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16:9 anamorphic for Netflix (Animal Kingdom Season 5)


Pete Raynell

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Hi there, 

Recently a director approached me wanting to shoot with 2x anamorphic glass, but with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

I have done this before on the Alexa SXT shooting  6:5 4K Cine Anamorphic 2.0x mode, but it doesn't leave a great deal of resolution to play with.

I noticed recently that Netflix here is Australia is showing season 5 of the drama Animal Kingdom, from everything I can find online it looks like they shot on Alexa mini S35 with Panavision T series lenses.

 

I'm curious how they get around the Netflix 4k requirement in this situation? Any ideas? As all the 16:9 anamorphic options I can see with this camera / lens combination still leave you with an HD final image or slightly larger.

 

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Thanks David, 

Interesting to know, so am I understanding correctly that the Netflix 4k requirement only applies to the acquisition format of Netflix originals? And they are happy to stream sub 4k deliverables for programs brought from other studios?

I still find it hard to believe that a modern drama such as Animal Kingdom would be delivering at such low res these days, it seems a big compromise just to get the 2x anamorphic look in 16:9 but I'm sure they had their reasons!

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Well, there are other camera systems on which you could shoot 2:1 anamorphic and still have a 4K effective sensor on a 16:9 image, although whether the anamorphic lenses involved are actually capable of sufficient MTF to satisfy a 4K sensor is another matter entirely.

Certainly Netflix have acquired and distributed non-4K material, but in general I would suggest this is a question for your producer.

P

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9 hours ago, Pete Raynell said:

Interesting to know, so am I understanding correctly that the Netflix 4k requirement only applies to the acquisition format of Netflix originals? And they are happy to stream sub 4k deliverables for programs brought from other studios?

In my experience, yes. But it's been a while since I worked on a Netflix show.

I believe Panavision can modify T-series anamorphic lenses for use on full frame cameras, too. 

It shouldn't be that soft. 2880X1620 is around 4.7 megapixels and a center crop of 2880X2160 would be around 4.1 I think. 

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