One Battle After Another - Was it VistaVision squeezed?

[Brian Hatfield]

Hi all, I'm having trouble finding out anything about One Battle After Another, mainly about their cinematic process. I know that VV is 8-perf 35mm, and I'm going to see it on a 5-perf 70mm film print in a couple of weeks, but did they squeeze the image onto the 8/35? and then optically de-squeezed for the 70mm?

[Tyler Purcell]

6 hours ago, Brian Hatfield said:

Hi all, I'm having trouble finding out anything about One Battle After Another, mainly about their cinematic process. I know that VV is 8-perf 35mm, and I'm going to see it on a 5-perf 70mm film print in a couple of weeks, but did they squeeze the image onto the 8/35? and then optically de-squeezed for the 70mm?

VistaVision is not squeezed, it's just spherical. 

Technirama was the "squeezed" version and was not used on One Battle After Another.

Looks like they're "cropping" the film for the different formats. 

VV: 1.50:1 
5P 2.20:1
15P 1.43:1
35mm/digital = 1.85:1 

The VistaVision prints were struck from the original camera negative supposedly with no matte. 

As much of a fan I am of contact prints, I have a feeling the digitally created prints will probably look better. Fotokem has a brand new recorder which works really well. It can also do 8k, which means they could have done an 8k scan and then 8k record out. 

Another thing to point out, the movie wasn't entirely shot on 8 perf, there are 3 perf shots in it as well. So I would assume they recorded out the 3P shots to the 8P negative cut for the contact prints. It should be very evident based on the quality of them. 

 

Edited September 4, 2025 by Tyler Purcell

[Brian Hatfield]

Ok, thanks for the information!

[Gautam Valluri]

16 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

VV: 1.50:1 
5P 2.20:1
15P 1.43:1
35mm/digital = 1.85:1

Has it been confirmed that the 5P prints will be 2.20 : 1? I'm asking because the 5P prints for The Master were pillar-boxed to 1.85 : 1, even though half or so of the film was shot on 5/65mm.

Going by that reasoning, it'd make sense if they're doing 1.5 for VV prints, 1.43 for IMAX prints and 1.85 for the rest, including 5P. 2.20 crop would be a little too much cropped out of the 1.5 master no?

[Gautam Valluri]

Also, this current era of multiple aspect-ratio presentations reminds me of the pan & scan era before the advent of HD television. Films were made in scope because they didn't want to waste screen space in cinemas but they used to leave massive empty spaces in the frame so that pan & scan would be simpler for SD TV later on. 

Can you imagine museums re-framing paintings to better fill-out their exhibition wall space?

And now even films and series made for streaming platforms are framed in wider than HDTV aspect ratio just to have letter-boxing, to make it look "cinematic".

Wouldn't it be nice to just have one fixed aspect ratio for a film and let all screen formats add black bars as necessary? For example, isn't it better to just have 1.5 : 1 for these huge IMAX event films across all screens? 

Edited September 5, 2025 by Gautam Valluri
added precisions

[Mark Dunn]

"The Brutalist" was pillarboxed to 1.66 in 70mm. Quite a lot of black.

Lots of nerdy goodness here

https://www.in70mm.com/presents/1954_vistavision/2024_brutalist/print/index.htm

Edited September 5, 2025 by Mark Dunn

[Mark Dunn]

17 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Technirama was the "squeezed" version

Interesting factoid: "Spartacus" in Technirama was Kubrick's only anamorphic picture.

Edited September 5, 2025 by Mark Dunn

[Tyler Purcell]

11 hours ago, Gautam Valluri said:

Has it been confirmed that the 5P prints will be 2.20 : 1? I'm asking because the 5P prints for The Master were pillar-boxed to 1.85 : 1, even though half or so of the film was shot on 5/65mm.

Yea, those are the confirmed aspect ratios. 

11 hours ago, Gautam Valluri said:

Going by that reasoning, it'd make sense if they're doing 1.5 for VV prints, 1.43 for IMAX prints and 1.85 for the rest, including 5P. 2.20 crop would be a little too much cropped out of the 1.5 master no?

Yea, I agree, but that's what they're doing. 

