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Potential dilemma to cropping regular 16mm to widescreen aspect ratios


Patrick Cooper

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For those on a small budget and can't afford a Super 16 camera or the cost of a S16 conversion, there is an alternative option that was suggested by a forum member here in the past. And that is to film on a slow speed stock like Kodak Vision 3 50D on regular 16mm and crop to 15:9 or 16:9 in post. Though thinking about this more, I can see a bit of a dilemma. Obviously, you would need a pretty high resolution scan to begin with and from what Ive heard, a 16mm 4k transfer is prohibitively expensive. So most folks would probably be going with a HD scan I would imagine. With your NLE software, you would have to "zoom" in a  huge amount to go past those two black pillars on the sides of the picture to end up with a cropped, widescreen image. And by the time you've done that, you would have lost a ton of resolution, resulting in rather soft looking footage. When it comes to exporting, the only viable option would be to output standard definition footage. 

I don't suppose there would be another way of doing this and ending up with good quality footage at a minumum of HD resolution? 

Hmmm....I wonder if some kind of anamorphic lens attachment might be another option worth exploring. 

Edited by Patrick Cooper
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Talk to Callum at Memorylab about 16mm 4K scans. I think he charges AUD$77 for 100 ft (which is less than USD $0.50/ft so cheaper than a lot of US labs), and less for bulk or students.  He has a Scanstation, very good scanner.

For a bit over a hundred bucks you could test your theories - get a HD scan and a 4K scan of the same 100’ roll, then crop down to 16:9 and see how they compare on whatever medium you’re using to sharing your films. 

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2 hours ago, Patrick Cooper said:

For those on a small budget and can't afford a Super 16 camera or the cost of a S16 conversion, there is an alternative option that was suggested by a forum member here in the past. And that is to film on a slow speed stock like Kodak Vision 3 50D on regular 16mm and crop to 15:9 or 16:9 in post. Though thinking about this more, I can see a bit of a dilemma. Obviously, you would need a pretty high resolution scan to begin with and from what Ive heard, a 16mm 4k transfer is prohibitively expensive. So most folks would probably be going with a HD scan I would imagine. With your NLE software, you would have to "zoom" in a  huge amount to go past those two black pillars on the sides of the picture to end up with a cropped, widescreen image. And by the time you've done that, you would have lost a ton of resolution, resulting in rather soft looking footage. When it comes to exporting, the only viable option would be to output standard definition footage. 

I don't suppose there would be another way of doing this and ending up with good quality footage at a minumum of HD resolution? 

Hmmm....I wonder if some kind of anamorphic lens attachment might be another option worth exploring. 

We crop Standard 16 to 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 all the time. 

We scan at 4000x3000 and then crop the top and bottom in post. 

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7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

Talk to Callum at Memorylab about 16mm 4K scans. I think he charges AUD$77 for 100 ft (which is less than USD $0.50/ft so cheaper than a lot of US labs), and less for bulk or students.  He has a Scanstation, very good scanner.

For a bit over a hundred bucks you could test your theories - get a HD scan and a 4K scan of the same 100’ roll, then crop down to 16:9 and see how they compare on whatever medium you’re using to sharing your films. 

Those prices seem very attractive for 4k scans. I guess he transfers negative films and can offer the option of colour grading?

Currently, I don't own an operational 16mm camera (my K3 died some time ago.) And I don't know the whereabouts of the 16mm films that I have shot in the past. I do have some super 8 films that have been transferred to HD and 4k. I guess with one of the 4k scans, I could export a HD version and crop both the 4k and HD clips and compare.

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7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

We crop Standard 16 to 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 all the time. 

We scan at 4000x3000 and then crop the top and bottom in post. 

Ah yes, that's the kind of resolution I would expect to be ideal for such cropping. I guess you export as HD?

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4 hours ago, Simon Wyss said:

The cheapest solution is to forget about aspect ratios wider than 4:3 and make interesting films instead. Four to three is the most dynamic format there is, it suits movement best.

Good point! All of my film footage (super 8 and 16mm) has been shot in 4:3 and generally, I'm fine with that. However, if I want to use 16mm in a commercial manner, others may not be so keen on that particular aspect ratio. For example, I notice with contemporary TV content, 4:3 is pretty rare.

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I tend to agree with Simon. With digital cinema AR is less and less relevant. You'll see documentaries with the archive left at 4:3. Much better that fake widescreen barbarously cropped. But it does suggest a period look nowadays.

I think "Wycliffe" (1995-ish) was the first UK drama to be shot in 16:9, protected I think for the intermediate 14:9. If you can get to see some episodes it's an interesting study in how cinematographic grammar was changing to accommodate widescreen TV- sizes of closeups, etc. plus it's got Jack Shepherd in it.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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I guess it all depends on what the project's about.  4:3 is ideal for anything that shows height or tallness (think IMAX).  Or for fast cutting of faces etc. And on TV nowadays there seems more freedom of allowing different ratios within a show, whereas before they may have cropped the 4:3 footage.

Or if widescreen is desired, I don't know if you've considered Ultra-16 as a cheaper alternative to S16  (usually easier to mod).  So then you'd have 1.85:1 ratio.  Possibly wider,  without going anamorphic.

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1 hour ago, Giray Izcan said:

Unfortunately, u16 really limits you in terms of post. You are bound to one or two labs that handle the format. 

Just about any film processor can develop Ultra-16mm without damaging the area between the perfs, I don't think any lab worldwide is running a Sprocket drive film processor at this point.

I also don't know of any lab which does not have a Scan Station and scanning U-16mm is a pretty basic framing setup on the Scan Station.

We often do 16:9 or 1.1.85 cropped scans of Standard 16mm and as long as the lens is good and the exposure is right they can look really fantastic.

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16 hours ago, Patrick Cooper said:

Ah yes, that's the kind of resolution I would expect to be ideal for such cropping. I guess you export as HD?

We scan full frame 4000x3000, no overscan, we scan so the original frame fills the digital file. 

Then we put it in a 4000x2466 timeline which is 1.66:1 (roughly) aspect ratio and edit/deliver in that format mostly. Reframing as we go along. 

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I mentioned earlier Regular 16 or 4:3 for faces... also ideal for any kind of closeups where too much space either side becomes merely a distraction.   Hopefully that is recognised commercially also, and I think I've noticed recently some 4:3 content in TV ads.

Thanks Robert for Ultra-16 scanning information.  I wonder how far is possible either side. I managed to go out further (2:1 approx) without hitting the dreaded edge-markings, but only by going into the non-perf area that S16 would normally use.  So I guess that wider ratio would scan OK?

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