Welcome to the new Film-Tech Forums!
The forum you are looking at is entirely new software. Because there was no good way to import all of the old archived data from the last 20 years on the old software, everyone will need to register for a new account to participate.
To access the original forums from 1999-2019 which are now a "read only" status, click on the "FORUM ARCHIVE" link above.
Please remember registering with your first and last REAL name is mandatory. This forum is for professionals and fake names are not permitted. To get to the registration page click here.
Once the registration has been approved, you will be able to login via the link in the upper right corner of this page.
Also, please remember while it is highly encouraged to upload an avatar image to your profile, is not a requirement. If you choose to upload an avatar image, please remember that it IS a requirement that the image must be a clear photo of your face.
Thank you!
You'll probably get the 35mm prints from the Austrian lab I had. Brad had sent ahead this handy 35PA reference so I could file plates cause my lead time on the print was minimal. It's 1.66:1 but undersized apparently to work with houses with only flat/scope options. Also note the intermission is printed and designed to play through (WITH AUDIO). Depending on your booth position, and if you have shown undersized ones like this before, new plates may or may not be justified. They were for us.
EDIT: Actually, not sure the under-sizing had such a valid reason, even this is taller than a true SMPTE flat aspect. We just got lucky with our flat lensing and our available screen height (and movable masking).
We should probably start another thread for the NOSFERATU aspect ratio mess!
I just got off the phone from someone who had been preparing the prints, and
according to what I was told, the NOSFERATU DCP's are FLAT_166. OK?
BUT for some friggin' reason, the 35mm prints are printed 1:66 in 1:78. (??!!!)
They tried a test run in 1:85 at the Chinese Theater in LA, and one of the problems
is that, specifically in Reel 1, there are some superimposed subtitles at both the
bottom AND the top of the screen, which may be difficult to frame at many venues.
And if you run with the proper 1:66 lenses and plates, your image will be undersized.
And to make things more fun, it seems that the distributor wants to hold off shipping
the prints until the very last minute- -which may make having time to do a proper set
up almost impossible at some venues. I just spent over an hour very early Saturday
morning aligning my JJ's and masking perfectly for 35mm/1:66 after converting them
back from the 70mm (also 1:66) BRUTALIST show last week. I've never run a 35mm
@1:66 since I started working here, and I was rather pleased with the end result
when I was done after tweaking the masking pre-set and re-filing a corner of one
aperture plate. But now- - it really doesn't matter, since the picture will be undersized
anyway, unless I can come up with lenses a few mm shorter focal length by Xmas,
which isn't very likely . I have no idea why they decided to 'print down' to this size,
other than the fact that Ive always been of the opinion that most distributors "don't
know their aspects from their elbows". Geez!!
He did confirm however it was shot 4perf 35mm. So VistaVision was not involved, not the reason for 1.66, just more detailed negatives relative to a 1.66 target and because they had the budget I assume. Obviously 1.66 loses some height if you drop down to 3perf in capture. But to summarize they selected 1.66 for it's period appropriate vibes and framing compatibility reasons. This was after all the cinematographer who gave us "The Lighthouse" in B&W 1.33 not too long ago!
It does not explain the lab sizing decisions though, perhaps coming from the same lab? Nosferatu 1.66 within 1.78 sounds remarkably similar to this 35mm Brutalist undersizing from the lab, though perhaps not exactly the same if it really lands on the 1.78 .464 SMPTE vertical reference? I'd be curious to see a frame to SMPTE comparison image like Brad provided for Brutalist, but not showing this one here (that I know of).
(edited)
It does not explain the lab sizing decisions though, perhaps coming from the same lab?
I don't know which lab it's coming from, but the person I was speaking to the other day did mention
that it was printed at "an English lab" -
I whined to my bookers and they promised to try & get my print here ASAP so I could figure
out the best presentation situation. I have one e-mail which promises I'll have it by tomorrow
(Fri, Dec 13) but I don't actually have any tracking info yet, and so I'm not really counting on a
Friday the 13th​ to be 'my lucky day'. They just dropped an early Christmas Eve show in my
lap too- - I think we're one of the only ones who are doing that- - at least around here, anyway.
THE LIGHTHOUSE was shot in 1.19 aspect ratio, i.e. the early Movietone sound film format.
Apologies I was typing/reading too fast... I think someone in that thread mentioned 1.33... I saw it and do remember it being even more square than that.
Deeply curved screens absolutely suck in modern movie theater auditorium designs. That's because the projector can't be aimed in a level horizontal line at the center of the screen. You could do that in old movie theaters that had large auditoriums and gradual sloped seating areas. The projector port would be far enough above the back row of the audience. The lens still needed to be a special design in order to throw a focused and not-so-distorted image.
A modest room with stadium seating where the projector port is close to the ceiling creates a severe angle. Even if you could correct the "smile" distortion with some optical trickery you would never get the image properly focused.
I still can't believe Warren Theaters tried doing this deep-curve screen gimmick in Broken Arrow, OK at one of the last theaters they opened before selling out the chain to Regal. I watched one movie there and swore to never return. The image quality sucked.
Unless we want to go back to building big single screen venues with 1000+ seats and standard slope seating the deep curve screen gimmick needs to be dumped. The only way to do that in modern cinema designs and not have severe image quality problems is via a self-emitting LED screen.
Regarding VistaVision, I don't really get the new fascination with the format. Are they shooting in this format to make the movie look better at home on a UHD TV screen? Movies play in cinemas so briefly and there are so few film-based setups that it makes me wonder if the people making the movie are living in a different reality.
