Printing S35mm 2.40

[Jess Dunlap]

What's the cheapest way to go from a S35mm 2.40, 4-perf negative to a release print? I've heard of doing an optical blowdown in the IP stage, which can be used to strike a regular dupe negative, but is that ridiculously expensive? It will be a 20-minute film, so around 2000' feet.

 

Also, through that process would we end up with an anamorphic 4-perf print? Or just a spherical 2.40 print within academy aperture? In the second case, is it then even worth it to shoot S35mm in the first place?

 

Thanks,

Jess D.

[Stephen Williams]

What's the cheapest way to go from a S35mm 2.40, 4-perf negative to a release print? I've heard of doing an optical blowdown in the IP stage, which can be used to strike a regular dupe negative, but is that ridiculously expensive? It will be a 20-minute film, so around 2000' feet.

 

Also, through that process would we end up with an anamorphic 4-perf print? Or just a spherical 2.40 print within academy aperture? In the second case, is it then even worth it to shoot S35mm in the first place?

 

Thanks,

Jess D.

 

Hi,

 

Why not make life easy, shoot Anamorphic & contact print? The quality will be way better for less money.

 

Stephne

[Chris Burke]

Hi,

 

Why not make life easy, shoot Anamorphic & contact print? The quality will be way better for less money.

 

Stephne

 

 

 

Would the cost of the anamorphic primes be that much more than S35 with spherical lenses? That is something I know nothing about, because otherwise, if all things are equal, shooting scope and contact printing seems to be the cheapest and best way to get a scope print.

[Stephen Williams]

Would the cost of the anamorphic primes be that much more than S35 with spherical lenses? That is something I know nothing about, because otherwise, if all things are equal, shooting scope and contact printing seems to be the cheapest and best way to get a scope print.

 

Hi,

 

Panavision have several ranges of Anamorphic lenses, Cooke Zooms with anamorphic adapters, Various Cooke converted & Lomo lenses so it should be quite possible to Shoot Anamorphic on a limited budget. Best to talk with a local rental house.

 

Stephen

[Bruce Taylor]

if all things are equal, shooting scope and contact printing seems to be the cheapest and best way to get a scope print.

 

Shooting real anamorphic for a 2.40 print you'll enjoy double the amount of negative area compared to S35 cropped for 2.40, while using the same amount of film stock. You'll get interesting anamorphic artifacts which I really like. The lenses are slower, though. Undoubtedly, as Stephen points out, for a film like yours it would be cheaper overall to shoot anamorphic to begin with, even with the additional rental costs. DIs and opticals are quite expensive.

 

Bruce Taylor

www.Indi35.com

[Jess Dunlap]

Shooting real anamorphic for a 2.40 print you'll enjoy double the amount of negative area compared to S35 cropped for 2.40, while using the same amount of film stock. You'll get interesting anamorphic artifacts which I really like. The lenses are slower, though. Undoubtedly, as Stephen points out, for a film like yours it would be cheaper overall to shoot anamorphic to begin with, even with the additional rental costs. DIs and opticals are quite expensive.

 

Bruce Taylor

www.Indi35.com

 

Thanks for the replies so far. This production has received the 35mm Panavision student grant, which comes with 12 spherical lenses. Can't argue with that! Since we had decided on 2.40 before hearing about the grant, I'm now trying to figure out a cheap, spherical way of going about this.

 

It looks like the only feasible option would be to shoot regular 35mm with a 2.40 crop (do they make these ground glasses?). Otherwise I'll have to beg Panavision to swap our lenses for anamorphics...

 

Jess D.

[Bruce Taylor]

It looks like the only feasible option would be to shoot regular 35mm with a 2.40 crop

 

Which would be... (drum roll please...) 2 perf! A perfectly fine use of a 4 perf pulldown, just uses more film-- S35 does approximately that anyway. I hope you finagle the anamorphics though.

 

Bruce Taylor

www.Indi35.com

[David Mullen ASC]

2.40 projection requires scope prints, so your spherical footage would have to be converted to a 4-perf 35mm anamorphic IN for making scope contact prints. You can do the conversion digitally with a D.I. or in an optical printer, but either way, there are extra costs involved.

[Serge Teulon]

I'm at a similar situation as yours Jess.

Shooting S35mm 2.40. The lab is saying to the producer that they don't charge extra cost on 2.40?!

I'm not complaining but I feel a bit at odds with that.....

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm at a similar situation as yours Jess.

Shooting S35mm 2.40. The lab is saying to the producer that they don't charge extra cost on 2.40?!

I'm not complaining but I feel a bit at odds with that.....

 

There shouldn't be extra lab cost to process it, telecine it, workprint it...

 

And if you were going to do a D.I. anyway, there are no extra costs if recording the digital files to anamorphic versus 1.85.

 

But there are extra costs compared to shooting in a standard sound projection format (not Super) that allows you to make contact prints with an optical soundtrack on it, i.e. standard 4-perf 35mm 1.85 or anamorphic.

[Max Jacoby]

Hi,

 

Panavision have several ranges of Anamorphic lenses, Cooke Zooms with anamorphic adapters, Various Cooke converted & Lomo lenses so it should be quite possible to Shoot Anamorphic on a limited budget.

I'd avoid anamorphic zooms, the anamorphot is almost invariably at the back of the lens, hence they just don't look as good as primes.

[Keith Mottram]

I'd avoid anamorphic zooms, the anamorphot is almost invariably at the back of the lens, hence they just don't look as good as primes.

 

Hi Max,

 

Is that the case on hawk zooms aswell?

 

Keith

[Max Jacoby]

We did some tests for my feature and found that the Hawk primes look much better than the zoom. I'd love to see more front anamorphot zooms (like Panavision's 40-80mm T2.8, a converted stills lens), because they give you the typical anamorphic look, plus the image is sharper because a bigger anamorphot can be used and the lenses can be faster also.

[Paul Bruening]

If you're stuck with PV's flat primes, will they let you shoot PV 2-perf? It sounds like you're getting only a 2-perf frame out of a 4-perf pull-down. Why not see if they'll let you get the real 2-perf savings? Can they get a hold of that 2-perf PV mechanism where you are? They might like the publicity value of that unique format in their camera.