35mm Standard, Widescreen or Super?

[Raymond O'Neil]

First off, sorry to post such a rookie quuestion. :(

 

I am planning to buy one of those Russian 35mm cameras (Konvas) and sometimes they come with standard, widescreen or super 35mm gates.

 

I thought standard 35mm gates were also standard for the film industry? Once you shoot on standard 35mm, it can be shown on the cinema screen? Am I wrong? Does standard 35mm shoot the 4:3 and anamorphic 16:9? If one shoots standard 35mm would he/she need to convert the format in order to be shown at the theatres?

 

What is the main difference between them and when one would use each gate respectively?

 

Thank you people :lol:

[David Mullen ASC]

This is not a completely accurate way to describe things.

 

First of all, a 4-perf 35mm camera gate can either be unmatted completely, EXPOSING the "Full Aperture", or it can be matted in some way, often first by masking the soundtrack area on the left edge.

 

"Sound" apertures include 1.37 : 1 Academy Aperture, Matted Widescreen such as 1.66 : 1 to 1.85 : 1, and "anamorphic" 2.39 : 1 ("CinemaScope.") The last not to be confused with anamorphic 16x9, which is a video term, not a camera format.

 

16x9 is the same aspect ratio as 1.78 : 1 (just as 4x3 is the same aspect ratio as 1.33 : 1). You can transfer any number of film formats, "super" or not, to either 4x3 or 16x9 video and use letterboxing to create different aspect ratios other than 1.33 or 1.78 respectively.

 

"Super-35" is the same thing as exposing Full Aperture -- i.e. you are using the soundtrack area for picture information -- the difference is that you would get your lens mount optically centered for Full Aperture. Most cameras have the lens mount centered for the sound apertures (Academy / matted widescreen / anamorphic "scope") which all have the same optical center anyway. So if you set up your camera for Super-35, you'd be exposing Full Aperture with your lens centered for that. You'd put in whatever framelines you wanted in the viewfinder. Full Aperture in 4-perf 35mm is 1.33 : 1 (basically it is the same as the original Silent Era format) but most people shoot Super-35 with the intent to crop it vertically to some widescreen format, most commonly either to 2.39 for eventual release as scope prints, or to 1.78 for transfer to 16x9 video.

 

The main problem with Super-35 is that it is not a sound aperture format, so you can't make contact prints with a soundtrack added and get correct framing. If you are shooting with the intent of making prints for projection, Super-35 is ALWAYS designed to go through a conversion step to a sound aperture format for printing, either by using dupes in an optical printer, or by using a digital intermediate.

 

If you are shooting for projection and just want to contact print, I suggest that you leave the negative unmatted (Full Aperture) but the lens centered for the sound apertures (basically 1.37 Academy, 1.85 matted widescreen, or 2.39 anamorphic) and get the correct groundglass markings for one or more of those formats (1.37 / 1.85 combo is common, or a 4x3 TV / 1.85 combo.)

 

Since your negative would be Full Aperture, but you'd be framing for some sound aperture format, you'd want to shoot a framing chart that matched your camera's framelines to tell any telecine people how your material was meant to be framed. But you should always shoot a framing chart anyway.

 

So to repeat, there are basically two options for setting up your camera: lens centered for Super-35/Full Aperture or lens centered for the sound apertures. And within either choice, there are a number of framing options assuming you leave the gate unmatted.

[Raymond O'Neil]

This is not a completely accurate way to describe things.

 

First of all, a 4-perf 35mm camera gate can either be unmatted completely, EXPOSING the "Full Aperture", or it can be matted in some way, often first by masking the soundtrack area on the left edge.

 

"Sound" apertures include 1.37 : 1 Academy Aperture, Matted Widescreen such as 1.66 : 1 to 1.85 : 1, and "anamorphic" 2.39 : 1 ("CinemaScope.") The last not to be confused with anamorphic 16x9, which is a video term, not a camera format.

 

16x9 is the same aspect ratio as 1.78 : 1 (just as 4x3 is the same aspect ratio as 1.33 : 1).  You can transfer any number of film formats, "super" or not, to either 4x3 or 16x9 video and use letterboxing to create different aspect ratios other than 1.33 or 1.78 respectively.

