laughs] So, it was an easy conversation for me as far as trying to sell him on anamorphic and how the attributes he was looking for to help him tell this story were also the attributes I embrace whenever I shoot anamorphic. For instance, we had long conversations about the movie’s throughline of grief and how grief can present a fog over you. I told him that I thought the right lenses could really accentuate those emotional characteristics.