Adam Frisch FSF

This is turning in to a war of aspect ratios. That wasn't my intention. I love scope and have shot my fair share of it. I do like 16x9 framing on a 16x9 TV and so on. For the big screen I've always been a sucker for cinemascope, the wider the better. I'm just fighting the fight of letting 4x3 be 4x3 on 4x3 TV at times. Or at least not be looked as a pervert for suggesting to shoot in it...

This is sooo much nicer... 4x3 ....than this.. 16x9 It's airy, open and doesn't look like it's trying to hard. Don't you agree?

Well yes, Tony. I like 4x3 for it's purity - it's all image. And it lends itself very well to certain types of promos with a lot of sky/ceiling or floor/ground. I love it. I didn't a couple of years ago, but now I'm a complete convert. What annoys me with letterboxing for TV is this: it makes perfect sense IF your product is made for the big screen or for both. I certainly am no proponent of airing widescreen movies in 4x3, in fact, pan 'n' scan should be outlawed. But if the product is made for TV and ever only is going to be shown on a TV, why the h*** have black bars interfering with your presentation? But wait! I know the answer already, see, this was a one of those sneaky rhetorical questions: people dig letterboxing for ONE reason only and that's because it subliminally signals to them "this is FILM, this is made for the big screen, this cost a lot of money". It's just one problem with that - every single kid who's ever done a Hi8 movie and edited his film on a computer, the absolutely first thing they do is slap a scope letterbox on it so it looks like "film". Ain't fooling me, though. In fact, it's so common these days that it instantly signals, at least to me, "trying-to-fool-you-into-thinking-this-is-film-and-was- expensive-to-shoot-when-in-fact-we-made-it-in-my-mum's-cellar-for-a-dollar-fifty". 4X3 is progressive, it's fresh (again), it's unique, it sticks out! Join the new trend!

So, how do I do if I absolutely, positively want to shoot something to be shown in full frame (4X3)? With this system, that seems to be impossible.

Ok, I was talking about the terrestrial analogue broadcasting. It might be 16x9 for digital. If so, how does digital look on a 4x3 (or12x9, if you lean that way) TV? I don't get it. 99,99999999% world still has 4x3 TV's, why broadcast a format that looks wrong on it? Or does the set-top box convert it to 4x3?

Phil? Every TV channel here brodcasts 4x3, but they might show the original aspect ratios. But maybe that's what you meant? They're certainly not 16x9 widescreen.

That's it, I'm moving to features. Anybody need a DP for a Z-grade horror flick shot in Romania in winter for Full Moon Entertainment? ;)

Fascinating read, David!

It's time to dispel some irritating myths that have crept into the filmworld, highlighted by a recent misunderstanding on a shoot I did. In this particular case it was s-16 we shot. Being a big fan of the 4x3 full frame format, I suggested we use this for the promo. The director agreed. He is however very inexperienced and probably didn't fully understand the implications. We passed this briefly by the producer (he says he has no recollection of that) who also agreed, but remarked "but we'll telecine for 16x9". Here's where I made my mistake: I though he meant telecine it an anamorphically (which makes no sense for 4x3, but hey, what do I know, maybe that's how they do it here?). I shot and protected for 4x3 in my s-16 frame. We telecine in 4x3 and everybody is happy, client, director producer. Nobody says a thing, it's kisses and handshakes all around. After they arrive at the editor, that's when hell breaks loose. "Did you tell the telecine guy to lay it down as 4x3?" "Yeah, that's what we agreed upon, no? Just like you saw it in telecine." "No, first I heard of that. Man, you have to check these things with me first. Now we have to redo it" "Redo it? Why telecine a 4x3 image in 16x9. It makes no sense?" "You always telecine in 16x9. Always!" Creeping suspicion now coming to me at an alarming speed.. "But I didn't protect for s-16, only for 4x3", I say. Long story short, I got my ass chewed off for not shooting in "16x9" and they layed it down again. First of all, on a personal but minor level, what pisses me off is that everyone kind of assumes that you don't know what you're doing when you're shooting s-16 in 4x3. It's like your breaking some cardinal sin. Remarks like "You're throwing away half the neg!" and people going "You know that zooming on the neg to get to 4x3 in telecine will degrade the image, don't you?" (this particular remark is absolutely horribly untrue - there is zero difference in size between a n-16 neg and using the 4x3 area of a s-16 neg). Aspect ratios are a creative choice one makes. It's funny how the same guys don't think twice to crop a s-16 image to 2.40:1 to get that "feature film"-feeling (as they like to call it), but go out of their minds when one suggests to shoot in 4x3. But this is just a minor irritant on my behalf, not the end of the world. What however is the end of the world, is that somehow, somewhere, people in the biz now thinks that s-16 is 16x9. It's not. It's 15x9. I just think it's time to be really, really clear when one talks about 16x9. It's an aspect ratio, nothing else. But due to all the widescreen DVD's out there, there's now a understanding that 16x9 means anamorphically squeezed. This is f***ing everyone up, including myself as I should have caught the producers remark about telecine in 16x9. It was a classic example of misunderstanding on every level. I'm now overruled and deemed almost mad for even suggesting shooting 4x3 on a s-16 neg. The video is now in "16x9" as they call it, when in reality it is in 15x9 (and I just can't muster the strenght to have ABC in aspect ratios with a producer at this point). Not only that, all my compositions are f***ed up since I never composed for that. Some shots had to be zoomed into (at video resolution no less, to make things even worse) to get rid of stands and track and gear and other various stuff on the sides. Madness, all because they so vehemently hate 4x3. All this could have been avoided if people just had a little bit of TASTE. Lesson learned? Make it VERY clear what aspect ratio you're shooting for, especially if it's the great satan himself, the big, bad, old 4x3. And do tell people that s-16 isn't 16x9, will you?

