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2-perf, 3-perf or 4-perf?


Martin Hong

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I want my framing and compotition to be on 1.78 ... that's why i'm asking what equipment will i need 

tell me something more ... i have never experience with 35mm cameras ... when i see via the viewfinder .. the frame lines is just like the "safe margins" .. or they hard mate the frame so i see ONLY what is is inside the 1.78 area 

it's confusing for me to compose with lines and the outisde area be visible .. 

 

 

Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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1 hour ago, panagiotis agapitou said:

so for 4 Perf on Standard Acafemy i need this mask on the ARRICAM/ARRIFLEX 535b .. right ??

1-78MASK.png 

and wich ground glass ?? The 1.78 trans or the 1.78 + 1.55. + 1.33 CCG

The straight 1.78 ground glass is what you want, the other one has added aspect ratio marks which were useful when people were framing with several display formats in mind (ie 16:9 HD TVs and also older 4:3 screen TVs).

As David mentioned, you don't really need to mask the gate, but that is the correct mask if you really want to.

You can shoot 1.78 in 3 perf N35, as described in the 3 perf column of the N35 TV 1.78 trans ground glass page.

There is a small extended viewing area outside the 1.78 frameline, which is useful to see if a boom or something is about to enter the frame, the grey area is masked.

I don't know if Arri still sells all these obscure variations of ground glass, you may need to just use what the camera comes with or what you can find. Shooting N35 to exactly match the view of Kubrick's focal lengths, but then also wanting to frame for the modern 16:9 aspect ratio seems like a futile exercise to me - you're creating hurdles for no real reason. If you have no experience with 35mm, make your first efforts as hassle-free as possible I reckon. S35 1.78 ground glasses will be much easier to find.

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16 minutes ago, Dom Jaeger said:

Shooting N35 to exactly match the view of Kubrick's focal lengths, but then also wanting to frame for the modern 16:9 aspect ratio seems like a futile exercise to me - you're creating hurdles for no real reason. 

Kubrick shot on Standard 35mm Academy on many ratios ...

The Killing 1.33 

Paths of glory 1.33 

Lolita 1.66 

Dr strangelove 1.33/1.66 {VARIABLE) 

Clockwork orange 1.66 

Barry Lyndon 1.66 

The Shining 1.33 (with framelines to compose also for the 1.85 theatrical)

Full metal Jacket 1.33 (with framelines to compose also for the 1.85 theatrical)

Eyes Wide shut 1.33 (with framelines to compose also for the 1.85 theatrical) 

 

He used the same lenses for 1.33 or the 1.66  (and the  1.85 compromise)... but different framings 

so if i have the perspective he had i can frame on 1.78 .. 

it may sound silly .. but it works for me ... 

 

Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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Personally i think that if Kubrick was alive he would compose for 1.78 .. to fit excactly the TVs and Laptops 

The home release is the important .. the one that most people will see .. 

The theatrical presentation is a so amazing experience that the crop or bar sacrifice is in fact very little 

But on a home release is the opposite

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On 4/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Here is the problem... if you're going back to film, then you want an academy gate AND ground glass. This way, when you're making prints, the area for the soundtrack has no information, thus the lab doesn't have to do any work to block that area off in the printer. Lucky for you, on the Arri's it's easy to change the gate and ground glass. 

1)  I'd just look for a 1.85:1 ground glass and an Academy gate for whatever camera you're going to be using. Re-centering of the lens is not necessary, unless the lens used is only designed to cover academy, which is super rare. Remember, the projectors will be matted to 1.85:1, not 1.75:1 so trying to get all of this to work at 1.75:1 is kinda silly. 

2+3) I don't know if the Arricam's can shoot Academy, but I would assume the answer is yes because it's not a big deal. As long as they made the parts (ground glass and gate) then it should work fine. 

You won't find an "academy gate" for a 535 or any Arri camera since the 90s. Modern Arris use gate masks on a full aperture gate. You can see them pictured in the format guide I linked to earlier.

You re-centre the lens mount very easily on modern Arris by turning the mount 180 degrees.  Centring prevents zooms from tracking off to the side, and distortion being more visible on one side than the other, as well as preventing possible vignetting from lenses with a small image circle. 

Of course Arricams can shoot academy - scope ground glasses only came in N35 so for anamorphic you need to switch to N35. But as mentioned the gate is rarely masked, so shooting academy is basically just recentring the lens and baseplate. 

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2 hours ago, panagiotis agapitou said:

Kubrick shot on Standard 35mm Academy on many ratios ... 

From my understanding, on his normal 35mm shows he shot open gate but the ground glass was marked for 1.66:1 on the earlier shows and 1.85:1 on the later shows. He assumed the projectionist would not remove the projection matte, so he framed his movies so the top of the frame had lots of headroom. The home video releases were mostly open gate because Kubrick said he wanted people to see the full frame and since at the time of his death, the home video format was 1.33:1, it only made sense he'd scan the films at full frame. 

