2.35 DI

Fulgencio Martinez · July 17, 2004

Hi,

I´ll be shooting a short film with a 2k grading.

Aspect ratio is 2.35

Is it better to go anamorphic or s35?

Will the s35 scanned image have less "digital" resolution than the full frame anamorphed?

Do i have to de-anamorph the image during the process to be able to grade it?

Any thoughs will be helpful

Thanks

Fulgencio

Phil Rhodes · July 17, 2004

Hi,

Some scanners have the ability to scan a 2K-wide frame at double vertical resolution, which gives you the same kind of file with 2:1 ratio pixels as you'd have got from a scope negative. You should try hard to make sure this happens as otherwise a flat scan of the full gate area gives you a super35 area only 850-odd pixels high.

Needless to say other considerations such as the lenses you are using, their sharpness particularly if old scope, their speed and the situation you are shooting leading to your choice of filmstock, may also impact the situation and force you one way or the other - but if you're shooting super35, definitely make sure it's scanned that way.

Phil

David Mullen ASC · July 18, 2004

I suppose it depends on the scanner. From what I heard, with a Spirit, you'd scan the whole Super-35 frame at a fixed resolution and later crop & stretch to anamorphic for recording out to film, so you'd have less vertical pixels than if you had shot in anamorphic and scanned that. Also, most people like scanning the whole Super-35 frame and cropping that scan later for scope because they want a digital master that is taller than the 2.35 frame in order to make different TV versions.

As for shooting in anamorphic, you'd scan the whole frame and simply get the display monitor to show it to you unsqueezed (i.e. letterboxed) for timing purposes.

Generally, the extra quality of anamorphic (finer grain because more negative is used) would always be helpful even with a D.I., but the truth is that the 2K resolution tends to make anamorphic look more similar in resolution to Super-35 and grain tends to be less obvious due to the 2K resolution (it sort of degrains the image a little.) So I'd only use anamorphic for a 2K D.I. if I liked the look of the anamorphic optical qualities (or distortions as some would say.) Plus, you could use 3-perf with Super-35 and save some money.

Phil Rhodes · July 18, 2004

Hi,

The Northlight scanner has the ability to double vertical resolution like that, but possibly only because it scans at 6K and it then becomes a software issue. I'd be surprised if Spirit couldn't do it?

I would be very cautious about using a 2K flat DI on super35 material; you end up with only half the vertical resolution. On the other hand, major motion pictures have been done that way....

Phil

Dirk DeJonghe · July 19, 2004

Phil,

The Northlight has a 6K sensor, the Spirit has only 1920pixels on luminance and 860 pixels on chroma (hoirizontal) . Not really the same ballpark.

Phil Rhodes · July 19, 2004

Hi,

Theoretically the Spirit could scan any resolution it chose to along the axis of the film. Whether it's actually implemented in the software to do this I have no idea, but that's the beauty of a line array scanner. A hypothesis only.

Phil