2:35:1 or 1:85:1

dasonras said:
This is a silly post. You guys are all stuck on the idea that things should be letterboxed because "they look cool like that."

I have a friend who shot a film on 16mm. When i saw the final cut it had a 1.85:1 letterbox. I asked..."how is your film widescreen if you shot 16mm? 16mm is a 1.33:1 ratio." He said, "because it looks cooler like that."
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I see that a lot except it's with 2.35 instead (even though it's still standard 1.33:1 16mm). I wouldn't mind if they really had a reason to do it. If they felt they compositions would work better. That isn't the case though with the one's I've seen. They shoot regurlar 1.33 16mm with no tape to show them were 2.35 would be and then just crop it to that in post because, "it looks cool!" If you can cut off almost half your image in post just as an afterthough then you either didn't compose right in the first place or are screwing up your picture now.
 
i've yet to shoot anything in 2.35 and was thinking about trying it out for my next short, but wanted to know how everyone goes about achieving this. do you shoot 4x3 and crop it in post? do you use an anamorphic lens? also, what about cropping a 4x3 image and using a wide angle lens to get closer to the subject and still keep the frame filled? or is that the purpose of an anamorphic lens? sorry if this is too basic of a question for this thread
 
chris f said:
i've yet to shoot anything in 2.35 and was thinking about trying it out for my next short, but wanted to know how everyone goes about achieving this. do you shoot 4x3 and crop it in post? do you use an anamorphic lens? also, what about cropping a 4x3 image and using a wide angle lens to get closer to the subject and still keep the frame filled? or is that the purpose of an anamorphic lens? sorry if this is too basic of a question for this thread
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I shoot everything 2.35. First try to storyboard as much as you caan in 2.35, it will make you think in the ratio, and like a painting, you can compose the shot without realistic restraints you get once your on set. Good to be open minded at first, you can edit your compositions as you go.

Yes, shoot open matte, 4x3. You'll need guidelines for your LCD. PM me if you want and I'll email you a jpeg thats ready to print, then use a copier and copy that to a transparency sheet from office depot or such place. Cut it out and tape it to the LCD. If you have a production monitor, frame up something in the LCD and use that to show wher to mark the production monitor.

Shoot away and then crop in post, there are a few resons to do this, the most prominant being that if you need to, you can move the frame up or down under the black bars to make sure its perfect. A little wiggle room can save you if an actor didn't hit a mark perfectly or your handheld for a shot.

An anamorphic lens squeezes the image horizontally so that when stretched back out you get a wider frame. People you this instead of cropping because it uses every pixel on the sensor to get information, while cropping of course, chops off a chuck of the image resulting in a lot less res. If you HAVE to have the rez, get the adapter, but it's a lot of hassle with vignetting, softness, focus problems, etc if your planning on showing it on TV anyway. Also you can't you the anamorphic lens AND the 35mm adapters that are so popular.

as for the wide angle lens, getting close thing, I'm not sure I understand the question.
 
I did a white paper on aspect ratios in college, following the progression of almost square gates at the turn of the 20th century through the myriad widescreen ratios of the 1950s - it was an interesting subject where emerging technologies and distribution realities often clashed. After doing all this research I settled on one idea: that I feel that any given project lends itself uniquely to its own format. There are no hard fast rules.

Acquisition format often was at odds with theatrical projection technology and, just like today, everyone was inventing their own rectangular wheel. For twenty years or so, until talkies anyway, we had a nice aspect ratio in 1.33:1. It was square, much like life back then. When sound came, a bunch of celluloid real-estate was lost to that albatross. So what did they do? They made the image even smaller with a top and bottom mask around the already thinner image for... drum roll please... Academy aperture! Great - we were back to 1.35:1 again.

A bit on 2.35:1 "Scope" - this is a rant, kids!

I feel strongly that Scope (2.35:1) is a poor choice for anyone shooting digital if they have any intention of ever filming out. Our sad resolving quality need not be cut down further with resolution-choking crops. If digital Scope could be achieved anamorphically, that would be a different thing as we'd be pushing more data into the imager and unsqueezing it, "losslessly" in distribution.

There is a lot of confusion with the word CinemaScope in general - Scope was an anamorphic process developed by 20th Century Fox. It should not be rebadged by a new generation of up-and-comers (that's us) as a spherical crop to 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Mr. Chrétien would turn in his grave if he thought his Anamorphoscopic technology was re-imagined as a simple mask to 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Why? For the same reason I decry the use of masks - it robs you of resolution.

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overlandfilms said:
I feel strongly that Scope (2.35:1) is a poor choice for anyone shooting digital if they have any intention of ever filming out.
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True dat! Unless, like me, your current projects have no chance of film out. Then by all means :)
 
as for the wide angle lens, getting close thing, I'm not sure I understand the question.
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i mean since you're cropping so much off when framing for 2.35 would it be better/more convenient to use a wide angle lens when you're limited in your spacing. for example if you wanted to see an actor's entire body when he's standing up you could be alot closer to him if shooting 4:3, but if you were shooting 2.35 and you wanted his whole body in the frame you'd have to have the camera quite a bit further away. does this make sense?
 
overlandfilms said:
A bit on 2.35:1 "Scope" - this is a rant, kids!

I feel strongly that Scope (2.35:1) is a poor choice for anyone shooting digital if they have any intention of ever filming out. Our sad resolving quality need not be cut down further with resolution-choking crops. If digital Scope could be achieved anamorphically, that would be a different thing as we'd be pushing more data into the imager and unsqueezing it, "losslessly" in distribution. [/COLOR]

e
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There's ways. I own a scope lens, and built a mount fo rit. You can also use and anamorphic adapter + crop. You'd be losing the same resolution if you shot 4:3 and cropped in post, plus you stil get the framing options, and anamorphic 16:9 to fall back on.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
You'd be losing the same resolution if you shot 4:3 and cropped in post, plus you stil get the framing options, and anamorphic 16:9 to fall back on.
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if your talking about 2.35, you would have more rez if you used the anamorphic adapter and cropped than if you just cropped off of the non-anamorphic 4x3.
 
