is this an S16 gate?

[adam berk]

From an SRII..... is this a super or regular 16 gate?

 

[Bryant Jansen]

Looks like 1.85 to me. I think the picture of the gate in this article is super 16, and the two look the same:

http://cinematechnic.com/super_16mm/super_...rsion_16SR.html

[adam berk]

why in the world would one want to shoot 1.85 instead of 1.66 on 16mm??

[freddie bonfanti]

yup, thats super 16...

[Guest Zulkifli Yusof]

why in the world would one want to shoot 1.85 instead of 1.66 on 16mm??

 

Would you care to explain more on that? Thanks

[Tim Carroll]

From an SRII..... is this a super or regular 16 gate?

 

 

That picture was taken at an angle to the gate, which makes it look like a wider aspect ratio. But it still appears to be a regular 16 gate. Look at the left side of the gate, if it were a Super 16 gate there would be about one millimeter between the left edge (looking at it in your picture) of the gate/frame, and the side rail. If you look at the picture Jorge has on his CinemaTechnic web site of a Super 16 gate you will see what I mean:

 

 

Looks like a regular 16 gate to me, like the one on my old Arriflex 16SR:

 

 

-Tim

[Mark Dunn]

Why not measure it? Take a paper rubbing and you wouldn't have to touch it with a ruler.

[freddie bonfanti]

Would you care to explain more on that? Thanks

 

i think he is asking why cropping the image to 1.85 when you could shoot the super 16 full frame which is 1.66...

[Nathan Milford]

Tim is correct. that is a Regular 16mm, 1.33:1 Gate.

 

There is no, factory-made, 1.85:1 gates nor is there a gate masking system for the SR series. They only come in 1.66:1 (S16) and 1.33:1 (R16).

[Guest Zulkifli Yusof]

i think he is asking why cropping the image to 1.85 when you could shoot the super 16 full frame which is 1.66...

 

I see. Perhaps for aesthetic reasons? I dont see anything wrong about it though, it's just that you're losing what some would call "real estate" or something like that lol.

 

Anyway, this is off-topic, is there a difference between regular 16 and super 16 when you telecine to digibeta?

[Andrew Koch]

why in the world would one want to shoot 1.85 instead of 1.66 on 16mm??

 

With this question, are you referring to a 1.85 hard matte in the gate? Yes, I agree that would be a little strange in super 16 (if that is even possible on an SR, I'm not sure, but it would make a clean gate even more critical)

 

If you are referring to having 1.85 guides in the groundglass and framing for 1.85, while filming the entire 1.66 frame and then cropping it to 1.85 in post, I don't see this as necessarly a bad way to go. I am not sure if 1.66 is still a common aspect ratio for release internationally, I am pretty sure it is pretty unusual in the United States, so making it 1.85 might be a good idea for release.

 

Another good reason to shoot 1.85 instead of full frame is that it might be more appropriate for the particular story being told.

[adam berk]

With this question, are you referring to a 1.85 hard matte in the gate? Yes, I agree that would be a little strange in super 16 (if that is even possible on an SR, I'm not sure, but it would make a clean gate even more critical)

 

If you are referring to having 1.85 guides in the groundglass and framing for 1.85, while filming the entire 1.66 frame and then cropping it to 1.85 in post, I don't see this as necessarly a bad way to go. I am not sure if 1.66 is still a common aspect ratio for release internationally, I am pretty sure it is pretty unusual in the United States, so making it 1.85 might be a good idea for release.

 

Another good reason to shoot 1.85 instead of full frame is that it might be more appropriate for the particular story being told.

 

 

I was referring to a hard matted 1.85

 

 

Maybe this pictured is stretched a bit horizontally

[freddie bonfanti]

wow, from the first picture i could swear it was super16, it certainly doesnt look 4x3 so i guess its really the angle the picture was shot...

[Bryant Jansen]

I was referring to a hard matted 1.85

Maybe this pictured is stretched a bit horizontally

 

It could be one of the older, SRII Super16 gates. Supposedly they look the same:

 

"There a few different Super 16 gates available. The earliest is the SRII Super 16 gate which is essentially the same as the SR2 gate, but with the proper Super-16 aperture size. The bearing surface on the left (Super-16) side is much thinner so as to not contact the film in the image area. The SRII S16 gate is similar to the SR3 Mk.I S16 gate but has a small space for a timecode head and does not have the space for the blocking plate to convert the gate back to standard 16."