Spartacus was shot anamorphic vistavision called Technirama blown up to 70mm. So it was a 2.20:1 release on 70mm. 

2001 was shot 65mm so again 2.20:1 aspect ratio. 

Having seen some of his movies on film in the theater, including Eyes Wide Shut's original release, the later films are all matted to 1.85:1 and you'd never know they were supposed to be shown 1.33:1. 

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7 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Having seen some of his movies on film in the theater, including Eyes Wide Shut's original release, the later films are all matted to 1.85:1 and you'd never know they were supposed to be shown 1.33:1. 

Check this interview of Leon Vitalli

 

One of the areas of greatest debate in the DVD community is about aspect ratios. The two films that people talk about the most in terms of aspect ratio are Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, maybe because those are the ones that have been seen theatrical by the DVD buying audience. But people will go through kind of frame by frame and say "In the trailer of Eyes Wide Shut, you can see a sign on the street that you can't see on the full frame video. You can see an extra character…" So how do you address the differences between the theatrical releases of Eyes Wide Shut and of Full Metal Jacket in the DVD releases?

The original video release of Full Metal Jacket was in the supervised hands and owned by Stanley. The thing about Stanley, he was a photographer. That's how he started. He had a still photographer's eye. So when he composed a picture through the camera, he was setting up for what he saw through the camera - the full picture. That was very important to him. It really was. It was an instinct that never ever left him. What he wanted the videos to reflect was how he shot the film through the camera, what was on the original neg and what his composition when he was shooting it was. That's why Full Metal Jacket is in full frame. If people looked, okay? What you get on the video that you didn't get in the theatrical because of the 185 masking, was what Stanley was invisioning. You assume these soldiers in the world that they're in. And he uses wide angle uses to shoot. I mean an 18 millimeter lens was the commonest one. He used 24 sometimes. Wide angle lenses. It was important to him the relationship between things. You can see in Full Metal Jacket how small the people were in relation to this huge landscape.

The thing with Eyes Wide Shot, it was how he saw the thing through the camera and how he set it up. That's what he wanted to reflect in his videos. He did not like 1.85:1. You lose 27% of the picture on 1.85. Stanley was a purist. This was one of the ways it was manifested.

If full frame was so important why didn't Kubrick release them theatrically that way?

After Barry Lyndon, more and more theaters were showing films 1.85 or in Cinemascope even if it wasn't shot that way. He had no control. He couldn't go around every cinema and say "You show this film in 1.66" as you could with Clockwork Orange, because then the projectors had 1.66 mask. With multi-plexes things are different and so they only show a film in 1.85 or in 2.21, the Cinemascope. You know? You cannot put a mask in 1.66 as it should be for Clockwork Orange. You can't put a 1.77 in as it should be for Barry Lyndon and that's what Stanley understood with The Shining onwards. He realized that his films we're going to be shown in 1.85 whether he liked it or not. You can't tell all the theaters now how to show your movies. They say it's 1.85, that's it. Stanley realized that masking for 1.85 would far outweigh having 1.66 projected at 1.85. We did a re-release of Clockwork in the U.K. and it's 1.66. It's composed for 1.66. It's shot in 1.66, and the whole shebang. Well, you know, they had to screen it in 1.85. I can't tell you how much it hurt that film.

That must have been awful.

It's horrible. It's horrible. It's heartbreaking. I mean, it's heartbreaking. You realize that when we got to The Shining, this was after the release of Barry Lyndon, this is how it was all being done. He realized that the best thing he could do is to at least do it so that he understood that beside the 1.85 frame line, they were going to have the composition that he would want you to see. From The Shining and Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley had marks on the camera lens so he could see where the 1.85 lines. He composed his shots for 1.66, which is the full screen, but he wouldn't be hurt by going to 1.85 if he had to do it.

So he did the reverse of what most directors do, who look at the 'TV Safe Area', Stanley looked at the '1.85 Safe Area'.

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

 

(https://www.dvdtalk.com/leonvitaliinterview.html)

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8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Spartacus was shot anamorphic vistavision called Technirama blown up to 70mm. So it was a 2.20:1 release on 70mm. 

2001 was shot 65mm so again 2.20:1 aspect ratio.

I was reffered only to his 35mm movies ..

Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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If you are making a contact print, no D.I., your 1.78 hard-matted image is taller than 1.85 projection area so the side bars would not appear. 

You'd have to reduce your 1.78 image (using a D.I.) to fit inside 1.85 so side-bars would appear.

If you are doing a D.I., you could see if you could make a custom "1.78 within Academy" frame line groundglass for a 3-perf camera.

The difference between 1.78 and 1.85 is so minimal that I think you're wasting your time worrying about it for the rare 35mm print screening that might occur. 

The main thing is to decide up front about whether you are finishing in film first and digital second, or the other way around.  Or you really going to cut the negative, make a contact answer print, then a color-timed IP for transfer to digital, or are you going to scan the negative, color-correct digitally, and make digital files for theaters and laser record an IN for making prints?

