I was talking about Hoytema on twitter with our very own thecasinoroyale earlier this morning about the news. I'm extremely excited having him on board. He's building his resume up nicely, having worked with Thomas Alfredson, David O. Russell, Spike Jonze, Christopher Nolan, and now Sam Mendes. His work on Let The Right One In and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy are absolutely incredible, but it's his cinematography for Her that was just pure brilliance and just beautiful. Even judging his work in the trailers for Interstellar, Nolan's upcoming film, looks outstanding. I recently rewatched Her on blu ray and just sat in awe over the cinematography.
I believe that with Mendes direction, Hoyte Van Hoytema can really bring a unique vision and just as appealing style as Roger Deakins did with Skyfall, to Bond 24. This is a great successor to Deakins, and I believe he'll really broaden the epic scope that Deakins set with Skyfall.
I've been doing a bit of digging and I think I've found something rather interesting. On a recent IMAX conference call meeting for investors, this was said...
Rich Gelfond - CEO
And then of course in December you have Star Wars which J.J. Abrams is shooting a part of with IMAX cameras and Bond is probably going to have either our cameras or our aspect ratio.
It certainly fits with the fact that Hoytema has just been using IMAX cameras on Interstellar and that Eon were very happy with Skyfall's profile on IMAX and seemed keen to expand upon that.
http://seekingalpha....ipt?part=single
That's rather interesting considering pretty much all theater projections are now projecting film digitally rather than film stock (35mm, 65mm, & 70mm) and Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is believed to be the last film to be distributed to cinemas with IMAX film stock and projected through film stock projectors. Guess I was wrong, which is good, because it'd be shame to have blockbusters just going with digital IMAX conversion rather than shooting.
My first viewing of Skyfall was in a special 4K digital projection, and being that the film was shot digitally, it looked amazing. My second viewing the next day was in IMAX and for being just converted to IMAX standard aspect ration, looked breathtaking. If Bond 24 ends up being shot with IMAX cameras I'll be absolutely excited.