2.35 ???

Re: 2.35 ???

That's the thing - most festivals project video at either 4:3 or 16:9 - so they'd project your 2.37:1 movie letterboxed on either of these screens (most likely a 16:9 screen)

Theatres would be CAPABLE of formatting their screen to your ratio, most likely. They could either magnify the video image to fill their scope screen, or bring down masking on their 16:9 screen. The question becomes whether or not they would want to - if you rent a theatre, they'd likely do this for sure...but a film festival with multiple screenings in short periods of time would likely just conform it to one of their "accepted standards." :-/
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Speaking of which...

... what's with theaters cropping the screen DOWN for 2.35 now?

I forgot what I just saw, but man, back in the old days you'd have a 1.85:1 screen with curtains hanging on the left and right, and they'd play the trailers in 1.85, then when it's time for the big show they'd roll back those side curtains and reveal the rest of the screen, and you'd get a BIG SCREEN.

Last thing I saw in the theater they didn't even have side curtains, they actually had top and bottom, and they "letterboxed" the screen! What a waste... totally ruins why you'd want to shoot anamorphic 35mm in the first place...
 
Re: 2.35 ???

..the few shorts i linked here of mine are 4:3 (portions were anamorphic letterboxed into 4:3) letterbox masked to 2.35:1

I cant remember who had the really wide ones, but i do remeber a few that were wider than the average bear. ;)
 
Re: 2.35 ???

I know Barry, I know...

Theoretically though, the anamorphic stuff should look better, because the entire negative is being projected into that smaller space, rather than with the 1.85 footage, the centre is BLOWN UP to the entire space. So there would be a reason to shoot anamorphic - although the whole "scope" title becomes a little less impressive (and accurate) if it's the same width either way.

It's pretty crappy if you ask me. I once read actually that most new theatres these days install a 2:1 screen, and either slightly side-mask or top-mask depending on the projection ratio.

Actually, the first time I've ever consciously noticed a *wider* picture with scope prints was at the TIFF - every theatre I was in was optimized for 2.35:1, and 1.85 movies were projected with masking into the centre of that frame.
 
Re: 2.35 ???

With regard to current theater practice:

For those who may not know: in a Movie Theatre projecting film, two different lenses are used, one for Scope (anamorphic) and another for Flat (1.85) and the focal lengths of the projection lenses selected to give the desired projected image size. In the "old days" of large theaters a wider screen was used for Scope that typically had the same image height as the Flat image. Thus the dramtic "opening of the curtins" for the Scope feature presentation.

With the advent of multiplexes and smaller theaters, most theater owners concluded that giving the maximum picture width (limited by the width of the smaller rooms) gave viewers the best experience and switched to "constant width" presentation, which of course, means that the Scope and Flat images are the same width so the height must be reduced for Scope--- certainly making it less impressive than before.

Digital Projectors at this point use short range zoom lenses (typically 1.5X) that allow some image resizing optically (several lenses with different focal length ranges are available depending on the projection distance and desired projected image size).

The high end projectors have "resizing engines" that allow them to crop, stretch and otherwise manipulate the image to the desired aspect ratio. Some even use Anamorphic attachments but with the newer projectors having chips with 2:1 aspect ratios, that may become less common.--but with a given digital projector and lens (as you might encounter at a festival) one might expect limited presentation size options.

Bill Turner
Century Division
Schneider Optics Inc
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Interesting info Bill. Thanks for sharing.

Barry, thanks for clarification with the math. I'm guessing the footage I saw must have been cropped down even farther, as you suggest. Not sure why... but that appears to be the case. Thanks for taking the time to respond!
 
Re: 2.35 ???

I've been following this thread and I'm sorta confused, (it's a hobby of mine these days). If I wanted to shoot a movie in 2.35 w/ a DVX100A, and I ultimately wanted it on 24p DVDs, then my best bet is to

shoot F6, full frame, and then just matte the actual takes?

Could someone explain to me (use small words, I=slow) how that would be affected by A) an anamorphic adapter and B) a widescreen adapter

and can you use both? If you shoot anamorphically are you screwed w.r.t. getting a wider image? I've bopped around the boards but am just not picking up on it.

Thanks,
Phil
 
Re: 2.35 ???

By widescreen adaptor, do you mean wide angle adaptor?

A wide angle adaptor gets you a wider angle of view, on both a horizontal and vertical plane, leaving you with a 720x480 image that displays properly in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The anamorphic lens gets you a wider angle of view on just the horizontal plane, leaving you with a 720x480 image that displays properly in a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Taking a wide angle adaptor, and cropping a 16:9 section out of it, by adding black bars to the top and bottom (or 'letterboxing') will be relatively equivalent to shooting with the anamorphic adaptor.  Because you're cropping out the extra information at the top and bottom - what was gained on the vertical plane by using the wide angle adaptor - you end up with an image that looks very similar to one that was shot with the anamorphic adaptor.

The difference is that when letterboxing footage shot with the wide angle adaptor, because sections of the image are covered by black bars, your effective pixel count is about 720x360.  The anamorphic adaptor gave you a similarly wide field of view on the horizontal axis, but recorded the image using the full information available on the CCD, being 720x480.  Essentially, you have gained 33% higher resolution having shot with the anamorphic adaptor.

