Aspect Ratios

Dominik Muench · March 4, 2005

hi,

ive got some questions regarding shooting formats. which ratio is super16mm ?

and in 35mm, we have standard 35, super 35mm and 35mm anamorphic right ? so wich one is the most "widescreen" one ? anamorphic ?

Laurent Andrieux · March 4, 2005

Super 16 is 1.66, like 1.66 35 mm, as it's designed for blow-up to 35.

35 mm academy is 1.37

35 panoramic can be 1.66 (most common in Europe) or 1.85 (more common in US)

Super 35 is, I think, 2.35, like anamorphic scope.

The widest is 2.35, of course.

Dominik Muench · March 4, 2005

so super 35 and anamorphic 35 is basically the same ratio ?

Laurent Andrieux · March 4, 2005

Super 35 is designed for widescreen I'm not too sure of its aspect ratio, I actually have never shot super 35 and I don't have my books here with me but I wouldn't be astonished if it was or was very close to 2.35 (or 2.37)

Dominik Muench · March 4, 2005

so would it be possible to shoot in super35 with anamorphic lenses or do i need anamorphic lenses to shoot super35 anyway ?

John Pytlak RIP · March 4, 2005

The image areas on the negative, projected onto a theatre screen, or transferred to video are all specified by SMPTE Standards:

http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/

The American Cinematographer Manual also has a section listing all the common format image areas.

Whether you originate in Super-35 or using anamorphic camera lenses, the aspect ratio for "scope" prints today is 2.39:1, as standard SMPTE 195 specifies the projectable image area to be 0.825 x 0.690 inches. Most theatres project 35mm "flat" as 1.85:1 (0.825 x 0.446 inches):

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en...composition.pdf

Dominik Muench · March 4, 2005

i see, thank you :)

Laurent Andrieux · March 4, 2005

so would it be possible to shoot in super35 with anamorphic lenses or do i need anamorphic lenses to shoot super35 anyway ?

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You shoot super 35 with spherical lenses or scope (anamorphic). It's a choice to make. Don,'t do both at the same time

David Mullen ASC · March 4, 2005

The confusion is that there are camera aperture ratios and projector aperture ratios.

4-perf 35mm Full Aperture (which is also 4-perf Super-35) is what was used in the Silent Era and is 1.33 : 1 (4x3). However, Super-35 is most commonly COMPOSED for cropping to 2.39 : 1 (35mm anamorphic print projection.) However, there are people composing Super-35 for 1.85 (like "Lemony Snickett" did) and for 16x9 (1.78 : 1) for HDTV transfer.

After the Silent Era, they put an optical soundtrack on the left side of the 35mm print and a projection mask to hide it, shaving the width of the image from 1.33 : 1 to something like 1.19 : 1 (Movietone Aperture.)

This looked too square, so they cut a new projector aperture that trimmed the top & bottom off too as well as the soundtrack area, creating 1.37 : 1 (Academy Aperture).

Then in the 1950's, there was Cinerama (2.66 : 1 -- three projectors connecting three images shot on three negatives) and CinemaScope (2X anamorphic squeeze onto 4-perf 35mm.) So to compete with those formats, they created projection masks that cropped Academy top & bottom even further anywhere from 1.66 : 1 to 1.85 : 1.

CinemaScope (i.e. anamorphic) changed the size of the projector aperture over the years; currently the unsqueezed image should be around 2.39 : 1 (often called 2.40 or the old 2.35 ratio.) The amount of squeezing/unsqueezing is always 2X though, so if the final image is nearly 2.40 : 1, that means the projection aperture is around 1.20 : 1 and the image has a 2X squeeze.

Now you can get a 2X squeeze by shooting with anamorphic lenses on the camera, or you can shoot with normal spherical lenses and crop & stretch the image in post (i.e. Super-35 composed for 2.39.)

Super-16 camera apertures are around 1.66 : 1 to 1.68 : 1. Usually this would get blown-up to 4-perf 35mm Academy with a 1.66 or 1.68 hard matte in the image and the projector would hide that because of the smaller 1.85 : 1 mask (so it would be a good idea to compose for 1.85 in the camera.)

Regular 16mm camera apertures are around 1.33 : 1 to 1.37 : 1.

While you could shoot Super-35 with a 2X anamorphic lens, there's no point -- you'd end up with a 2.66 : 1 image that was miscentered for anamorphic projection. It would have to be cropped to 2.40 and shifted over to the right for anamorphic projection (which is offset to the right like all sound formats: Academy & 1.85 as well.) Normally you'd shoot Super-35 with normal lenses and composed for cropping to 2.39 and then in post, you'd crop & stretch to an anamorphic image.

There is also 3-perf Super-35, which by being one perf shorter than 4-perf, creates a full aperture that is 1.78 : 1 instead of 1.33 : 1. TV shoots a lot of 3-perf and transfers it to 16x9 HD (1.78 : 1) but recently some features have also used 3-perf and composed for cropping to 2.39 : 1 (Panic Room, Underworld, The Aviator.)