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On 4/8/2019 at 4:30 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

If you are doing a D.I., you could see if you could make a custom "1.78 within Academy" frame line groundglass for a 3-perf camera.

 

 

I'll go by scanning and digital ... 

 

But i can not understand how will i make my own academy 1.78 groundglass .. can you explain please ?? 

 

Thanks 

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31 minutes ago, panagiotis agapitou said:

I'll go by scanning and digital ... 

 

But i can not understand how will i make my own academy 1.78 groundglass .. can you explain please ?? 

 

Thanks 

Tape and Sharpie or chinagraph? I did it for 1.66 once on a 16BL. With a removable GG it would be even easier.

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I drew roughly what a Standard (Normal) 1.78 : 1 area would be inside Super-35 1.78, whether 3-perf or 4-perf Super.

I also drew what a projector showing the movie in 1.85 would crop from 1.78, as you can see, the formats are very close in shape:

1.78_1.jpg

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As I mentioned earlier, the N35 1.78 Arri ground glass works on 3 or 4 perf cameras, as detailed in the relevant page of the format guide I linked to. You don't need to mark a custom one up if you can source a N35 1.78 ground glass for the camera. 

If you can't source one, using a N35 1.85 ground glass is much more sensible than trying to mark 1.78 yourself. It's very hard to get it exactly right, and your margin of error is probably not going to be much better than 1.85 anyway. 

However, I would again suggest that shooting S35 is a much more reasonable approach for an inexperienced filmmaker attempting 35mm for the first time. That is what most modern cameras will be set up for and S35 1.78 ground glasses will be far more common. The difference in equivalent focal lengths from N35 to S35 is about 1.2 x so a 21mm will be similar in view to Kubrick's 18mm for example.

But slavishly copying Kubrick's focal lengths on N35 will not make your film look like Kubrick's films. There is also the fact that older lenses breathed a lot, so for example an 18mm lens changed considerably in field of view from close focus to infinity, and the numbers written on lenses can often be approximations of focal lengths anyway. Each set-up was a unique arrangement of set dimensions, and distances to subjects. Don't get caught up in such technical imaginings when you have yet to shoot a foot of film.

The first thing to do is work out what budget you have, and what is possible. Where are you going to source a camera and lenses? You may not have a vast choice in terms of focal lengths and formats, so go with what you can afford and concentrate on the actual film - script, locations, actors etc, rather than technical details that really don't matter so much at this stage.

My two cents, feel free to disregard! 

 

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7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

As I mentioned earlier, the N35 1.78 Arri ground glass works on 3 or 4 perf cameras, as detailed in the relevant page of the format guide I linked to. You don't need to mark a custom one up if you can source a N35 1.78 ground glass for the camera. 

If you can't source one, using a N35 1.85 ground glass is much more sensible than trying to mark 1.78 yourself. It's very hard to get it exactly right, and your margin of error is probably not going to be much better than 1.85 anyway. 

That's exactly what i was thinking Dom about the custom made idea !! Thanks for making it clear to me !! So my first target is a big search for the ARRI N35 1.78 ground glass !!

 

7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

However, I would again suggest that shooting S35 is a much more reasonable approach for an inexperienced filmmaker attempting 35mm for the first time. That is what most modern cameras will be set up for and S35 1.78 ground glasses will be far more common. 

I'll hire a very experienced 35mm cinematographer for that (i'm director not D.o.P) .. but i like very much to have study my owns ... to know the technical details ... and you guys you've help me a lot !!

 

7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

The difference in equivalent focal lengths from N35 to S35 is about 1.2 x so a 21mm will be similar in view to Kubrick's 18mm for example.

But slavishly copying Kubrick's focal lengths on N35 will not make your film look like Kubrick's films.

 

Look i'm on a 3 years heavy study of Kubrick's breakdown cinematography via his technicians interviewes ... via daily continuity reports and via other material from his archieve ... and I've trained my eyes and my mind on this way 

I know that the difference between S35 and N35 is not huge ... but it's not enough for me 

7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

There is also the fact that older lenses breathed a lot, so for example an 18mm lens changed considerably in field of view from close focus to infinity, and the numbers written on lenses can often be approximations of focal lengths anyway. 

 

I'll have the excact he hadon EWS

1. Zeiss super speeds mkiii T1.3 

2. Zeiss Variable primes 

3. Cook Varotal 20-100 T3.1 

And also his famous Kinoptic 9.8 and the Ang 14.5 

7 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

Each set-up was a unique arrangement of set dimensions, and distances to subjects. Don't get caught up in such technical imaginings when you have yet to shoot a foot of film.

 

Of cource i'm not going to a blind copy-cat of the numbers ... i use them for breaking down the tech details of his shot to train my mind ?

Thanks again Dom .. you were a great help !!!

Edited by panagiotis agapitou
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