[Tyler Purcell]

11 hours ago, Gautam Valluri said:

Wouldn't it be nice to just have one fixed aspect ratio for a film and let all screen formats add black bars as necessary? For example, isn't it better to just have 1.5 : 1 for these huge IMAX event films across all screens? 

I think it's a lost opportunity, which is perpetuated by the modern "IMAX is better" standpoint of the brand. I'm certain when PTA was talking to IMAX, they had to make a deal where NO OTHER VERSION was the same. I bet he fought for those 3 VV theaters which are projecting the full negative. I also noticed, those 3 theaters are not screening after the first two days. This tells me right off the bat, the VistaVision release was probably purposely hindered by IMAX and so were the other versions. They want the IMAX version to be "special" so the other versions had to be cropped somehow. It's a bogus decision that means your film has to be shot with a compromise. You can't frame things properly when you're doing a 2.20:1 version AND a 1.43:1 version, no way. Every IMAX movie has this problem, the framing is ALWAYS a compromise. 

Anyway, if I were PTA... I would have not done 5 perf at all, just done Arri Laser 4k to Intermediate stock and released 35mm with a slight crop on the top and bottom to the original 1.50:1 frame and simply had the screen masks adjusted for the theaters. He could have shown it in more theaters AND still done the 15P IMAX release. 

Big opportunity lost sadly, all most likely to corporations. 

I hope the UHD BluRay is not 1.85:1. 

[Gautam Valluri]

On 9/5/2025 at 11:28 PM, Tyler Purcell said:

You can't frame things properly when you're doing a 2.20:1 version AND a 1.43:1 version, no way. Every IMAX movie has this problem, the framing is ALWAYS a compromise. 

This has been a constant frustration of mine with Nolan's films.

I went to see The Master last Sunday on 70mm. Good print! I could clearly tell which parts were shot on 35mm and which were shot on 65mm. And the 1.85 frame held up very well, just like Jacques Tati's Playtime.

PTA should've done 1.85 for the 5/70mm prints of One Battle After Another, especially because he had already done that for the 5/70 blowups of Phantom Thread and Inherent Vice.

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Gautam Valluri said:

This has been a constant frustration of mine with Nolan's films.

I went to see The Master last Sunday on 70mm. Good print! I could clearly tell which parts were shot on 35mm and which were shot on 65mm. And the 1.85 frame held up very well, just like Jacques Tati's Playtime.

PTA should've done 1.85 for the 5/70mm prints of One Battle After Another, especially because he had already done that for the 5/70 blowups of Phantom Thread and Inherent Vice.

Oooo you found a good print of the Master, that's great! The one they show here is shit, scratches, dirt, it's a mess. But yea I noticed the same thing, because it was done optically the 35mm went through a lot of optical work compared to the contact printed 5 perf 65mm camera negative. This is NOT seen on the BluRay by the way, it's only a side effect of the optical process. Had the film been recorded out, the difference would have been less noticeable. 

I bet IMAX did a deal with PT to hinder the other releases so they'd get the proper aspect ratio release. 

[Giovanni Louisor]

The 5-perf 70mm version is presented in 1.85:1, pillarboxed within a 2.20:1 frame.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/how-to-watch-one-battle-after-another-vistavision-1235151416/

[Gautam Valluri]

Good to see this! So the film will have two major aspect ratios: 1.5 : 1 and adjacent (1.43) and, 1.85 and adjacent (1.9).

[Tyler Purcell]

12 hours ago, Giovanni Louisor said:

The 5-perf 70mm version is presented in 1.85:1, pillarboxed within a 2.20:1 frame.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/how-to-watch-one-battle-after-another-vistavision-1235151416/

* Note, it does look like the original information released by the studio was incorrect, this chart appears to be the updated and proper information. I hope they edit/fix the studio release information to match. 
 

[Jakob Wesner]

56 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

* Note, it does look like the original information released by the studio was incorrect, this chart appears to be the updated and proper information. I hope they edit/fix the studio release information to match. 
 

were exactly was this information officially released by the studio? as far as I know there previously was only one chart that said the 5-perf prints are 2.20 and that was fan-made

[Tyler Purcell]

So this is the "new" graphic, straight from Warner. 

