Yet Another Anamorphic Question

January 23, 2004

Hi all,

I searched through the archives, and I apologoze if this has been beaten to death here, but I wasn't 100% sure what to really look for. I am new to the world of cinematography (just became interested in it).

I was watching the DVD for In The Mouth Of Madness recently with the commentary by John Carpenter and Gary B. Kibbe on (very interesting), and they mentioned in a scene that they used an anamorphic lense and it "distorted" the image. Carpenter pointed out the lamp posts, and they were curved. Now, I have seen images on video (back when I was a VHS nut) that had the image stretched to fit the screen (Die Hard), but this is the first time I ever really noticed the distortion like this.

I went through a great deal of my DVD's looking for this, and found plenty. To me, the most noticeable was in The Professional when Gary Oldman is tearing apart that kitchen and the doorframes are "bent" very noticeably.

My question is: what is the cause for this? I know that anamorphic lenses squeeze the image onto the film, that is pretty much common knowledge when you start getting into the technical aspects of film. And, I am pretty sure it is the lense that does it. But, is this "bending" only visible on your TV? Do the theatres have a special process to correct this in the projection? Is it more noticeable in wide shots? And, are there tricks to get around it?

Lots of questions, yes. Hopefully I can get some answers. Even a weblink and a simple "RTFM!!11" would suit me... I am looking for as much info as I can get. :-D

Ciao.

David Mullen ASC · January 24, 2004

That's called "barrel distortion" and it happens even in spherical lenses (like a fish-eye) but it's particular bad with some wide-angle anamorphic lenses. Oddly enough, zoom lenses that are adapted to anamorphic with a small rear cylindrical element don't have this problem as much as the wide-angle primes with a front anamorphic element.