Peter Ellner

From what I know about color film, there are only three layers capturing cyan, magenta, and yellow light, which means corresponding to red, green and blue. But violet is actually a spectral color of a shorter wavelength than blue, so how is violet light captured on film? Is it impossible? I know that digital cameras can fake violet by figuring out that violet light is striking the blue sensors and adding a little bit of red to create a purple color (purple is a mixture of red and blue, not a spectral color like violet, although they look similar to us). But film is an analog medium with no computer processing to try to match colors outside its sensitivities, so how does film actually record violet objects, and can it even do so, or do they just come out looking deep blue? Thank you so much!

I'm curious as to why anamorphic lenses make such a unique horizontal lens flare that's so recognizable? What actually causes this effect to occur? Thanks so much!

Why is it that films are matted from their actual 4:3 aspect ratio to 1.85:1, or shot in their native 4:3 aspect ratio but done so using expensive specialty anamorphic lenses? Wouldn't it make much more sense and be simpler and easier to just create and use widescreen film to shoot widescreen movies, rather than using anamorphic lenses or resorting to matting? Thanks for the insight!

I recently learned that what photographers refer as 35mm film is actually about 50% bigger than what cinematographers refer as 35mm film. Apparently, 35mm film for still photography is 36mm X 24mm, while 35mm motion picture film is around 24mm X 18mm (depending on number of perfs, etc.). This is a real shock to me, I just had no idea since I'm young and haven't experienced working with film before. But why is it that motion picture film has a 50% smaller frame size than still photography film? Thank you!

I love the beautiful lens flares in the form of radiating lines of light extending around the sun in some shots from the trailer for The Tree of Life: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thetreeoflife/ But I am very curious as to how that effect is produced by the camera, what causes it, etc. Most importantly, how can that beautiful look be achieved, not just any camera lens pointed towards the sun will produce that effect. Here's another example, but in photo form: Thank you!