The Anamorphic debate: cropping, adapters...cinescope vs 16:9

blake2404

blake2404

Well-known member
Kind of a poll for Theatrically inspired filmmakers to see what they prefer, how they are getting cinema scope and whether they even deem it necessary.

Some festivals state they prefer screenings in 16:9

Some filmmakers swear by the adapters (iscorama and such)

Others adamant that cropping in post is best.

notable films shot 16:9 and cropped in post:

-once upon a time in mexico
-star wars - episodes 2 and 3

others i'm sure as well, just can't remember off hand.


Please comment, but preferably based in the world of theatrical projection as opposed to web/dvd.


Thoughts? feelings? rants? preferences?
 
Well, 16:9 (1.78:1) isn't really a common cinema ratio, it's normally 1.85:1.

The films you mentioned as crop were shot digitally. But then you're leaving out Super 35, which is the same system when shooting film. You can read more of it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35

And remember that films shot anamorphically usually uses anamorphic lenses. This is a HUGE difference, which I shall talk about, well now.

But now, onto the question itself! I've shot both ways, so I do know them. I have a Soligor 1.33x anamorphic adapter and well, it never really looks great. The corner sharpness on these adapters is horrible simply put, plus they require you to stop down (I didn't really get a nice look until f/5.6) and they have loads of abberations. There is also something very "harsh" about the picture in them. So well, after having worked with it, I'm not a huge fan of those adapters really...
One would need either an ISCO adapter, or preferably a real anamorphic lens to get the performance you'd want from them. Shame not many cameras has a possibility of shooting 4:3 as then anamorphics would be a lot easier to use.

The nice thing about shooting Super 35 style is that you use your sphericals as usual. Spherical lenses are light years beyond anamorphic lenses in performance, being sharper overall and working better at faster aperatures. As an anamorphic on a cine lens has a squeeze of 2, you get twice the field of view horizontally. This means that a 50 looks like a 25 horizontally, as such you have less depth-of-field on an anamorphic. Plus they distort very quickly, with a noticeable barrel-distortion, compared to sphericals who now are more or less distortion-free. One of today's best DoP's Roger Deakins openly dislikes anamorphics and always shoots Super 35 as it gives him better performance.
 
Gabel said:
Well, 16:9 (1.78:1) isn't really a common cinema ratio, it's normally 1.85:1.

The films you mentioned as crop were shot digitally. But then you're leaving out Super 35, which is the same system when shooting film. You can read more of it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35

And remember that films shot anamorphically usually uses anamorphic lenses. This is a HUGE difference, which I shall talk about, well now.

But now, onto the question itself! I've shot both ways, so I do know them. I have a Soligor 1.33x anamorphic adapter and well, it never really looks great. The corner sharpness on these adapters is horrible simply put, plus they require you to stop down (I didn't really get a nice look until f/5.6) and they have loads of abberations. There is also something very "harsh" about the picture in them. So well, after having worked with it, I'm not a huge fan of those adapters really...
One would need either an ISCO adapter, or preferably a real anamorphic lens to get the performance you'd want from them. Shame not many cameras has a possibility of shooting 4:3 as then anamorphics would be a lot easier to use.

The nice thing about shooting Super 35 style is that you use your sphericals as usual. Spherical lenses are light years beyond anamorphic lenses in performance, being sharper overall and working better at faster aperatures. As an anamorphic on a cine lens has a squeeze of 2, you get twice the field of view horizontally. This means that a 50 looks like a 25 horizontally, as such you have less depth-of-field on an anamorphic. Plus they distort very quickly, with a noticeable barrel-distortion, compared to sphericals who now are more or less distortion-free. One of today's best DoP's Roger Deakins openly dislikes anamorphics and always shoots Super 35 as it gives him better performance.
Click to expand...

This surely brings us to a topic of: Screw perfection!

Distortion free, aberration free, faster apertures? Yes, these are all nice. But these were never the factors that made me get INTO a movie. From an imagetic point of view, the wider horizontal FOV (something we are quite used because of our eyes) and even artifacts like the oval shaped bokeh (sexy) coupled with film grain, colorimetry and overall rendition of tones and shades is what created this poetic parallel universe that was so fascinating.

From a cinematography point of view the compositions of 2:35 also need to be more carefully determined, the blocking as well but the wider ratio also allows for more creative and dynamic blocking. I personally never shot 2:35, never worked on a project that really called for it, besides I also think it's a harder screen ratio to work in, so exploring more common ground before is always welcomed.
 
Pietro Impagliazzo said:
This surely brings us to a topic of: Screw perfection!