I imagine The Brutalist probably looks good in 70mm provided if the process was an all film-based work flow. If the 8/35mm negative was scanned, dressed up via digital intermediate in 4K and then pumped back out to 70mm I might as well just watch it on TV.
Flat ratio blow-ups to 70mm made sense back in the 1980's when that was the only way to get high quality six channel audio. Today I don't see the benefit of bothering. It's not like these movies are being shown on giant size screens. The practice seems almost as out of touch as Quentin Tarantino reviving the Ultra Panavision process with the The Hateful Eight even though hardly any cinemas anywhere could show the 2.76:1 ratio image properly.​
I don't know which lab it's coming from, but the person I was speaking to the other day did mention
that it was printed at "an English lab" -
I whined to my bookers and they promised to try & get my print here ASAP so I could figure
out the best presentation situation. I have one e-mail which promises I'll have it by tomorrow
(Fri, Dec 13) but I don't actually have any tracking info yet, and so I'm not really counting on a
Friday the 13th​ to be 'my lucky day'. They just dropped an early Christmas Eve show in my
lap too- - I think we're one of the only ones who are doing that- - at least around here, anyway.
My Nosferatu Print arrived this afternoon... Here's what it looks like:
(8 Reels, SRD/SR)
Thanks for the pictures Sascha! I read my e-mail wrong, and my print isn't arriving till
NEXT Friday, and not today, so I appreciate having some idea of what to expect.
I did a somewhat semi-unscientific experiment , and, using.a piece of 35mm film,
I made the image you sent exactly the same size as the film and then I tried laying
several of my assorted aperture plates on top. So, now I feel slightly better
prepared & I"m sure I can up with something that works when the print arrives.
Thanks for the pictures Sascha! I read my e-mail wrong, and my print isn't arriving till
NEXT Friday, and not today, so I appreciate having some idea of what to expect.
I did a somewhat semi-unscientific experiment , and, using.a piece of 35mm film,
I made the image you sent exactly the same size as the film and then I tried laying
several of my assorted aperture plates on top. So, now I feel slightly better
prepared & I"m sure I can up with something that works when the print arrives.
You're Welcome, Jim.
Btw - my Print arrived without cue Marks and has and annoying E N D in huge White Letters printed on the frame directly after the final frame of every reel. If I did Manual Changeovers I would probably Cut this one frame or maybe mask it Off.
<edited>
Btw - my Print arrived without cue Marks and has and annoying E N D
in huge White Letters printed on the frame directly after the final frame of every reel.
The person making up the US prints has put cue marks on it, and she did also warn
me about the annoying END frames on every reel, so I'd better be quick on my Q's
when I do my changeovers. lol
Fact is, running Vistavision on a large scale in theaters is not really practical since only a few decent projectors exist. The 70mm equipment has existed for a long time, it's reliable, and many people are able to operate the equipment. Not true of VistaVision. That's why films shot in VistaVision these days are released on 70mm. There is also a little bit of light advantage, as the frame on 70mm is slight larger... But, none the less, film projected in VistaVision has a look to it unlike any other format. If rolling loop VistaVision projectors could be built, it could actually become a popular projected format.
Fact is, running Vistavision on a large scale in theaters is not really practical since only a few decent projectors exist. The 70mm equipment has existed for a long time, it's reliable, and many people are able to operate the equipment. Not true of VistaVision. That's why films shot in VistaVision these days are released on 70mm. There is also a little bit of light advantage, as the frame on 70mm is slight larger... But, none the less, film projected in VistaVision has a look to it unlike any other format. If rolling loop VistaVision projectors could be built, it could actually become a popular projected format.
I had not read that article start to finish previously. A whole new mechanism in 4 weeks is crazy pants. Amusing reading it after having just shown White Christmas on DCP... which unfortunately has abandoned the original intended ratio of 1.66 from the VistaVision format. Did not know that film was the first public viewing of VistaVision.
I wonder in the modern era if you could revive VV printing with dolby digital and still have it be playable with existing equipment. Maybe DTS would be more compatible for double the film speed?
I had not read that article start to finish previously. A whole new mechanism in 4 weeks is crazy pants. Amusing reading it after having just shown White Christmas on DCP... which unfortunately has abandoned the original intended ratio of 1.66 from the VistaVision format. Did not know that film was the first public viewing of VistaVision.
I wonder in the modern era if you could revive VV printing with dolby digital and still have it be playable with existing equipment. Maybe DTS would be more compatible for double the film speed?
Kallee in the UK built horizontal machines in a very limited quantity and also a vertical 8 perf that had a prism box to rotate the image. Microtechinca in Itally also built a horizontal machine as well It supported both optical and magnetic tracks
Fact is, running Vistavision on a large scale in theaters is not really practical since only a few decent projectors exist. The 70mm equipment has existed for a long time, it's reliable, and many people are able to operate the equipment. Not true of VistaVision. That's why films shot in VistaVision these days are released on 70mm. There is also a little bit of light advantage, as the frame on 70mm is slight larger... But, none the less, film projected in VistaVision has a look to it unlike any other format. If rolling loop VistaVision projectors could be built, it could actually become a popular projected format.
I recall reading somewhere that VistaVision was never intended to be projected. I also recall reading that White Christmas was projected with VistaVision projectors at Radio City Music Hall. While looking for confirmation of these "facts" I came across a paper published by Paramount which is available at https://www.widescreenmuseum.com/wid...istavision.htm
Nothing there confirmed what I thought to be the case. It was interesting to find out that Paramount considered using anamorphic lenses almost 20 years before 20th Century Fox looked at them.
Tweet
Comment