Arri SR3, Rushes gate height have been cut?

[Sam Johnstein]

Does anybody have experience with the ARRI SR3 Advanced shooting on Super 16MM?

 

I have just got my rushes back for my film and highly confused and incredibly dissapointed with the results, in the viewfinder i was composing for 1:85:1, and have had the lab process the film at the same ratio, but I have lost alot of height from what I framed!!! The top of people heads are now cut off, and I definetly framed differently.

 

I even have pictures of the monitor from video-output as proof!

 

Is the gate height smaller then standard 1:85:1? I'm trying to work out if the Lab messed up, or I have.

[Tyler Purcell]

Super 16mm is 1.67:1 aspect ratio and it sounds like you used the stock ground glass.

 

So it sounds like a lab problem to me. You asked them to only pull something from the center of the image. This isn't a wise idea because unless your using a 1.85:1 ground glass, it's almost impossible to "compose" everything properly. You can very easily remove the stock ground glass and put some tape on it to matte it to 1.85:1 in the future.

 

On this film, you will need the lab to scan the entire image and resize in post. This is what MOST people do with 16mm because it allows for the proper re-framing. You can ask them to give you a 16x9 (1.75:1) slightly cropped image OR pillar-boxed (1.67:1) full S16mm frame image.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Super 16 is 1.66:1 so more of a "square" that is then cropped to 1.85:1 - this should be indicated on the ground glass.

 

Maybe you were led to believe that the top and bottom of the ground glass 1.66 frame were 1.85? So that when your film went through digital transfer, the top and bottom were cropped.

 

Luckily you can have your film re-scanned for the full aperture and select your 1.85 frame from that in post.

[Sam Johnstein]

Thanks guys! The groundglass 100% said 1:85, within the viewfinder. So for the full-apeture do I ask for a full apeture 16:9? Full apeture 1:85 or just full apeture?

[David Mullen ASC]

You should shoot a framing chart lined up with your 1.85 groundglass markings and look at it at the lab. 1.85 should be inside of 16x9 so even if they did a 16x9 transfer, you would have slightly more headroom not less. 1.85 is less tall than your entire Super-16 negative so there is no way to be cropping heads in a transfer unless they zoomed into the image for no reason... or your groundglass markings are incorrect for some reason, or you are following the wrong lines when framing.

 

Maybe you've got Super-16 full aperture lines all around and 1.85 inside of that but you framed for full aperture, I don't know.

 

Could you draw us a picture or take a picture somehow of all the markings in your groundglass or find an example online?

[Sam Johnstein]

Thanks David Mullen, Great idea,

 

Here is a sketch of what the ground glass looked like and how I composed the frame,

 

http://imgur.com/7GWkJMp

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, then there is no way a telecine transfer is cutting off heads unless that groundglass is misaligned or incorrect for that camera -- or they are zooming into the image in the telecine, which makes no sense. See if they can zoom out and show you the outer edges of the frame including the sprocket holes, or if not that, have them scroll half a frame up or down to show you the actual frame line so you can see how close your headroom is getting. Like I said, the best thing would be to shoot a framing chart that lines up with your groundglass marks, you can then even just hold the developed negative up to a light bulb to see if it looks like 1.85 is sitting inside the full frame correctly.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Here is an image through the viewfinder of an SR3 ground glass in an Arri 416. Did yours have any of these markings? It's very likely your transfer cropped down to HD, especially if you don't have black bars on the side of your scanned footage.

 

Edited October 6, 2015 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[Sam Johnstein]

Thanks Kenny, the groundglass was different to that,

 

Check my picture, It had the same thing in the bottom right corner but it said 185 (s16) as opposed to 166

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Oh I somehow missed your post. I'd definitely have it looked at again and even overscanned to give you the full frame with edges and all.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Kenny N Suleimanagich

[Sam Johnstein]

The bottom one is the groundglass I used, Im guessing perhaps it was missaligned? :(

 

Edited October 6, 2015 by Sam Johnstein

[Sam Johnstein]

Thank you everyone who has helped me! I'm going to contact the Lab and ask them to send me the overscan!

[Aapo Lettinen]

you can roughly test the gate/groundglass alignment in dark room by shining flashlight etc bright light to the viewfinder and projecting the image through the taking lens to a paper. Draw the markings you see, and then put some opaque material over the film gate without moving the camera and project similar image to the same paper (you can draw it with different color pencil so it clearly differs from the previous one) .

 

This way you can instantly see alignment problems and which markings actually represent the gate corners. No need to wait for a film test to be developed :)

[Aapo Lettinen]

of course does not work for arriglow markings but if the markings are directly on the ground glass it works fine :)