Movies shot in fullscreen released in widescreen?

[ukb008]

Hi, PROs.

Here's some info from the IMDb page for Total Recall:


Film negative format (mm/video inches)
35 mm
Cinematographic process
Spherical
Printed film format
35 mm
70 mm (blow-up)
Aspect ratio
1.37 : 1 (negative ratio)
1.85 : 1 (intended ratio)


I don't understand the meaning of the Aspect Ratio info. What is a negative ratio and what is an intended ratio?

I seem to remember that I saw the theatrical release in full-screen. I have seen the video at full-screen and widescreen, and found out that the widescreen version is just a cropped (at the top and bottom) version of the full-screen edition.

Does it all mean that "full-screen" can't always be regarded as a monstrous disfigurement inflicted on widescreen and actually may show more?

Regards.

[foxyshadis]

Back in the day, cheap film like 35mm was all 4/3, so to save money they'd crop it to widescreen in the camera itself (or shoot it all and mask it in the projector), rather than having to buy more expensive wide-ratio cameras and films. By the 80's, most of that had gone away, must have been a real budget flick.

Back when VHS was still new, they weren't so savvy with the transfers, and would occasionally put the full-frame film on there instead of a crop of the crop. So you got a view of the full widescreen, plus the boom mics and wires and other junk that was supposed to be cropped out by the projector. =p

[int10h]

I don't understand the meaning of the Aspect Ratio info. What is a negative ratio and what is an intended ratio?



Spherical process means non-anamorphic (as far as I know, 1.85:1 aspect ratio does not involve anamorphic process).
negative ratio is the theorical aspect ratio on the film. On 35mm spherical, each frame is 22x16mm.
intended ratio aka projection aspect ratio is the picture aspect ratio on the screen. As 35mm spherical technology was used, the frame is 21x11mm on the film.


So, the real aspect ratio of the movie is 1.85:1.

[ukb008]

Thanks, foxyshadis and int10h.

If the picture area on the celluloid is 22/16 (i.e., 1.375), and it is to be projected at 21/11 (i.e., 1.909), then there's some masking in the projection-machine (1 mm lengthwise and 5 mm heightwise). That means some picture is cut away. I guess they used to do this because wides-ratio cameras may not have been wide available at that time, as faxyshadis says.

Total Recall was made in 1990; weren't wide-ratio cameras there in 1990?

And the negative ratio (1.375) and the intended ratio (1.909) figures - none of these are 1.85; where does this 1.85 come from? By masking more of the picture area on the film?

Regards.

[Mug Funky]

1.909... that's not what you posted originally.

seriously one of the best action movies ever.

[edit]

based on my limited knowledge of such things, often bluescreen heavy scenes were shot non-anamorphic so the matting would be less obvious horizontally (blue/green fringes in people's hair, fluffy clothes, etc).

[foxyshadis]

Maybe they just cropped it for the DVD release, or resized it wrong. Or IMDB's wrong, wouldn't be the first time.

I thought it might be just low-budget, since wide film and the cameras to run it has been used since the 60's or 70's, but it turns out Total Recall was the most expensive movie of its time. So I have no idea why they'd use 35mm for it.

[int10h]

And the negative ratio (1.375) and the intended ratio (1.909) figures - none of these are 1.85; where does this 1.85 come from? By masking more of the picture area on the film?


Oops, my mistake. Real figures are 0.825" x 0.446" (20.955mm x 11.3284mm) wich is 1.85:1.

And yes, this is achieved by masking a part of the film during the shooting process.

The 35mm film is still widely in use in production today. There has been a revival for the 65mm film since the 50's, but due to the cost of film and processing, only two movies have been entirely shot on 65mm in the last 10 years (Hamlet in 1996, Samsara in 2006).

[Shinigami-Sama]

what about IMAX films?
I know theres plenty of those
or are you talking about feature length?

[Mug Funky]

"See you at the paaahty, Richtaah!" (throws Richter's arms down where his body is).

i'd like to see more 70mm stuff shot (was it 65 or 70? i'm a tad confused now because it's always advertised as 70). Hamlet looked fantastic, in spite of being boring as guano at times (and being longer than a Bollywood epic).

it'd be good if 70mm translated to DVD releases though... i guess that's what HDTV is for. Samsara looked just like any movie, and my copy of Baraka was a horrid transfer - 4:3 letterbox, NTSC-to-PAL and composite at some point. ugh.

[int10h]

was it 65 or 70? i'm a tad confused now because it's always advertised as 70

It's shot on 65mm film, and then processed to 70mm to add audio. So it's 65mm in the camera and 70mm in the projector.

[zambelli]

Maybe they just cropped it for the DVD release, or resized it wrong. Or IMDB's wrong, wouldn't be the first time.
I thought it might be just low-budget, since wide film and the cameras to run it has been used since the 60's or 70's, but it turns out Total Recall was the most expensive movie of its time. So I have no idea why they'd use 35mm for it.
No, IMDB is not wrong. "Total Recall" was shot in Super 35 (aka SuperScope 235). It's a widescreen production format that uses spherical lenses (no optical squeeze) and uses the full frame of a 35mm film negative (1.37:1 AR) to record the image. However, the film is actually framed for 2.35:1, though it's typically not a hard matte. Since no Super35 format exists for prints, a Super35 2.35:1 cropped negative must be printed either on 70mm film or 35mm anamorphic (CinemaScope) in order to preserve its 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Because the negative is actually shot full frame, it's also possible to make 1.33:1 and 1.85:1 prints of the source material if needed (such as was the case in the olden VHS days when fullscreen was preferred).

Though it's cheaper than 70mm or anamorphic 35mm, Super 35 is far from a "budget format". James Cameron shoots nearly exclusively in Super 35 (when he's not shooting in HD or IMAX :) ), and even Peter Jackson shot the entire LOTR trilogy in Super 35 (a crying shame, if you ask me).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35

An excellent (if not overwhelming) resource on widescreen film history is the book "Wide Screen Movies" by Robert E. Carr and R.M. Hayes. A good online resouce is http://www.widescreenmuseum.com, though a bit hard to browse through.

[zambelli]

what about IMAX films?
I know theres plenty of those
or are you talking about feature length?
IMAX is essentially 70mm film, but the prints have sprockets placed differently than classic 70mm prints and they're run through the projector horizontally rather than vertically. It nearly always runs at 24fps, but there's a variation of it called IMAX HD that runs at 48fps.

Note that films such as "Batman Begins" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" that are shown in IMAX theaters weren't shot on IMAX film. They were shot on 35mm (or in HD as in the case of "Superman Returns") and then digitally cleaned up and blown up to IMAX prints using a process called IMAX DMR. It's something all Avisynth filter aficianados should appreciate. ;) It's not as good as true 70mm, but it's superior to classic 35mm prints, IMHO.

[Mug Funky]

huh. so just like the noise reduction that goes on with SDTV encoding, only much bigger.

i wonder what the DMR process does to intentional grain (that's been added in post, or shot specifically to be grainy)? i guess the operator has to play the threshold dance.

[foxyshadis]

Ah, see, there's my source of confusion, zambelli. I was thinking, for some reason, that all 35mm was academy format and post-50's formats were all some other size film. Thanks for clearing that up.