Hunter O'Shea Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 (edited) Hey guys! I Was hoping for some advice on a project I'm about to get started on. I will be shooting some 16mm and super 8 footage on unmodified gate cameras (4:3) The plan is to incorporate this footage with 16:9 footage in a 1080 timeline and I'm wondering what my options are for scanning/cropping the film for the hd widescreen aspect ratio with the best resulting image quality and without distorting/stretching the image. Is there a way to avoid a crop altogether with a method of scan that resizes the 4:3 footage to 16:9? Is there a way I should frame the shot within the viewfinder with a horizontal crop in mind? I live in Arizona. Where would be the best place to have my film scanned/framed? Should I scan the film at the same resolution as the video? (1080) or should I go for the 2k overscan option so I have some extra room to frame myself? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm obviously very confused as this will be a new undertaking for me :) Thanks! - Hunter Edited September 10, 2015 by Hunter O'Shea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter O'Shea Posted September 10, 2015 Author Share Posted September 10, 2015 Note: I will be shooting on Kodak 50d fine grain stock using a canon scoopic. I cannot afford the ultra 16 modification or a super 16mm camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted September 10, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted September 10, 2015 You can't really fill 16x9 with a 4x3 image without stretching it, otherwise you have to crop it top & bottom to fill 16x9 or matte on the sides to fit 4x3 within 16x9. So if you are really intent on filling 16x9, I'd frame the Super-8 footage for cropping top & bottom and then transfer it to HD that way. Sure, you could make a 2K 4x3 scan and do the reframing yourself if you aren't sure you'll be able to consistently compose for equal amount of top & bottom cropping, or supervise the transfer yourself, but even with a 2K 4x3 scan, you'll have to compose with the cropping in mind anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Tyler Purcell Posted September 10, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted September 10, 2015 I've shot 1.33 16mm for many projects and blew it up to fit the proper aspect ratio in post. It's hard to figure out framing in the transfer suit, far easier when your editing. The last film I did this way was a 1920x1080 telecine and I wouldn't recommend that at all. I'd really push for a minimal of a RAW 2k scan, so you have more information to work with in color. It's also wise to frame for the proper aspect ratio during shooting. I always shot with too much head room in order to insure there wouldn't be any cropping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Site Sponsor Robert Houllahan Posted September 11, 2015 Site Sponsor Share Posted September 11, 2015 Get a 2K ( 2048 x 1556 ) data scan so you can reframe and the data scan will generally look better than a HD telecine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny N Suleimanagich Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 With 16mm you really need a 2K data scan these days. The difference between HD telecine and 2K is often pretty noticeable on the web. Web compression tends to get wonky with grain, although yours is going to be pretty tight with the 50D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Will Montgomery Posted September 11, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted September 11, 2015 Little trick on the Scoopic, there are guides in the viewfinder...might be "TV Safe". If you shoot framing with the top and bottom of those lines in mind, it will roughly be 16x9. Then scan in full 2K like Robert said (2048x1556) and you'll be able to move the frame up & down without losing sharpness/resolution in the edit. I used to have scans done in SD to DVCAM but have the colorists make it anamorphic; stretch vertically where it's still cut off as 16:9 but tell the editing software it's shot anamorphic and *poof* it was 16:9 and maxed out available pixels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perry Paolantonio Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 We do a lot of this kind of thing - as Will points out, use the guides in your viewfinder, if you've got them, so that when it's cropped you don't lose anything. That said, you do get more flexibility by scanning at 2k with no or minimal overscan. That way you have a tiny bit of left/right wiggle room when you crop (~120px), but more more up/down (about 500px). That means you can crop it yourself shot by shot and do it exactly the way you want, without having to use a one-size fits all approach when scanning and doing the crop at that stage. It's easy enough to crop in most edit systems, resolve, etc. -perry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter O'Shea Posted September 14, 2015 Author Share Posted September 14, 2015 Thank you gentlemen. I appreciate you taking your time to help me out. I will definitely frame within the tv guidelines on my scoopic and opt for a 2k scan so I have vertical room to crop in post. Glad to know the cinematography.com forum has some of the greatest minds in the world, saving the day (or at least my film) once again! - Hunter O'Shea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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