I think I heard somewhere that Ballhaus got $25.000 a week for Gangs Of New York plus overtime. Doesn't sound massive until you start adding up how many weeks they shot... After 5 months of that day in day out it kind of adds up!

Rear-of-zoom-anamorphic-adapters are an inexpensive way to get into cinemascope. And the russians OPF's are pretty good. But all ROZA's have a couple of problems: They're in effect extenders or doublers, making them steal a lot of light. Usually around 2 stops. Factored in with the fact that the zoom you're sticking it to probably is pretty slow, you'll end up with a seriously slow lens. Often in the T5,5-T8 region. Ouch! Secondly, and this is the clincher for me, they don't have those beautiful oval out of focus rings since the anamorphization happens in collimated light at the back. But hey, Apocalypse Now was shot with lots of anamorphic zooms, so who knows...

Agree with Phil. 2K is not enough and 4K is. You could scan in 6K or 8K or whatever really, but it wouldn't do much good except take up hard disc space. Then there's the whole Nyquist-thing which says you should oversample by a 100 percent.....

Great movie. Brilliantly shot by Kimball. He's one of my heroes - I love his earlier work. His smoky, hazy work on Revenge is fabulous and the work he did on Jacob's Ladder is equally great. His later work hasn't wooed me in the same way.

Grainy? Up until 6 months ago when Kodak came with the Vision 2's, nobody could claim that Fuji was grainier than Kodak. Now all of a sudden 6 months later Fuji is unusable? It's ludicrous. Who makes up all these "thruths"?

If it's 16mm I'd go for the Spirit, it beats all the CRT scanners hands down on that format. For 35mm, it's not as important - they all do a good job there. Most importantly - get a good colorist. It's worth some extra bucks.

I might add that the "good enough" mentality has been permeating (sp?) the film industry for 10 years now. I remember reading the article about Broken Arrow almost 10 years ago and the visual effects guys and DP Peter Levy were lamenting about the fact that they had to do certain effect shots in "just 2K" as opposed to the standard 4K. Ten years on, EVERYTHING is done in 2K. That's devolution, not evolution. Hard to come to grips with the fact that the effects on a film like Jurrasic Park looks a lot sharper and snazzier than anything made today. I can recall only one film done in 4K the last years, and that was Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (at the insistence of DP Rousselot), and it shows. Fortunately, 4K is coming back with a vengeance. What's my point? Well, only that if you liked the way every effect-heavy film has looked the last 10 years at 2K, then a film-to-HD-to-film solution should be good enough, since HD is ludicrously close to 2K in resolution. I personally agree - HD is good enough. Not perfect, not brilliant, not what you'd expect from producers spending $50million and upwards, but good enough for everyone else. Tell you what, If I ever shoot my own low budget 35mm feature, I'd definitely telecine to DVCPRO HD and then Firewire it into my Final Cut Pro. Do all my editing, effects, titles and sound design on a friggin' laptop! That's brilliant.

