2.35:1 and Super 16

[Barry Cheong]

Hi!

 

I'm a film student at Humber College in Toronto. I'm shooting a short in February on Super 16 on a SR2. I'd like to compose the film in 2.35:1. I've had my teacher look at Clairemont in Toronto for ground glasses with no luck. Any suggestions on how it could be done? The film will be telecined to Betacam and cut on Final Cut Pro. We have no plans on striking a film print but you never know.

 

Also I'm still entertaining the idea of doing a 1.85 extraction. Any negative issues I should know about with that process?

 

Thanks!

Barry Cheong

[David Mullen ASC]

It should be possible to get a 1.85 groundglass for a Super-16 camera. Super-16 is about 1.68 : 1 full aperture, so you could get away with just guessing a little loss top & bottom for 1.85, as long as you are consistent in the amount of extra headroom you give everything.

 

As for 2.35 cropping, that's extreme enough that you'd want framelines in your viewfinder.

[Stuart Brereton]

I've done a couple of music promos on s16 where it's later been letterboxed to 2.35:1. If you use a common top line for the frame, then at least you know you have your head room OK, rather than doing a center extraction and having to imagine where both the top and bottom of frame will be.

 

It's very simple to then letterbox in FCP and re-rack the picture up or down as necessary.

 

Obviously it's preferable to have ground glass markings for 2.35, but it can be done without, as long as you're careful with your composition.

Edited December 22, 2005 by Stuart Brereton

[Barry Cheong]

I've done a couple of music promos on s16 where it's later been letterboxed to 2.35:1. If you use a common top line for the frame, then at least you know you have your head room OK, rather than doing a center extraction and having to imagine where both the top and bottom of frame will be.

 

It's very simple to then letterbox in FCP and re-rack the picture up or down as necessary.

 

Obviously it's preferable to have ground glass markings for 2.35, but it can be done without, as long as you're careful with your composition.

 

That's a good suggestion Stuart. How would this affect shooting my rack leader? Are there are specific considerations/details I would have to tell the lab and the transfer house?

 

Thanks!

[Stuart Brereton]

There should be no implications as far as the Lab/TK facility are concerned. You would want to tranfer the full frame to tape and letterbox it later, once you've cut the film.

[Mitch Gross]

For a small fee the rental house will apply temporary tape lines to the focusing screen in the Arri SR. It isn't a big deal, they may charge you $50 to do it. For proper framing reference, I would shoot a chart at the head of the first roll of film. Whether you choose to have the image cropped in the transfer or do it yourself in FCP, it is good to have an accurate framing guide to match what you saw in the viewfinder.

[Jonathan Spear]

Does anyone have a few frame grabs of 2.35:1 in S-16 vs. 2.35:1 in 35mm (using similar stocks)?

 

Cheers,

Jonathan

[David Mullen ASC]

Does anyone have a few frame grabs of 2.35:1 in S-16 vs. 2.35:1 in 35mm (using similar stocks)?

 

I'm not what that would tell you except for the obvious.

 

If you simply want to see the effect of letterboxed S16, just take any S16 footage on video and imagine it letterboxed more, to 2.35. If you want to see how the S16 quality holds up being cropped to 2.35 and blown-up to 35mm scope, you'd have to see it in a theater in a projected print.

 

The quality of S16 on TV isn't affected by the degree you letterbox it, unless you THEN enlarge the image to lose the letterboxing and match the vertical size of a non-letterboxed transfer.

 

In terms of S16 vs. 35mm using the same stock, well, the S16 would be softer and grainer -- that relative comparison would hold true even if both were equally cropped to 2.35.

[Riku Naskali]

Do you have a video tap? You could obviously mark the monitor if you had one ;)

[Jonathan Spear]

Thanks David. That cleared it up. I guess what I was reffering to was S16 vs. 35mm using the same stock.

 

Are there any films out there that have scenes shot simultaneously with S16 and 35mm cameras for a side by side comparison of the formats (with the same lighting and using the same stocks and filtration) ?

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks David. That cleared it up. I guess what I was reffering to was S16 vs. 35mm using the same stock.

 

Are there any films out there that have scenes shot simultaneously with S16 and 35mm cameras for a side by side comparison of the formats (with the same lighting and using the same stocks and filtration) ?

 

The Kodak and Fuji demos sometimes add a S16 version of the same shot in the mix to see how well S16 blows-up. It's best to see these demos projected though because it's hard to see a difference between S16 and 35mm on a small monitor.