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I did a bad mistake shooting anamorphic ...


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Hi everybody!

 

I have to confess that i did a really stupid mistake shooting a graduation short with Alexa Studio and 2x anamorphics. It was my first time shooting anamorphic.

 

I had a ground glass showing different formats and wasn't sure which line shows my actual framing. So i was checking the monitor to see the camera output to make sure. What i dind't know is that the camera apparently produces not a 2.39 Cinemascope image but a 1.33 x 2 = 2.66 image that has to be cropped in post to fulfill the dcp standard.

 

So i was framing at 1:2.66 an now have the option to crop the image or save it's width and project it with black bars on top and bottom. The film has a lot of motion so with some post-pans i should get along but still it's painfull.

 

What do you think about the consequences of having a 2.39 DCP with a 2.66 letterbox? I don't mind projecting black that much, but i really fear that the projectionist will start moving the curtains during the film thinking he's done a fault...

 

I guess the film has chances to be shown at 20-40 (smaller) festivals. What would you do?

 

Thanks a lot,

jonas

 

 

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The projectionist can't really screw it up because the borders are above and below 2.40 and theaters generally don't design screen masking to crop to 2.66 : 1. The curtains only come in from the sides so if the projector is filling the width of the screen, there is no reason for the projectionists to close in the curtains.

 

So just show it as a letterboxed 2.66 image within the 2.40 DCP if that's what it was composed for. Since it's only a few festivals, just send a note to the projectionist that the 2.66 letterbox is correct.

 

Unless you think you can make a cropped 2.40 version that looks fine.

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It's the originally intended anamorphic aspect ratio... And, if you finish at 4K, you gain vertical resolution!

 

Is there an advantage to shooting 2.39 video anamorphically? I saw "Chef" in theaters and it didn't look bad but the resampling required just seems risky. I've heard that there are plans for 1.8x anamorphic lenses but you're still resampling by a non-integer multiplier on one axis. It seems to me that we should have just been using 21.29*17.78mm sensors, to begin with, since that's 35mm cine lenses are designed to cover.

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Thank both of you a lot! That was very helpful.

 

For anyone who is interested in this:

 

Cole, i see what you mean. Sure, we could finish in 4K but in almost any cinema it would be shown as 2K since they usually don´t have 4K projectors, right? So the image would be downscaled again. I don´t know the technique behind this process, so i can´t assume which of the following scenarios will give the best image quality ...

 

The Alexa 2K 4:3 ProRes output is 2048x1536

 

1 4096x1716 1:2.66 (Letterbox)

Horizontal stretch: 200% I Vertical stretch: 0%

Overall stretch by the projection-system: -50%

 

2 4096x1716 1:2.39

Horizontal stretch: 224% I Vertical stretch: 112%

Overall stretch by the projection-system: -50%

 

3 2048x858 1:2.66 (Letterbox)

Horizontal stretch: 0% I Vertical stretch: -50%

Overall stretch by the projection-system: 0%

 

4 2048x858 1:2.39

Horizontal stretch: 112% I Vertical stretch: -44%

Overall stretch by the projection-system: 0%

 

 

 

I would guess, that on a 2K projector option 3 would ave the most sharpness, right?

I could run a test, but that´s quiet a lot work.

 

Thank you!

Jonas

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