Distortion free, aberration free, faster apertures? Yes, these are all nice. But these were never the factors that made me get INTO a movie. From an imagetic point of view, the wider horizontal FOV (something we are quite used because of our eyes) and even artifacts like the oval shaped bokeh (sexy) coupled with film grain, colorimetry and overall rendition of tones and shades is what created this poetic parallel universe that was so fascinating.

From a cinematography point of view the compositions of 2:35 also need to be more carefully determined, the blocking as well but the wider ratio also allows for more creative and dynamic blocking. I personally never shot 2:35, never worked on a project that really called for it, besides I also think it's a harder screen ratio to work in, so exploring more common ground before is always welcomed.
Click to expand...

That I agree with! I'm a huge fan of John Carpenter, who really knew how to make those anamorphics effective. I think I gave a bit too "objective" answer in my post. Anamorphics has a nice look to them, that just looks... Blockbuster. However making an anamorphic lens is HARD. Really hard. And most adapters out there does not deliver anywhere close to what a real anamorphic does I'm afraid.
 
I'm generally against cropping, but I can see how shooting with an actual anamorphic lens can be problematic for a number of reasons. So the only shoot I have done so far at a wider aspect ratio, I just used a really wide angle lens and I think that really helped sell it. Of course you don't get some of the image qualities that a true anamorphic lens would give you, but some things, like flares, can be added in post. I thought it worked really well to do a crop like that. Of course, you also lose resolution in the process.
 
everyone talk about resolution loss with cropping. Although i can see on paper how this is a concern, countless films have been shot in 1.78:1 and cropped in post. Many are using the anamorphic filters and /or adding different effects in post.

If there is such a loss of resolution i wouldn't think this would be such a common practice. Could it be just a number? I don't know, the reason for this thread is i obviously want to knpow what you guys think as it's something i'd like to plan for on a future shoot.

If shooting the cinescope ratio is important to me or others, i'm just not seeing the reward of using something like the iscorama, even as great as it is......so many issues/work arounds.

Whenever i hear the subject of cinescope on digital it always brings me back to the countless films who choose the cropping method, especially since they had the budget to shoot any way they wanted. Could it be that they didn't really see the image degrade to the human eye?


Thanks for your thoughts guys
 
Both ways have their strenghts and weakness.
I personally prefer to mask the image with a "matte" in post, which is similar to cropping the video (it still can be adjusted up and down if needed) but IMHO, it's safer because if you export directly to BD/DVD: it's still in the 16x9 composition so there's no risks of having a squeezed image because it's been cropped in the process.
I usually simply use, as said before, a wide angle lens and I use a 1.85:1 or 2.40:1 .psd file to mask over the video in post.That way you're sure of the result as it's already BD/DVD compliant in the ratio: you simply have to resize it when you encode it from your NLE to the delivery format.
 
blake2404 said:
everyone talk about resolution loss with cropping. Although i can see on paper how this is a concern, countless films have been shot in 1.78:1 and cropped in post. Many are using the anamorphic filters and /or adding different effects in post.

If there is such a loss of resolution i wouldn't think this would be such a common practice. Could it be just a number? I don't know, the reason for this thread is i obviously want to knpow what you guys think as it's something i'd like to plan for on a future shoot.

If shooting the cinescope ratio is important to me or others, i'm just not seeing the reward of using something like the iscorama, even as great as it is......so many issues/work arounds.

Whenever i hear the subject of cinescope on digital it always brings me back to the countless films who choose the cropping method, especially since they had the budget to shoot any way they wanted. Could it be that they didn't really see the image degrade to the human eye?


Thanks for your thoughts guys
Click to expand...

I've been shooting with 2x Lomo anamorphics, and having to blow up the image from the 3:56 ratio to 2:40. While its lowering the resolution, I have not really noticed it. Most of the times I did this were just for videos to live on the web, so it's not a big deal. But the two times I've seen my 2x anamorphics projected there was not really a noticeable difference since projection softens things up a bit. I feel like it takes the harsh edge off of HD when shooting with these lenses.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of "fake" anamorphic, and cropping the image. But if memory serves correctly Kill Bill was shot with spherical lenses on Super 35 and it looked amazing. Bob Richardson ain't no slouch, so if its good enough for him, it's gotta be good enough for me.
 
blake2404 said:
everyone talk about resolution loss with cropping. Although i can see on paper how this is a concern, countless films have been shot in 1.78:1 and cropped in post. Many are using the anamorphic filters and /or adding different effects in post.
Click to expand...

If you are talking about mainstream 35mm films, keep in mind that good stock can resolve anywhere from 4-6k of resolution. At that point, any loss isn't that big of a deal.
 
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