Help me understand...anamorphic

Chris Johnston

Chris Johnston

Veteran
I've been reading, but I'm not sure I have it down pat.
Let me spit it out and please correct me if I am wrong on any of this.

Anamorphic lens is a lens that would screw on to the front of my cameras existing lens (just say its a 50mm 1.4) and basically squeezes the image going into the lens so that my 16x9 1080p image (with the anamorphic lens) is actually a 2553 x 1080 image squished down to a 1920 x 1080 image. (horizontaly squished) (assuming the anamorphic lens is a 1.33 like the Pana AG-la7200)
(if I did the math right this would be a 1920 x 1080 x 1.33 horizontal squish)
This would give me a 2.364 to 1 ratio. YES?

Is this one of the more common ratios that would be used if I filmed out for theater play? Are there others that are also common?

I currently use Adobe CS5 and CS4 for my normal NLEs. I've read of people taking the 2553 x 1080 image and scaling it to fit the normal 1920 x 1080 timeline and then cropping it down so that the image fits horizontally but you have to crop it vertically. (so that now the image is the correct aspect ratio but the 1080 size has been cropped down to something like 850 instead of 1080)
This seems like you're just losing resolution to me.....Wouldn't it be better to keep the 1080 and stretch the project timeline to 2553 instead? or CAN you even have a project size like that in PPro CS5 or 4? (I haven't checked to see if you can)

If I wanted to have a project that I wanted to "film out" from CS5 what settings would you use? (ie a 1920 x 1080 or something else)
 
I dont know the details but this is my understanding of the theory..

when you take 1080 and crop it to a cine aspect you are indeed just butchering pixels and therefore 'losing quality'

using a lens that creates a tall image and then squishing that tall image in post means you dont chuck pixels away

therefore a higher quality image

The reality of the kit is somewhat different I think


S
 
videohog said:
I've been reading, but I'm not sure I have it down pat.
Let me spit it out and please correct me if I am wrong on any of this.

Anamorphic lens is a lens that would screw on to the front of my cameras existing lens (just say its a 50mm 1.4) and basically squeezes the image going into the lens so that my 16x9 1080p image (with the anamorphic lens) is actually a 2553 x 1080 image squished down to a 1920 x 1080 image. (horizontaly squished) (assuming the anamorphic lens is a 1.33 like the Pana AG-la7200)
(if I did the math right this would be a 1920 x 1080 x 1.33 horizontal squish)
This would give me a 2.364 to 1 ratio. YES?

Is this one of the more common ratios that would be used if I filmed out for theater play? Are there others that are also common?

I currently use Adobe CS5 and CS4 for my normal NLEs. I've read of people taking the 2553 x 1080 image and scaling it to fit the normal 1920 x 1080 timeline and then cropping it down so that the image fits horizontally but you have to crop it vertically. (so that now the image is the correct aspect ratio but the 1080 size has been cropped down to something like 850 instead of 1080)
This seems like you're just losing resolution to me.....Wouldn't it be better to keep the 1080 and stretch the project timeline to 2553 instead? or CAN you even have a project size like that in PPro CS5 or 4? (I haven't checked to see if you can)

If I wanted to have a project that I wanted to "film out" from CS5 what settings would you use? (ie a 1920 x 1080 or something else)
Click to expand...

It's not that you can't have a 2553x1080 project, but the problem is that there aren't many (or any) good ways to display or deliver something at that resolution. If you go to Blu-Ray you're gonna have to do it at 1920x1080, and I don't really know of a way that you could distribute it on the web at that resolution, and very, very few people would even have computer monitors that could display it at that resolution...

You will still get a better image, squishing it down to a 1920x1080 timeline with the black bars at the top and the bottom than if you shot non-anamorphically and cropped, it's akin to starting out with a higher-resolution image and then shrinking it down a bit, you've just got a bit more to work with from the beginning and the end result will look a bit better than if you had just shot it 1920x1080 and then cropped, at least in terms of perceived resolution. You also get a unique perspective from shooting anamorphically that can't quite be matched just by cropping, in addition to other anamorphic artifacts that many find pleasing.

Going to film out will be interesting.

It really depends on a few things - do you want to do an anamorphic film out? i.e. have the image squeezed on the film and have it unsqueezed by the projection house?

Or do you want to unsqueeze in post and film-out an unsqueezed, cropped image on the film for standard projection?

To project an anamorphic image in a theater, the projectionist attaches an anamorphic projection lens onto the front of the projector - from what I understand 1.5x and 2x are really the standards when it comes to this, it may be very difficult to find a projection house with a 1.33x lens, you might find one or two but it will not be the norm.

To pull off the above, I'd edit in your planned 2553x1080 project, and then when you find out whether your'e going to have it projected with either a 1.5 or 2x squeeze, you'd then need to squeeze your project appropriately in your editor and deliver your project to the film house like this for recording to film.

You'd need to find out also what the capabilities are of the facility who will be doing your film out, what formats, what resolutions, etc. they can handle.