 

"Super-35" is the same thing as exposing Full Aperture -- i.e. you are using the soundtrack area for picture information -- the difference is that you would get your lens mount optically centered for Full Aperture. Most cameras have the lens mount centered for the sound apertures (Academy / matted widescreen / anamorphic "scope") which all have the same optical center anyway.  So if you set up your camera for Super-35, you'd be exposing Full Aperture with your lens centered for that.  You'd put in whatever framelines you wanted in the viewfinder. Full Aperture in 4-perf 35mm is 1.33 : 1 (basically it is the same as the original Silent Era format) but most people shoot Super-35 with the intent to crop it vertically to some widescreen format, most commonly either to 2.39 for eventual release as scope prints, or to 1.78 for transfer to 16x9 video.

 

The main problem with Super-35 is that it is not a sound aperture format, so you can't make contact prints with a soundtrack added and get correct framing.  If you are shooting with the intent of making prints for projection, Super-35 is ALWAYS designed to go through a conversion step to a sound aperture format for printing, either by using dupes in an optical printer, or by using a digital intermediate.

 

If you are shooting for projection and just want to contact print, I suggest that you leave the negative unmatted (Full Aperture) but the lens centered for the sound apertures (basically 1.37 Academy, 1.85 matted widescreen, or 2.39 anamorphic) and get the correct groundglass markings for one or more of those formats (1.37 / 1.85 combo is common, or a 4x3 TV / 1.85 combo.)

 

Since your negative would be Full Aperture, but you'd be framing for some sound aperture format, you'd want to shoot a framing chart that matched your camera's framelines to tell any telecine people how your material was meant to be framed.  But you should always shoot a framing chart anyway.

 

So to repeat, there are basically two options for setting up your camera: lens centered for Super-35/Full Aperture or lens centered for the sound apertures.  And within either choice, there are a number of framing options assuming you leave the gate unmatted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

David,

 

thank you very much for your insight. It was very helpful, albeit too technical for mee. I will try to make sense of it :D

[Dominic Case]

standard, widescreen or super 35mm gates

These terms are confusing . . . but so are the more standard terms as well as the way gates and projector masks are used. Where do we start?

 

35mm prints don't use the full width of the film - the optical soundtrack occupies a couple of mm on the left hand side. Also they often don't use the full height available in 4 perforations of film. And "widescreen" actually isn't as wide (on the screen) as anamorphic (Panavision or Cinemascope).

 

There is about 25mm left to right between the perfs. Allowing for sound, it comes down to about 22mm. And there is a bit over 18mm height.

 

Forget about 4x3 and 16x9. Those are TV screen sizes. Cinema is usually 1.85:1 (widescreen) or 2.39:1 (anamorphic). The old standard (1.37:1) was very close to standard TV, but it hasn't been used commercially for half a century.

 

 

I found http://rafcamera.com/mca/gates/konvasgates.htm which illustrates the gates you are talking about.

 

"Widescreen" (= 1.85:1) uses the 22mm width (allowing space for the soundtrack on the side). Only about 13mm of the image height is projected, but many cameras expose a lot more (allowing different cropping for TV if you frame with that in mind). You can project a print made directly from that neg.

 

"Super 35" uses the full width (24.9mm) of the neg, and usually the full height. But you can't project alll of that. You need an optical or digital duping stage to reduce the full width to projected width, and to crop some from top and bottom - or to squeeze the image, cropping even more from top and bottom, to make an anamorphic print. The purpose of this is to avoid using anamorphic lenses on the camera, and to maximise the negative area used. Note that strictly, if you use this aperture intending to use the full width of the image, your lens won't be in he middle of the frame.

 

"Anamorphic": well, using an anamorphic lens, you expose the full height of the neg (18.7mm) and the projectable width (22mm). That gives you a negative with a physical aspect ratio of 1.18:1 and a "squeezed" image, which, when printed and projected through an anamorphic projector lens, comes out at 2.39:1 (some of these figures are rounded, some not - don't challenge my soft maths!).

 

In my view, the smartest thing is to forget about different aperture plates in the camera: the actual shape of the picture you see is determined by the projector mask, and you should have ground glasses fitted to the viewfinder to indicate that.

[John Pytlak RIP]

The camera aperture image areas are specified in standard SMPTE 59.

 

The projectable image areas on the print are specified by standard SMPTE 195 (ISO 2907).

 

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

 

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/stdsdevelopment/...2&INCLUDESC=YES

 

If you are NOT using Super-35, the prints are generally going to have the same image position as the original negative (contact printing), so the areas specified by SMPTE 195 are the areas of the negative that will end up on the theatre screen. For Super-35, the size and position of the image will be shifted by either optical printing or Digital Intermediate.

 

In general, larger image areas result in better image quality.

 

Other standards:

 

http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_text_r9...8_tcm6-4737.pdf

 

http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/tec_text_r8...0_tcm6-4781.pdf