Dark Shadows - Aspect Ratio Question

[Francesco Bonomo]

David, do you think the increase in the use of anamorphic recently is because of the more "organic" look you get from that glass when used with digital cameras, or maybe because the sensors are faster and so it's easier to use slower lenses? Or do you think it's just an aesthetic "wave"?

(not complaining about it, though, if I could I'd shoot pretty much everything in anamorphic)

[Nick Gardner]

What does baffle me is when people arbitrarily choose to shoot just an ordinary romance film or intimate human drama in anamorphic 2.40,

I shot a dialogue driven movie that was mostly a group of people sitting around a table in 2.4:1 specifically because you can shoot a 2 shot and basically have 2 close ups in the same frame. It really all depends on how you choose to use the format.

Nick

[David Mullen ASC]

David, do you think the increase in the use of anamorphic recently is because of the more "organic" look you get from that glass when used with digital cameras, or maybe because the sensors are faster and so it's easier to use slower lenses? Or do you think it's just an aesthetic "wave"?

(not complaining about it, though, if I could I'd shoot pretty much everything in anamorphic)

With 35mm, there is a quality argument that can be made since anamorphic uses the full 4-perf height of the negative as opposed to cropping Super-35 to 2.40 -- bigger negative means less grain because of less magnification. There is a bit more detail too but that can be offset if you shoot at wide apertures with anamorphic lenses thus reducing sharpness and depth of field. But outdoors in daylight stopped down a bit, an anamorphic image should hold up better on a large screen than Super-35 cropped (however, you can use 50 ASA film outdoors, which is pretty fine-grained even in cropped Super-35.) This is all assuming you are using the best anamorphic prime lenses on the market.

In digital, unless the sensor is 4x3, you lose most technical advantages to anamorphic so it all becomes about the unique optical distortions and artifacts of the process. I think some people use anamorphics in digital for the same reason they use diffusion filters, to knock back the sharpness, to rough up the image a bit, to get more flares, etc.

Stocks have gotten so fine-grained and lenses have gotten so sharp that there are many Super-35 2.40 movies that look quite sharp on the big screen -- for example, "No Country for Old Men".

[Jaakko Rinne]

I remember watching The Dark Knight in IMAX and I was bothered when the aspect ratio changed from being shot on 65mm back to 35mm. Even if you have to blow up the 35 more it'd still look better than quickly cutting back to widescreen.

I'd say the loss in resolution whenever the film switched to 35 was much more jarring than the aspect ratio change.

[Francesco Bonomo]

In digital, unless the sensor is 4x3, you lose most technical advantages to anamorphic so it all becomes about the unique optical distortions and artifacts of the process. I think some people use anamorphics in digital for the same reason they use diffusion filters, to knock back the sharpness, to rough up the image a bit, to get more flares, etc.

Thanks for your reply, David. That's what I meant, i.e. choosing anamorphic with digital cameras not because of the increased quality you would get when shooting with the same lenses on 35mm film but rather for aesthetic reasons.
I don't think it's a coincidence if Arri has released a full line of anamorphic-ready digital cameras and Zeiss has announced new anamorphic lenses. As for Deakins choosing Super35 2.40 almost exclusively, technical reasons aside, I guess it's a matter of personal taste that comes into play. I'll never forget the first time I looked through an anamorphic lens, at Technovision, here in Rome, while helping for a short using an old Arriflex BL, years ago. It was one of the lenses used on The Last Emperor. I had been aware of anamorphic as a member of the audience and already liked it a lot, but that's when I got completely and irremediably hooked. :-)

[Andrew Rieger]

I wish more films were shot using my favorite aspect ratio of 2.20:1 which is what you get when you shoot on 65mm. A nice compromise between the two dominant ratios.

Examples:
















I'm not sure why this aspect ratio is hardly ever used because it is the prettiest and most versatile in my opinion. Any ideas? It seems to only be used for 65mm films. Any reason why it could not be used on a 35mm film?

[Marc Wielage]

You can matte any image you want and create any size you want. I would argue that some of the images Andrew posted -- 2001, Patton, and Sound of Music -- are huge stories that demanded massive widescreen frames. I get using 2.20 for those (and they were also shown in 2.40 in non-70mm theaters). I did the mastering on Sound of Music for Fox in the 1990s, and that was done from 65mm scans, with some 35mm negative inserts for some scenes that had chemical damage. HD versions were projected in 2.20. You could theoretically do the same thing now in D-Cinema with no problem.

