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Princes in CinemaScope


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So last night I went to see Prince Caspian. And while I thought the picture show its self was good, there were some things that distracted me.

 

First of, I had read somewhere recently that houses with only one projector would sometimes run scope and flat trailers at the head of the film. The theatre I went to last night (second run A-films for $1.50 yay) did this. However Caspian was an CinemaScope film. I could only tell when the sun shon in brightly enough to cause the classic anamorphic light artifact.

 

The question I have is: Why did some trailers show flat (but not streeeeetched) in a 4:3 with black bars on the side AR, and the actual scope trailers filled the screen (which was curved oddly enough*)

 

If you show a flat picture through an anamorphic lens, does it not get stretched out?

 

I do know there was no one in the projection booth, because there was no lens change between spots. There was a brief adjustment of the gate, and that was it. I also know that whoever assembled this film did a horrid job. There was even a 1/2 frame splice, which made everyone jump when the loud POP from the accompanying sound track cut through the very solemn sequence. That's about enough ranting.

 

 

Any thoughts?

 

JRY

 

*I think I recall that anamorphic pictures should be shown on a curved screen. I remark that this theatre had a curved screen at all because it is a second run house and was (as far as I know) never built to run first releases. It is only about 1/2 a mile from the 16 screen Regal (my [overpriced] favorite). Perhaps the builders had some sense...

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The question I have is: Why did some trailers show flat (but not streeeeetched) in a 4:3 with black bars on the side AR, and the actual scope trailers filled the screen (which was curved oddly enough*)

 

If you show a flat picture through an anamorphic lens, does it not get stretched out?

 

The trick is to print squeezed trailers of non-widescreen movies.

The picture doesn't fill the entire width of the Scope frame. Though it probably is a 1.85:1 image instead of 1.37:1, which is still considered widescreen.

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The trick is to print squeezed trailers of non-widescreen movies.

The picture doesn't fill the entire width of the Scope frame. Though it probably is a 1.85:1 image instead of 1.37:1, which is still considered widescreen.

 

So what your saying is that the 'scope' trailers were shone through an anamorphic lense (or something) and the flat trailers were actually squeezed, then unsqueezed to look 4:3?

 

OR they were really masked like that in the camera and the 4:3 ones were full frame but not wide screen (hence the black bars?)

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So what your saying is that the 'scope' trailers were shone through an anamorphic lense (or something) and the flat trailers were actually squeezed, then unsqueezed to look 4:3?

 

The lab prints two batches of the trailer or commercial. The lab I worked at usually printed commercials for theatres. One batch is flat, the other has been printed from an optically squeezed dupe negative.

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