It's definitely a safer bet to just deliver a 1920x1080 project where you've done the unsqueezing in post and delivering a project with horizontal bars on the top and bottom. That will be far be the easiest and when projected, there's a good chance the difference will be negligible...or maybe not! :)

You probably want to talk to whoever will be doing the film out early-on in the process so that you have a solid plan for what you want to achieve. You shouldn't have any trouble delivering a 1920x1080 non-anamorphic image (with black bars) to a film house but if you want to take advantage of every last bit of the image you get shooting anamorphically, you're probably going to need to make this a collaborative effort with yourself, the film-out facility and ideally at least one projection house where you can maybe even go and take some test reels before you go all out.

Side note I have shot quite a bit with the Panny 7200 1.33x adapter on the GH1 - if you have questions about using one of these adapters on a DSLR, feel free to PM me- there are some tricks to it and I could probably send you some test footage still "unsqueezed" so you could play with it.
 
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Thanks for the responses.
I guess my biggest confusion area was what do you give the film out house? I, for some reason, didn't think a 1920 x 1080 image with black bars to get the aspect ratio right was high enough res to give to the house. (I've obviously never had to deal with "film out" before. I'm a TV production guy)

I've considered the Iscorama 1.5 also because the 2.0 just didn't look as good to me. (Tooo wide)

I will PM you later to see if I can get something you've shot that is squished. (ie a file that is 1920 x 1080 but squished horizontally 1.33 with the la7200)

Thanks
 
videohog said:
Thanks for the responses.
I guess my biggest confusion area was what do you give the film out house? I, for some reason, didn't think a 1920 x 1080 image with black bars to get the aspect ratio right was high enough res to give to the house. (I've obviously never had to deal with "film out" before. I'm a TV production guy)

I've considered the Iscorama 1.5 also because the 2.0 just didn't look as good to me. (Tooo wide)

I will PM you later to see if I can get something you've shot that is squished. (ie a file that is 1920 x 1080 but squished horizontally 1.33 with the la7200)

Thanks
Click to expand...

Sure thing, would be happy to send you some footage.

Film houses have been blowing up DVX footage for 35mm and that's much lower res than a black-barred 1920x1080 image, for what it's worth.
 
digital anamorphic DI film out

digital anamorphic DI film out

I posted a question at cinematography.com to David Mullen regarding anamorphic DI and he responded. Since then went to a few post houses for quotes in the event I need a 35 Di for my feature.


I am shooting a low budget feature with the GH1 and anamorphic adapters and lenses (Iscorama's) with the possibility of later making a DI.

How would the DI process differ from normal aspect ratio's since anamorphic is unsqueezed on projection and digital anamorphic is unsqueezed in post?
I guess the question is what would the lab use to make your eventual 35mm print?



Depends on what format you want to master to. I'm assuming that the point of this special anamorphic is to squeeze a 2.40 image onto a 16x9 recording.

You could make a 16x9 HD master in the D.I. session that is letterboxed, not squeezed, to the 2.40 ratio, and then they just record the picture area to 35mm anamorphic, adding the standard 2X squeeze in the film-out by basically doubling the horizontal lines to create an image with a 2X squeeze.

Or you could make a 16x9 HD master with the squeeze built-in, full frame image, and let the film recorder handle the conversion to 2X 2.40 anamorphic. In that case, either you just go through the D.I. session watching the image with an odd squeeze to it, or you figure out a way for the display system to temporarily remove the squeeze.

But eventually you are still going to want to make an unsqueezed/letterboxed 16x9 HD master for HD and SD versions.

Since you are not shooting on a Log camera, but a broadcast HD (Rec 709) camera, you'll probably be just doing a standard HD color-correction session and letting the people doing the film-out deal with the Rec 709-to-Log conversion. At that point, the only difference between that and a D.I. might be the type of room you're in (HD monitor versus large projector screen) and the type of color-corrector they will use (DaVinci/Pogle versus Lustre/Baselight, etc.) though all of that is merging these days.

David Mullen ASC
 
Interesting post.......I wonder how editing something as long as a feature (with the squeeze applied) would work. Would your eyes/brain ever get used to that?

Did you ever get quotes from the post houses? I'd be interested in a ballpark figure as to what that would run.
 
My thoughts behind shooting and structuring anamorphic for features is to simply cut less. Shoot longer takes and focus on performance and composition, no more than 150 cuts. Hopefully editing will be the easy part!

The anamorphic DI to 35mm process to answer print (my quotes have been in Euro's) are no more than a conventional digital to DI to 35mm.... somewhere between $25-40k for a 90 min feature depending on how much time you spend in those final few days/weeks of color correction, sound etc.

I know of plenty anamorphic S16 to 35mm DI's but yet to come across a digital conversion, even RED features so if anyone can point me to a few it would be appreciated.

Best anamorphic feature I saw in the last year or two was Gommora, an Italian mob flick, check it out. It was shot super35 but printed out at anamorphic 2.35.
 
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