Super16 to 35mm aspect ratio

[James Mehr]

Hey all,

 

I'm shooting a short at the end of March, and I recently have my NPR converted to Super16. The ground glass is only marked for 1.66:1 . I was wondering what aspect ratio I should shoot for : I think I can estimate the other aspect ratios using a director's viewfinder. I'm looking to do a 35mm blowup for the festivals. Should I go for a 1.85 ratio? 1.78? I heard that Europe uses 1.66. I figure that since I want to do an optical blowup, 1.66 would be ideal because you're using the most film space. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Chance Shirley]

If you're going to do a 35 optical blowup, I think you gotta go with 1.85:1. I assume most places that do 16 - 35 blowups are set up for that aspect ratio, and it's one of the formats that any American theater should be able to project. Actually, the lab is probably going to transfer the entire 1.66:1 Super 16 image to the 35 negative. But it will get cropped to 1.85:1 by most projector/screen setups, so you might as well frame for that.

 

As far as I know, most theater projectors (at least in America) aren't set up to handle 1.66:1, and 1.78:1 is more of a video standard. That said, it wouldn't hurt to protect your entire super 16mm (1.66:1) frame. That way, if you ever want to "open it up" a bit for a 1.78:1 video transfer, it won't be a problem.

[marc barbé]

Hey all,

 

I'm shooting a short at the end of March, and I recently have my NPR converted to Super16. The ground glass is only marked for 1.66:1 . I was wondering what aspect ratio I should shoot for : I think I can estimate the other aspect ratios using a director's viewfinder. I'm looking to do a 35mm blowup for the festivals. Should I go for a 1.85 ratio? 1.78? I heard that Europe uses 1.66. I figure that since I want to do an optical blowup, 1.66 would be ideal because you're using the most film space. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

 

Hi,

Most important is what final ratio YOU want for your film, what ratio your vision is.

1.66 and 1.85 don't feel the same at all. I'm french and I had a lab blow up my last film (16mm) in 35mm 1.66 with black bands on both sides so that the original 1.33 ratio is preserved (not an expensive operation and it looks fine). I am sure you could have an american lab blow up your 1.66 super 16 centered with black on both sides on a 1.85 35mm print (that way you use all your negative). Otherwise the problem you will have if you go with cropping to a 1.85 ratio is you won't know what you're framing in your 1.66 viewfinder, unless maybe you draw the final 1.85 frame on clear glass to go into your mattebox.

Good luck,

Marc.

[James Mehr]

Thanks for the reply. I'll think I'll go with 1.66 then. My concern was that it wouldn't be possible for them to blow it up on 35mm at that ratio.

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks for the reply. I'll think I'll go with 1.66 then. My concern was that it wouldn't be possible for them to blow it up on 35mm at that ratio.

 

Sure they can. The Super-16 negative is 1.68 : 1, so you'd be trimming the sides very slightly to get 1.66. The blown-up image on the 35mm 4-perf negative would have a 1.66 : 1 hard matte.

 

Of course, if it then gets projected with the more common 1.85 projector mask, the compositions will get a little tight looking, hence why it is usually safer to just expose the full Super-16 aperture (1.68 : 1) transfer all of it to 35mm with a 1.68 hard matte, but have composed the image for cropping with the projector mask to 1.85.

 

The other common method is to transfer the Super-16 negative to 16x9 HD (1.78 : 1) which means a little of the top & bottom of the 1.68 negative is lost in order to get the film image to fill the 16x9 frame. This 16x9 image is recorded to 35mm 4-perf as a 1.78 hard matted image. Then, again, in most theaters a 1.85 mask will be used in the projector that crops the 1.78 picture top & bottom slightly. So hopefully you would have composed for 1.85.