The original one looked like this, also from Warner. 

 

We have confirmed (from test screenings) 

The IMAX 15P prints are 1.50:1 with matte lines at the top and bottom 
The 5 perf are 1.85:1 pillerboxed similar to The Master. 
The IMAX digital will also be 1.50:1, not 1.90:1 as referenced in prior documentation direct from Warner. 

So clearly there were some changes made. 

The fact that PT went on the record and said the IMAX 15P prints were an optical blow up from the VistaVision negative is very fascinating. I have confirmed with the guys who made the print, it was recoded out. 

So there are a lot of interesting pieces of information floating around. The good news is that, there won't be much of a "crop' in any of the screenings and to me, that's the most important part. 

[Jakob Wesner]

6 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

So this is the "new" graphic, straight from Warner. 

The original one looked like this, also from Warner.

Both graphics were made by Adam Hlavac, the first one was not official, WB just likely saw that there was incorrect information on that chart and decided to collaborate on the updated one.

 

Also were did PTA go on the record say that the IMAX 15P prints were an optical blow up? The Indiewire chart only says that the 5-perf 70mm prints are.

[Tyler Purcell]

19 hours ago, Jakob Wesner said:

Both graphics were made by Adam Hlavac, the first one was not official, WB just likely saw that there was incorrect information on that chart and decided to collaborate on the updated one.

Ah good, because they were being passed around on the proper channels as facts. 

19 hours ago, Jakob Wesner said:

 

Also were did PTA go on the record say that the IMAX 15P prints were an optical blow up? The Indiewire chart only says that the 5-perf 70mm prints are.

I must have misread, it sounded like he said ALL the 70mm prints were optical blow ups. 

[Tyler Purcell]

Today we got a new one! 

[Adam Hlavac]

On 9/20/2025 at 8:50 PM, Jakob Wesner said:

Both graphics were made by Adam Hlavac, the first one was not official, WB just likely saw that there was incorrect information on that chart and decided to collaborate on the updated one.

 

Also were did PTA go on the record say that the IMAX 15P prints were an optical blow up? The Indiewire chart only says that the 5-perf 70mm prints are.

Correct. WB reached out and wanted to collab on a new version with updated locations for VV and 70mm. 

[Ravi Kiran]

Does anyone know what was shot in Super-35? I saw it in VistaVision yesterday and was trying to spot it, but I couldn't tell.

[Jakob Wesner]

4 minutes ago, Ravi Kiran said:

Does anyone know what was shot in Super-35? I saw it in VistaVision yesterday and was trying to spot it, but I couldn't tell.

Definitely some of the shots with the Sister Hood of the Brave Beaver. DP Michael Bauman said about 70-80% of the movie was shot on VistaVision, so about one quarter on Super 35. Watching it on an optical 70mm print, I for sure found some of the shots noticeably lesser in resolution.

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Ravi Kiran said:

Does anyone know what was shot in Super-35? I saw it in VistaVision yesterday and was trying to spot it, but I couldn't tell.

On the IMAX 15P print, it's way easier to tell. It's most of the close up dialog scenes. I felt the same thing you about the VistaVision print, it seemed like nearly the whole movie was shot on 8 perf. I also think on first viewing, everyone is so wound up in the story, it's just hard to analyze the technical side of things. Having seen it twice, I could take some time and look at things in greater detail, there is a lot of 4 perf in the movie, but it's close up dialog only. The moment the camera can be further away from the action, it switches to VV. So a lot of dialog scenes are mixed, 4 perf and 8 perf. It's cleverly done, only using the 4 perf for those key moments that it's needed. I'm interested to see what the UHD BluRay will be like. 

[Geffen Avraham]

On 9/5/2025 at 2:41 AM, Gautam Valluri said:

And now even films and series made for streaming platforms are framed in wider than HDTV aspect ratio just to have letter-boxing, to make it look "cinematic".

Even worse, some streaming platforms will not let anamorphic films fill your entire monitor even if it's an ultrawide. It will actually look worse

I think shooting widescreen for a picture that never get shown in theaters, gets letterboxed on regular monitors and has no legal way to be viewed in ultrawide at all is ridiculous.