It really depends what you are shooting and how it will play out in the frame. "Eyes Wide Shot" was shot full frame because for the most part we see main character standing or walking so full frame creates the best/most-pleasing ratio of wide shot of a figure. Similary "War of the Worlds" was hot 1.85:1 because as Kaminsky said it had lots of tall aliens so they needed a format where tall aliens would give them the best frame possible (if they had more balls they would do as Kubric did with Eyes Wide Shot for even more dramatic shots).

Dramas tend to be more about the story/acting rather then framing so they tend to be shot 1.85:1. There are some dramas such as "Matchsticks Man" that were shot in wrong formats -- the 2.35:1 format makes the story appear too grandeur so we are not sucked into simple story of a man and a daughter relationship. That said "Breaking the Waves" was shot 2:35:1 because with all the "mess" (shooting available light, shooting run&gun style, lots of grain in the image, image being desaturated, image often going out of focus, etc...) they needed something stable that would still add some beauty to the image.

There are movies that shouldn't be shot in epic 2.35:1 format such as "Very Long Engagement" that made the war appear too pretty and perfectly framed. Of course that didn't come from the format alone but also from the very smooth pans and cranes and dollies. Take "Black Hawk Dawn" that was also shot in 2.35:1 but is grungy and dirty and violent because it didn't have slick camera moves -- it did have epic format but that was "cancelled out" by crappy shaky camera (look up to "Breaking the Waves").
 
When the first cinemascope film, The Robe, was released, it was for the spectacle of it - something that set it apart from TV and other films of the day. I still think there is a degree of that today still.

There's a look too that came with the use of anamorphic lenses - the unique lens flares, the not quite right focus/shape, the slower lenses that needed more light, the extra weight of the lens which usually restricted movement or any use of a Steadicam (and to avoid any lateral horizon moving that may give people motion sickness). Those can definitely influence the overall feel of the film.

As a side note: Up until several years ago, most 2.35 films were shot with anamorphic lenses - but now with DI's it is cheaper to shoot with spherical lenses at Super35 and still maintain a very high quality. (Before the DI process, it had to be optically printed... losing a great deal of resolution/quality in the process) So now, the choice to go to the 2.35 frame can be made without necessarily choosing the anamorphic lens format and all that entails (except for maybe the horizon thing).

Even besides the lens and camera movement, there is always the question of production/set design, the compositional advantages of each (is height important? is width important? is negative space important?), the epic feel vs. a more closed in feel, how people need to fit in the frame, long takes vs short takes, etc. I don't think 2.35 is better than 1.85, but I do think for some films those answers fit better in one format over the other.

Anyway, if any of you get a chance, check out the anamorphic cinematography in Kurosawa's "High and Low". It's a rare find if you can track it down. The film masterfully uses the 2.35 frame and it does so unobtrusively. I highly recommend it.

Later,
Garrett
 
best framing for music documentary??

best framing for music documentary??

I recently shot a music video on the HVX200 with a 2.35 frame and was quite pleased with the results. I am now embarking on a documentary following a band as they go though the recording process. What frame do you guys recommend? I love the cinematic feel to 2.35 but 16x9 seems to make a little more sense to me? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
The wide formats came about in the early 1950s as a way of retaining movie goers. Hitchcock & others complained of the new wide formats as gimmicks but the format made the cinema experience more dramatic.

2.35:1, which is now 2.39:1, was used by the epic films, i.e., "Lawerence of Arabia" is a classic 2.35 release, because it makes use of the wide long shots with deep focus. They shot this in 65mm so it inherently has shallow focus, but the great amount of desert light let them stop it down so it could be like our little 1/3 chippers and give us deep focus. Check out this film and you'll see how the aspect and the subject matter go hand in hand.

1.85:1, which makes up about 55% of the national releases is considered "normal" and used for more closely shot material, but it works well for the epic look also.

Spielberg went to strictly 1.85:1 because he feels it approximates what the human experiences seeing rather than 2.39:1.

Personally I find it more difficult to frame in 2.39 but I love the results, when it doubt shoot 1.85:1, you can't go wrong or simply determine if you shoot lots of horizontal long shots, great vistas, etc. then you want 2.39 to emphasize the big context the story takes place in.

Docs should be in 1.85.

1.66 is euro. Frame for both 1.33, 1.66 & 1.78 (16X9) so your doc will be marketable in all markets.
 
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Hi Guys,

I had taken some photos to learn about lighting. The photos looked nice and all that....but .....

Inspired by this thread, I cropped my photos roughly to 2.4:1. Wow what a difference!!! I will never go back to any other ratio....:-) check it at www.AbyssFilms.com

In fact I am going to put a mask on my D50.. Because what I learned from my experience, 2.4:1 requires complete retraining...on composition/lens choice.
 
For some odd reason I tend to like 2.35:1 over standard WS. It gives you more room horizontally and your character and environment look huge. For instance, David Fincher's "The Game". It feels distorted often times but it has very rich feeling.
 
For me the only thing i really like in 2:35:1 are westerns. The wide open spaces with not much going up vertically are well suited to it. I think most other things are better suited to 1:85:1. My other favorite aspect ratio would have to be 1:66:1. If 3-D virtual reality filmmaking ever comes to fruition I could see either that or 4:3 making a return in theaters.
 
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