1.33:1 is another way of saying 4:3.  Now, the anamorphic adaptor for the DVX squeezes the image by 1.33 times on the horizontal axis.  1.33x1.33= approximately 1.78.  16:9 is the same as about 1.78:1.

Now, if you add a 16:9 letterbox to 16:9 anamorphic footage, you're composing a 1.78:1 image that is within a 1.33:1 frame.  1.33x1.78 = approximately 2.37:1 - which is VERY close to 2.35:1, or 2.39:1 - which is the "cinemascope" aspect ratio.



Basically, you can get a 2.35:1 image by shooting with the anamorphic adaptor *while* masking it with a 16:9 letterbox.

So, answering your question, if you're making a DVD, your best bet to end up with a 2.35:1 image would be to shoot with the anamorphic adaptor, while at the same time shooting in letterboxed mode.  Your second choice would be to shoot without the adaptor, possibly using the wide angle adaptor to get a wider angle of view, and then cropping the image in post all the way down to 2.35:1.



I hope that answered the question! Barry's normally the man to answer this stuff  ;)
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Lots of info there Mike. Let me see if I can break it down a tad more even.

You want 2.35:1 right?

For the sake of simplicity I'm going to talk about the anamorphic adapter only. Mike explained the wide angle adapter better than I could.

The anamorphic adapter distorts your image to give you an aspect ratio of 16x9 on your full 4:3 frame in the DVX. With this stretched image you can then crop it down by added another 16x9 matte to it your end aspect ratio will in fact be 2.35:1 (close enough).

Basically to get 2.35:1 you use the anamorphic adapter and then when you shoot, compose with another 16x9 matte on it and add it in post and crop your image.

I know Mike said the exact same thing effectively, but perhaps having it explained in two ways might make things better...
 
Re: 2.35 ???

..easier yet just shoot with the anamorphic in letterbox mode.. your resulting image will foir all practical purposes be 2.35:1 when played back on a 16:9 monitor.

same could be done with squeeze mode. on 100A
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Thanks for the help, I -think- I get it. So for the highest 2.35 resolution possible I should shoot with an anamorphic adapter and crop it in post. But there's no way to get the resolution of an anamorphic adapter -and- the width of a wide-angle lens adapter then?
 
Re: 2.35 ???

You got it with regards to the highest possible resolution 2.35:1. Masking in post works, and shooting in letterboxed with the anamorphic will get you the exact same thing, no post-rendering necessary.

The DVX can go pretty wide with its stock lens, and the anamorphic adaptor gives you an extra 33% angle of view horizontally...which is pretty darn wide - so you likely wouldn't need both the anamorphic *and* the wide-angle at the same time. You'd start getting some serious barrel distortion if you did, I'm sure.
 
Re: 2.35 ???

I'm an idiot, I didn't realize an anamorphic adapter made things wider. If I'd given it more than 2 seconds of thought I might've figured it out.

Phil
 
Re: 2.35 ???

i don't know the exact ration, barry definitely would, but i did some tests with the letterbox setting in the dvx100a and the anamorphic adaptor and it looked really sweet.

on this thread, i did my first short with just the in camera letterbox and i didn't get accepted but i wondered if film festivals freak out about showing something in 4:3 that has fake letterbox bars?

matthew
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Film festivals really don't care if you letterbox 4:3 with a matte... the problem lies on them being able to project it on the full screen. What they'll probably end up doing is screening it with the 4:3 aspect ratio and you'll just have black bars on the top and bottom like a television showing a widescreen movie... Unless it's in an actual 16x9 ratio it's likely they won't project it in that aspect ratio utilizing the full width of a screen... they won't constantly readjust their stuff just for you...
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Most wouldn't, for two reasons:

They either can blow it up during projection, which would mean there would be no issue, or

They would show it on a 4:3 screen with black bands. If your story is good enough, that won't be an issue ;)
 
Re: 2.35 ???

They wouldn't necessarily blow it up though... that would require too much trouble to them. As film makers we tend to think others are always willing to go through trouble for us. It should really be the other way around. We shouldn't expect anyone to go to any trouble themselves unless they get something out of it...
 
Re: 2.35 ???

Perhaps, it depends on the festival though...

Most projectors have a 1.5x zoom on them anyways (as has been mentioned) and so it's not that big a deal - a zoom just over halfway through the lens would fill the 16:9 screen, assuming it's centre cut 16:9. If the festival thinks it would make ITSELF look better by having the best presentation, they may in fact do it.

But you're right, in general if it won't help them out, as filmmakers we really need to stop mooching :P
 
Re: 2.35 ???

BTW 1.78X anamorphic lenses DO exist (while Panasonics anamorphic adapter is 1.33X and films anamorphic lens are roughly 2.0X). They are fairly rare however but by using one you can take a 2.39 image and OPTICALLY squeeze it to fit perfectly on a 4:3 CCD in one step (ie. without they use of the DVX's 16X9 feature). This process should give you better results than using the Panasonic anamorphic adapter + the DVX's 16X9 squeeze mode.

If going to film this is the highest quality way to do a 2.39 print for the DVX.

If going to DVD...hmm...Im not sure if after rescaling, encoding for 16X9 DVD, etc if you will have better results than if you simply shot with the Panasonic anamorphic adapter and cropped for 2.39.

Sorry for throwing in a third option in a already complicated issue. Never the less it should be checked out.

-Brett Erskine
www.CinematographerReels.com
 
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