 

http://cinematechnic.com/super_16mm/super_...rsion_16SR.html

 

I do agree with tim though, it looks like its shot from a suspicious angle.

[Guest Zulkifli Yusof]

With this question, are you referring to a 1.85 hard matte in the gate? Yes, I agree that would be a little strange in super 16 (if that is even possible on an SR, I'm not sure, but it would make a clean gate even more critical)

 

If you are referring to having 1.85 guides in the groundglass and framing for 1.85, while filming the entire 1.66 frame and then cropping it to 1.85 in post, I don't see this as necessarly a bad way to go. I am not sure if 1.66 is still a common aspect ratio for release internationally, I am pretty sure it is pretty unusual in the United States, so making it 1.85 might be a good idea for release.

 

Another good reason to shoot 1.85 instead of full frame is that it might be more appropriate for the particular story being told.

 

Yea, I think you pretty much summed up what I meant.

 

Anyway, this is off-topic, is there a difference between regular 16 and super 16 when you telecine to digibeta?

 

Anyone wanna help me out with that? What I really want to know is if there's any special instruction for the colourist before he dumps the footage out to tape.

[Tim Carroll]

"Anyway, this is off-topic, is there a difference between regular 16 and super 16 when you telecine to digibeta?"

 

What I really want to know is if there's any special instruction for the colourist before he dumps the footage out to tape.

 

Are you referring to framing instructions? Because you would obviously have the colorist frame your Super 16 footage different than if it were regular 16. Regular 16 being 4:3 and Super 16 being 1.66:1.

 

You can have a transfer to digibeta of regular 16 footage in a 16:9 aspect ratio, or even a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, it is just going to be using less of the negative (or blowing the image up more) than if you are transferring Super 16 to the same aspect ratio.

 

Not really sure what you were asking. When I have footage transferred to digital tape, and I want a 16:9 aspect ratio (widescreen), I have the colorist transfer it as an anamorphic image onto the digital tape, so that I can edit it with Final Cut Pro. So the 16:9 image is electronically squished into a 4:3 frame. Then in FCP I unsquish it and set my production monitor to 16:9, edit everything that way, and then output an anamophic sequence which I then encode for a 16:9 DVD.

 

-Tim

[David Mullen ASC]

You have to remember that standard definition video comes in two formats: 4x3 and 16x9 "anamorphic" (meaning a 16x9 image with skinny pixels so that it has the same pixel dimensions as 4x3, hence why it looks squeezed on a 4x3 monitor unless converted to appear letterboxed.)

 

Any other aspect ratios involve black borders, top & bottom or side-to-side, on a 4x3 or 16x9 recording. For example, you could make a 4x3 or a 16x9 recording of an image with a 2.35 letterbox. It's just that on the 16x9 recording, the black bars would be thinner than on a 4x3 recording.

 

So you need to tell the colorist if this is (1) a 4x3 or 16x9 transfer, and (2) if it needs to be letterboxed to something other than full-frame for these formats.

 

You could, for example, get back a 4x3 transfer with a 1.78 : 1 (aka 16x9) letterbox, which is where it gets confusing if you actually wanted a 16x9 full-frame transfer.

[Guest Zulkifli Yusof]

Thanks Tim and David.

 

So let's say I have a super16 project and I framed it for 1.85 and have the colourist crop it as such. When he's done grading, I can let him know either one of the 2 things: dump out as 4x3 letterbox or 16x9 anamorphic right?

 

Either way, I'm not losing that extra width that super16 provides right?

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks Tim and David.

 

So let's say I have a super16 project and I framed it for 1.85 and have the colourist crop it as such. When he's done grading, I can let him know either one of the 2 things: dump out as 4x3 letterbox or 16x9 anamorphic right?

 

Either way, I'm not losing that extra width that super16 provides right?

 

If you want to transfer Super-16 to 16x9, which is 1.78 : 1, you have three choices: (1) transfer it with black borders on the sides to preserve the whole 1.68 : 1 negative area, which is rarely done; (2) crop it top & bottom to fill 1.78 : 1; (3) letterbox it (and thus crop it even more top & bottom) to 1.85. Usually people do #2 or #3.

 

If this was a transfer to 16x9 HD for a possible film-out to 35mm, I'd transfer it full-frame, not letterboxed.

 

Also, there isn't much difference between 1.85 and 1.78, so if you think there is a chance that some distributor wants this transfer to be full-frame 16x9, then I wouldn't letterbox it to 1.85.