Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Guest
Does Hollywood use anamorphic lenses to achieve 2:35 ?

These lenses are fun, but so much care to avoid beeing out of focus...
(max zoom values for each aperture etccc...)
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Hollywood can.

Sometimes, they just crop the image, too. It depends on the project. Lord of the Rings was shot in 4:3 and then blown up to anamorphic, whereas something like Braveheart was shot with anamorphic lenses to begin with. They have their advantages and disadvantages, so the DP of each film (or the producers, depending :P) decides what he wants to do.
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Anamorphic 2:40 has fallen out of favor in Hollywood of late, for a variety of reasons; you usually need more light, the lenses often aren't as sharp as spherical lenses and distort more, and for multi-camera shoots, it's sometimes hard to get full sets of anamorphics.  

For these reasons, many directors and/or DP's have taken to shooting full aperture 1:33 "Super 35," a slightly large frame-size than standard 1:37 Academy Aperture 35mm (accomplished by extending the image into the area of the film normally used for the soundtrack), using spherical (non-anamorphic) lenses, then make a 2:40 (or, more rarely, a 1:85 or 16:9) release print by cropping the image to that aspect in post.  

This used to be done via an optical process that resulted in an extra printing step and thus potentially degraded the  image, but with the advent of digital intermediates (Where the negative is scanned at high res into a computer for post manipulation), this optical step can be skipped, making shooting super 35 more attractive to filmmakers and DP's who want 2:40 without going anamorphic.

Directors also like Super 35 because it allows for reframing of shots in post, since you have the entire height of a 35mm frame to play with.  See the Se7en special edition DVD feature on telecine and color-correction for an example of this.

Also, especially prior to the advent of DVD, directors who wanted a 2:40 release print but didn't want to have their film panned-and-scanned for home video release would instead shoot Super 35, which allowed for a 2:40 release print, and for the 4:3 home video, they'd just show the entire frame (or close to the entire -- usually some of the edges are cut off).  This, of course, necessitates composing for both ratios to some degree.

For good descriptions of the super 35mm process check out the Panic Room special edition.

Recent films that shot super 35 inclued the Lord of the Rings films,  most of David Fincher's films (not sure about Alien 3), and the Usual Suspects.

I kind of miss anamorphic 2:40.  Love the look of it in films like "Star Wars," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Alien," "Lawrence of Arabia," "Unforgiven"...
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

To add:
While anamorphic lenses can be a hassle, and therefore are more difficult to achieve perfect results...when used properly, is the best quality 35mm can give. Take a look at the Last Samurai for some gorgeous anamorphic footage.

It's really the same principle as we DVXusers have: anamorphic has its drawbacks, but it CAN be awesome!
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Here are some links with further information that's hopefully more lucid and easy to follow than my post :)

Comparison of pros and cons between Super 35 and anamorphic:

http://jkor.com/peter/super35compare.html

A tech-heavy discussion of Super 35 on the cinematographer's mailing list:

http://www.cinematography.net/[cml] Anamorphic or Super 35.htm

A discussion of the Super 35 format by James Cameron and DP Russell Carpenter:

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/dec97/titanic/pgs35/pg1.htm

A comprehensive list of aspect ratios and frame dimensions:

http://www.panavision.co.nz/main/kbase/reference/tbleframelist.asp

And two sites with diagrams of the various aspect ratios:

http://www.film-tech.com/tips/faq2.html

http://www.thelooniverse.com/movies/west/aspectratio/aspectratio.html
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Mike and Stas,

Thank you very much for all this info !
that's EXCACTLY what i want to learn.
I really appreciate

two more questions:
When they use anamorphic lens, do they add them to the end of a normal spherical lense (as we do with the AG-DVX100A) or do they use a "one piece" or "stand alone" anamorphic lense ?

do they face the same limitations, i mean, do they have to care about maximumu aperture for each zoom setting (as we have to do with the Panny anamorphic lense) to maintain sharp focus ?


I must admit it took me only 2 hours of testing to write a rough Zoom/Apreture chart for my DVX100A.

But on the other hand, I like the the very narrow DOF i can achieve without the anamorphic lense because i can open the iris to 2.8 and use full zoom very close to the subject without "faking" the blurred background. I can do that much closer with the new DVX100A.

Maybe a cropped 4:3 would just look "as good" and have this very narrow DOF...

what do you think ?


maybe i could shoot 4:3, then crop it to 16:9 or 2:35, squueze it with a very good plugin, and then export it in a anamorphic to display correct object shapes...

thanks
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

They would use straight anamorphic lenses, the only reason we have to stick it in front of our spherical lens is because its fixed to the camera...at least this is my understanding...

Cropping the image isn't that bad. If shooting in THIN mode gains you about 30% resolution, then shooting THIN but cropping to 16:9 would be essentially the same resolution as shooting with say a PD150 or XL1, and using the anamorphic adaptor. Plus, because we're progressive, that gains even more resolution...so its still way better than any other camera, its just not as high res as the DVX can be.

I don't own an anamorphic adaptor, and shoot all my things in widescreen, and simply crop the image (don't stretch it to 16:9 though, just letterbox it). Obviously it looks good in 4:3, and I watched it blown up to 16:9 on an HDTV, and it still held up quite nicely. So I wouldn't worry about it!
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Mike,
Did you just zoomed the letterboxed 16/9 with the TV, or did you upconvert to HD for aytomatic 16/9 display ?

....just imagine if Panasonic had fitted the DVX100A with 16:9 chips or a "buit in" anamorphic lense...ouch !
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

I just set the TV to blow up my 4:3 letterboxed picture...it looked great still! I'm not saying it would have looked the same as had I shot the footage in anamorphic, but it looked fine.

And Panasonic does make a version of the DVX with 16:9 chips...it's the SDX ;)
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

Yeah...

saw and played 10 minutes with the SDX in Montreal...
35,000 canadian $ without the lens...

and to be honest, anyway it is too big for my taste.

I love the portabiity of the DVX100A, can bring it anywhere and easily
take some good footage everywhere...plus it is so lightweight that i dont need a crew...and it is so easy to take good "non classic" views.
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

just wanted to add that if anyone wanted to learn more about Super 35 there is a good explanation on the 3 disc set of Panic Room.
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

[quote author=Mike_Donis link=board=news;num=1086487400;start=0#6 date=06/06/04 at 10:09:47]They would use straight anamorphic lenses, the only reason we have to stick it in front of our spherical lens is because its fixed to the camera...at least this is my understanding...[/quote]Very much so. And the pros have it even better than that--

A Panaflex (and I would assume other cameras as well) has a "ratio selector switch" for the viewfinder. When you have an anamorphic lens mounted, you flip the switch, and the viewfinder optically unsqueezes the image for you.

It's always bothered me that the DVX-100A doesn't have an electronic version of this--an "unsqueeze" function for the viewfinder only.
 
Re: Anamorphic in Hollywood ?

[quote author=Aureliano link=board=news;num=1086487400;start=0#12 date=06/08/04 at 06:35:12]
It's always bothered me that the DVX-100A doesn't have an electronic version of this--an "unsqueeze" function for the viewfinder only.[/quote]

Let's hope they add this, along with some other nifty features (like an even slower slow zoom speed), in the next iteration of the camera, whenever or if ever it's released.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top