cinema projection format

Herman John Bolung · September 30, 2004

hi everyone, i need some information about the standart cinema projection format. is it the same all over the world? say i shot a movie in 1.66 (super 16) 0r 2.35 can i stay with the format and print for teather or i have to change to, say 1.85. i know this may sound stupid but there's to many format out there that i got lost. thank a bunch.

David Mullen ASC · September 30, 2004

There are only two common 35mm theatrical projection formats: matted widescreen and anamorphic widescreen. Matted widescreen means that the projector uses a mask to crop the top and bottom of the spherical (flat) image.

1.85 is the most common matte used; you can shoot and compose for 1.66 matted projection, but odds are that a lot of theaters will use a 1.85 matte when projecting it because they don't have 1.66 mattes and don't have the ability to expand the screen borders vertically to handle the less-matted image. Some art house cinemas will show a movie with a 1.66 projector matte if that's what the print instructs, but that's because they are set-up to show a wide variety of formats, including the classic 1.37 Academy format.

Herman John Bolung · September 30, 2004

is it fair to say that most feature film is printed 1.85 for theater release?

Dominic Case · October 1, 2004

is it fair to say that most feature film is printed 1.85 for theater release?

very roughly half the features are shot anamorphic, 2.39:1, and the other half are widescreen, which is officially 1.85:1, flat (in other words, spherical lenses, not anamorphic).

However, these are usually exposed to cover the entire negative area (1.37:1), but framed for 1.85:1. So if they are screened with a 1.85:1 projector mask, that's what you get, but if they are screened with a higher mask (1.66:1 or even 1.37:1), you get that on the screen. In other words, there is image information on the filmabove and below the 1.85:1 mask that ought to be cut off but can be projected if the mask doesn't cut it off.