David, how would this be any worse an option as the straight shoot-on-HDCAM and print to film that we see every day now? If anything, it would look better than that since it originated on a higher rez format, no?

The Kinor isn't big, but it is heavy. Especially the older 35H - it's beastly. The grey 35II is much lighter and nimbler, but is still quite heavy. Interesting about that 2-perf BNCR. It would be great if Arri or Aaton could start making 2-perf movements for their cameras. Just imagine the new Arri 235 with the 200ft mags - perfect for 2-perf. It would probably become so quiet by having to pull less film, that very little, if any, sound blimping would have to be used. I recall someone telling me years ago that the 2-perf converted 2C's were very quiet. Maybe you can tell us if that's true at all?

Thanks a lot, Max!

Of corse it's a matter of taste, I didn't want to suggest anything else. I've shot quite a bit with the Lomo's and I like them (haven't got much to compare to except the older Lomo's). The 35mm is hideous, though. Check out the last image from the gallery at this link, it was a completely square cutout of a wall we were traveling through, but as you can see the're isn't a straight line in the frame. Various focal lenghts I also tried a one-of-a-kind 22mm anamorphic Lomo lens years ago and boy, did that bend!! But as David said, you can basically shoot an entire movie with the 50mm, 75mm and the 100mm.

Someone here mentioned how one shouldn't shy away from wide angle lenses in anamorphic. The problem is that most wide angle anamorphics have so much distortion and barreling going on, they take me right out of the picture. I think the Royal Tannenbaums was shot on a 40mm exclusively, and as I recall it didn't have severe barreling, but it was noticeable. But films like Luc Bessons and many others look like freakshows many times (although I do like them very much in some kind of twisted way) At the end of the day, it's down to personal taste. On a most personal level, I think spherical lenses are quite hideous at very wide focal lenghts too. I can't stand the 10, 12 and 14mm and I rarely use the 18mm. North of 20mm something magic happens - everything just looks right. And that goes for anamorphic for me as well: from 50mm and upwards they start to look like lenses should..

Actually, the mags in the Kinors have an independent take-up electric motor (just like the big 1000ft mag in 435 has) that drives the take-up spindle with a rubber belt. So no adjustment is really needed in the mag, since it will just slip a little bit more. You could probably solder in a small resistance before the motor if you want it to run a bit slower to save the belt.

Actually, it's the Konvases that are almost impossible to convert, due to their one-slab-all-machined movement. The Kinor has a straighforward Mitchell movement like the Panavision (but as you said, looks like a Moviecam), so basically all one has to do is change the size of the wheel on the driving shaft. That reminds me, why not talk to Panavision LA?. I know for a fact that they converted at least one camera for Cameron's Titanic so he didn't have to surface to reload.. It's probably still around, opr at least the movement is. All they have to do is pop it in. You can see me and the 2-perf Kinor in action on a mountainside at this link (I'm the unshaven fella in the blue jacket): Kinor 2-perf

I have a set of older russian primes that I'd like to convert to PL some day. I'd love to have them with me on commercials or promos, they just have such an organic feel to them. And they flare very nicely. And cover super-35, even though they're 35 years old... Who needs Ultra Primes anyway? The old High Speeds are still my favorite set of lenses, although I'm about to use the Cooke S4's on a commercial soon..

I can report that the Nortlight film scanner also handles 2-perf, if anyone wants to go that route. As for cameras, they're hard to come by. If you need to rent in europe cheaply, my friend has converted a russian Kinor to shoot the format. I did a pilot for BBC last year with the actor Brian Blessed (unfortunately, BBC didn't go ahead with it), where all the "beauty" shots were shot on film, including Brian's introduction to the series (if one could label him a beauty...) in his minimal dressing room at the Palladium Theathre in London. We lugged that camera in backpacks to the highest peaks in the Lake district and and Snowdonia in Wales for some beautiful vistas. It worked flawlessly (except for the batteries that were homemade, it does however accept standard XLR4 power sources), but of course it has it's own lens mount. I think the russian lenses are very good, but the whole package might scare some techheads off because, well, it's russian... Let me know if you need to contact him.