Widescreen bars

[PJBarry]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm shooting a film on 16 mm for eventual edit and transfer to dvd. I'm only about a fourth done at the moment. Anyway, I kind of want to put the widescreen bars at the top and bottom for the final cut. I watched some footage I shot with and without the bars and it doesn't cut anything significant out.

 

My camera doesn't do Super 16 or I would have done that. I know it sounds kinda gimmicky but I love widescreen and after watching some of my older films on standard TV format, I really prefer widescreen. I know you can never be sure of the limits of the right/left sides of the screen but, if it is in widescreen, you can at least be sure of the top/bottom cut offs.

 

Anyway, I'm rambling, but I wanted some outside opinions.

 

Thanks guys (and gals)

Patrick

[John Pytlak RIP]

Certainly you can "extract" a 16:9 or other widescreen "letterbox" image from a normal 4:3 16mm frame, but you are magnfying the image more, so grain and sharpness will not be as good as shooting Super-16 to begin with.

 

Standard SMPTE 96M-1999 specifies the image areas transferred to video for all combinations of formats:

 

http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/

[PJBarry]

So, do I need to tell the lab that I want it widescreen? And they'll telecine it that way?

 

Is that what you are saying? Or just put bars on it? Because don't some newer HD tvs automatically adjust for widescreen?

 

Thanks,

Patrick

[John Pytlak RIP]

It depends on the telecine being used, but most transfer houses should be capable of letterboxing a standard 16mm transfer.

[PJBarry]

ok, thanks John! I'll look into it!

 

Patrick

[Rachel Oliver]

Maybe you should do it in post if you can so you still have the choice? Once it's transfered in letterbox your stuck with it and if you are using a standard 16mm frame to compose with you may not always get away with the crop.....

Olly

[Eric Steelberg ASC]

If you want widescreen your only option seems to be to lay down the bars in telecine. What you can do is if when you're transferring and you have cut off something you want to see at the top or bottom with the letterbox, you do have the ability to re-frame the image up and down so that you are no longer cutting anything off. And this can be done on individual shots. It's similar to shooting Super 35.

 

You'll need to tell whoever is doing your transfer what aspect ratio you want it letterboxed for. I wouldn't suggest doing anything more than 1.78 which is HDTV. Normal Super 16 is 1.66 so that would be a little bit more. But unless your there and have a supervised session you run the risk of having things cut off. The lower the aspect ratio the less likely you are to cut anything off.

 

John, I'm not sure what you mean by having to zoom in. I think he just wants to crop. Though I would definitely agree with Super 16 being much better quality.

[John Pytlak RIP]

If you are filling the width of a 16:9 video image, you definitely have to magnify a regular 16mm image more than Super-16, so grain and sharpness will not be as good.

[Michael Nash]

Well, we're talking about a couple different scenarios here. You could transfer to 16:9 video, in which case you don't need any letterboxing unless you want a 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio within the 16:9 (1.85:1 is so close to 16:9 that you often don't need to mask any of the image). Either way, the 16:9 anamorphic video is automatically squeezed vertically and letterboxed by the DVD player when viewed on a 4:3 TV. And when transferring to 16:9 video, yes standard 16 has to be magnified more than Super16 to fill the width.

 

The other scenario is transferring to 4:3 video, where you would have to add the letterboxing and possibly reposition the image. Telecine is usally the best place to do this since it gives you the cleanest image and the most flexibility. But it's also possible to add letterboxing and reposition the image vertically afterwards in video post. In a high end tape-to-tape online room you can get good results; with less expensive systems you'll lose a little resolution.

 

And since you're just masking the 4:3 footage, you're not magnifying anything compared to the original 4:3 video original. It's just that Super16 would give you more negative area to fill up the letterboxed image.

 

Most 16:9 TV's these days give you the option to frame multiple ways from multiple aspect ratio originals. TOO many options it seems, since often times it's done wrong. Sometimes you'll see someone playing the 4:3 version of a movie from DVD, on a 16:9 TV and telling the TV to blow up the image to fill the screen vertically. The whole thing comes out framed wrong and with a drop in resolution.

 

So if you create a 16:9 anamorphic video master, a 16:9 TV will display the intended framing just fine (except for some possible edge cropping). If you create 4:3 video master, letterboxing will offer you some protection that the aspect ratio will be viewed correctly, but no guarantee.

 

In any case, it would be good to shoot a framing chart for use in post, and try to shoot all your remaining material within that framing. Since you like the look of your existing footage when letterboxed, you should probably frame for "common center"; that is cropped equally top and bottom. Without proper viewfinder markings, just leave a little extra room past your subjects top and bottom when shooting.