I agree with David Mullen above that if you want the specific characteristics of anamorphic lenses -- the lens flares, the slight vignetting, the shorter depth-of-field, the slight loss of sharpness -- I can't argue with that. It's as valid a creative choice as any other.

I do think, though, that having the ability to reframe shots in post makes shooting in 1.78 a better alternative. Mask that off to 2.40 if that's your goal, then adjust the picture accordingly. Every Super 35mm picture I've ever worked on did hundreds of repositions, some very subtle, some drastic, and it often made a huge difference in terms of dramatic impact and telling the story. If you commit to anamorphic, you're stuck with that framing and have no ability to reposition without blowing up the frame and losing information. That's fine as long as no mistakes are made.

[David Mullen ASC]

The historical reasons why 35mm anamorphic is 2.40 but 65mm is 2.20 is somewhat haphazard.

The first successful widescreen process was Cinerama in 1952 - it was a huge success. "This is Cinerama" -- an independent movie -- only played in 12 converted theaters in the country but became the biggest box office seller of the year, so of course the studios took notice! There were lines around the block. In a day when most movies were 1.37 Academy in b&w with mono sound, a gigantic, sharp, widescreen color image with seven tracks of sound was even more impressive to audiences than IMAX is today (and keep in mind that the three 6-perf 35mm frames that made up a Cinerama image was more negative real estate than 65mm.)

Cinerama was 2.66 : 1.

So the first attempt to compete with Cinerama was CinemaScope, which was ordinary 4-perf 35mm similar to Academy but with an anamorphic lens on the camera and the projector to create a widescreen image. The lenses had a 2X squeeze and the idea was to shoot Full Aperture, which is 1.33 : 1, to get a 2.66 : 1 image on the big screen and then run the sound in interlock from a separate roll of full-coat 35mm, just like Cinerama did.

But that idea got dropped and instead they decided to fit narrow magnetic stripes on each side of the printed image. They made special print stock with smaller perfs (CS perfs) to make room for the magnetic stripes but in the end, the width of the image had to be shaved from 2.66 : 1 to 2.55 : 1 to make room for the sound stripes on each side.

Later, they changed to a standard optical soundtrack on the left side of the print, just like Academy, and this shifted the whole image over to the right and shaved the image even more to 2.35 : 1 once unsqueezed. But the squeeze ratio was still 2X.

Then in the 1970's it was decided to shorten the projector gate slightly to hide negative splices at the frame lines better, which was causing visible flashes on screen. This shorter gate changed the shape to 2.39 : 1. Then in the 1980's it was decided to standardize the width of all 35mm sound apertures to .825", so the anamorphic projector gate was altered again but the end result was still around 2.39 : 1, often rounded up in publications to 2.40.

5-perf 65mm was developed by Michael Todd, who had been kicked off of the Cinerama Corporation, to really take on Cinerama in terms of picture quality but while using a single negative.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingto2.htm

Todd approached Massachusetts optical giant American Optical Co. and outlined what he had in mind. To show that he was serious about what he wanted, he handed AO's Dr. Brian O'Brien a check for $100,000.

In 1952, $100,000 was a tremendous amount of money and it sure got O'Brien's attention. He went to work designing a single lens that could recreate Cinerama "outa one hole". The camera side of the project didn't require quite as much work as the optics. In the late 1920's, a number of wide gauge film processes were used in hopes of improving image quality in large theatres. The great depression killed the economic viability of changing the industry from 35mm to 56mm, 63mm, 65mm, or 70mm, all of which had been tried. Todd had Mitchell Camera Co. update 65mm cameras that had been in mothballs for over 25 years.

The system as put together by Todd's company and American Optical used 65mm Eastmancolor film in the camera, running at a speed of 30 frames per second, with the image five perforations high and an overall frame size of nearly 250% of standard 35mm. The optical system centered around the famous 12.7mm "Bugeye" lens that photographed an image 128 degrees wide, nearly "Cinerama outa one hole". In a striking similarity to Cinerama's roots as a gunnery trainer, the optical design of the bugeye lens was born in a flight simulator designed for jet pilots following World War II.

The end result of working from these 1930's era 65mm cameras as a starting point was the camera aperture that gave us the 2.20 : 1 frame. In the case of Todd-AO, the room for the magnetic soundtracks were created by contact printing the 65mm image onto 70mm print stock with the extra film area being on the outside of the perfs to allow for soundtrack stripes.