Shooting 35mm Anamorphic 2x squeeze

Arseni Khachaturan · October 10, 2015

Hi everyone,

i am in pre-production for the short film we will be shooting in Caucasus mountains this winter.

We are shooting 35mm 5222 black and white film, and i want to get Hawk anamorphic lenses with 2x squeeze from Paris.

The camera they have in a local rental is Arri 435 Xtreme (4 perf). I'm in touch with the local AC and what he says is that the camera doesn't have an anamorphic viewfinder, also it does not have anamorphic matte glass and arri glow.

I'm trying to figure out how to solve this issue, maybe somebody can help me out? If the lens squeezes the image into 4:3 academy frame - then what should be the matte glass/ground glass/ gate installed inside of the camera? And if it doesn't have an anamorphic viewfinder (we are shooting steadicam anyway) - can i get an unsqueezed image on the monitor and playback just through the monitor?

I would appreciate any tips and help.

Thanks

Matthias Fleischer · October 10, 2015

Hi, I think there is a groundglass for anamorphic shooting - probably not available at the rental house.

An additional viewfinder extension would provide you with a desqueeze option - but if anyway you only need a desqueezed monitor image there are many monitors available with this option, for example the TVlogic 058w as a small one.

Very important: the steadicam operator's monitor should provide this feature as well.

Good luck in beautiful caucasus region!

David Mullen ASC · October 10, 2015

The 4-perf 35mm anamorphic aperture is the width of Academy but the height of Full Aperture / Super-35. Academy is 1.37 : 1 and anamorphic is 1.20 : 1 (taller) -- when unsqueezed, the image becomes 2.40 : 1.

If you lens/mount is centered for Academy/1.85/anamorphic/sound, then I suppose you could compose with the Academy groundglass compensating for the fact that the picture actually goes to the top & bottom of the full aperture area more or less.

If your lens/mount is centered for Super-35/silent/full, then I suppose you could find a 1.33 Super-35 full aperture groundglass and remember that you'd have to trim the sides, plus that you'd have to go through a D.I. since your image is not properly centered if you wanted to make a contact print off of the negative for direct projection.

Or just get the rental house to subrent a proper anamorphic groundglass.

Satsuki Murashige · October 10, 2015

A proper anamorphic ground glass is ideal. With that, I think you would eventually get used to composing a squeezed image through the viewfinder. If the rental house can't get the correct ground glass, then could you get them to at least tape off the ground glass to the correct dimensions or mark it with pencil? You don't need to change the gate at all, the 435ES should have a full aperture gate which will be just fine. Always better to record more area than less. Not having Arriglow is inconvenient but not critical.

What video tap is installed on the camera? I'm assuming it's a standard def composite video tap, so you'd have to use a monitor with an desqueeze function built in or a converter box between the tap and the monitor that will perform the desqueeze for you. There are a lot of current on-board monitors with that functionality but they are usually HD-SDI or HDMI, not composite.