matting the 16sr

[joe_lamonica]

I am shooting a student film on an Arri 16 sr. I would love to shoot it 16X9, but am I sacrificing too much negative for it. I'm not planning on blowing back up to anything more than 16, if that. Will it look alright? I am assuming a better lens than my Zeiss 10-100 would be necessary. Comments would help. Thanks.

[David Mullen ASC]

The Super-16 format is close to the 16x9 ratio, so if you want that, I'd try and get a Super-16 camera. If this is for video only, you could compose for cropping regular 16mm to 1.78 using a letterbox if you can live with the slight loss compared to shooting in Super-16.

[Tim Carroll]

We use an ARRI SR, regular 16 to shoot 16:9 and have had no problems. We did a test with the camera, shooting a grid chart. We developed the neg and studied exactly how this particular ARRI SR framed the image. We found that the image on the negative was actually wider than the framing on the fiber optics screen. We then (very carefully) taped off the fiber optics screen to match what we saw on our first test. We then shot another test, framing in 16:9 with our new markings on the fiber optics screen, using the whole width of the negative, and brought this neg to our telecine house and had them do a test to see if they could capture the whole 16:9 image. Worked great. And since we envision the project we just shot as mainly a DVD release, and we looked at the test footage on the biggest screen TV we could find, I do not think anyone would be able to tell the difference between what we shot and the same image shot in Super 16, not in a DVD release. Blown up to 35mm would be a different story I am sure.

 

And by the way, we were using a Zeiss 10-100 T2 on the project.

 

Hope that helps.

-Tim

[joe_lamonica]

thanks so much. I am going to give it a try.