Posted by Vincent at bg-tc-ppp394.monmouth.com on June 20, 2000 at 21:26:09:
In Reply to: Ratios 101 posted by Chopper3 on June 20, 2000 at 12:20:52:
:: 2.35:1 - (a.k.a. "Scope" & "Anamorphic") This is about the widest picture you will generally see in production today and uses an "Anamorphic" lens to force a wide picture into the same framespace as a 1.85:1 film. Obviously when viewed directly everything will appear tall and thin, a reverse lens is used to project this film and "correct" the ratio difference. The biggest downside to this format is that you are "matting" (leaving black) around half of each frame. This means that when the picture is projected the grain can be more apparent. It was for this reason that many of the more epic films of the 50's, 60's & 70's chose to use 70mm film (also generally a 2.35:1 format) to more accurately reflect the lighting and detail of a 2.35:1 scene.
You're a little off with this one, my British friend- actually, anamorphic has MORE negative area than 1.85:1, and here's why- both have the same width projected frame (around .825" or 21mm wide), but 1.85:1 achieves it's "widescreen" ratio by cropping/matting the top and bottom of the frame, so the projected height is only .446" tall (something like 11.3mm). With anamorphic, the entire available height of the 35mm frame is used (around 17.5mm)- if you divide the 21mm width by the 17.5mm height you get a ratio of 1.2:1, and anamorphic applies a 2X squeeze to that, which gives you the correct 'Scope ratio of 2.40:1 (note- this is the ACTUAL ratio that is usually refered to as 2.35:1- the image used to by a little taller on the print and unsqueezed gave you the famous 2.35:1 shape, however around 1970 it was reccommended that the image by very slightly matted down to the current 2.40:1 shape to help hide negative splices- since anamorphic uses the full available height of the 35mm frame, negative splices could sometimes be seen so they lessened the height of the projected frame to help hide them. But, old habits die hard, so today it's frequently still refered to as 2.35:1 even though it's really 2.40:1).
So what does this mean? Well, it means that anamorphic has a much larger negative area than 1.85:1, and is finer grained and generally more "epic" feeling that 1.85:1. The reasons large formats were used in the 1950s and 1960s is because Hollywood somehow got it into their heads that bigger, better picture would draw in audiences, so they fell all over themselves to develop competing "large format" systems. Around the 1970s, level heads prevailed and they realized that exhibition and projection quality meant diddly squat (what WERE they thinking, trying to make movies look better?), and thus was ushed in the age of 35mm and 35mm only (and soon, digital), regardless of budget. Woo Hoo!!!
Vincent