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Topic: Flat-a-morphic

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-02-2001 06:39 PM

The stories I had heard about "Brainstorm" was that Trumbull wanted to film the whole movie in Showscan. While that would have been a little more costly than straight 65mm/24fps, there wouldn't have been any projector changeover for showing different formats. In the end, Trumbull had to make the movie in a hodge-podge of 65mm/24fps and 35mm anamorphic/spherical processes. And I guess he has not been back to mainstream feature films since then.

I read another story about the Showscan process where Disney was looking into using it but rejected the process because the resulting image did not look like a movie. "It looked too real," to paraphrase their quote.

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Larry Myers
Master Film Handler

Posts: 371
From: Herndon, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 05-02-2001 09:57 PM

I wonder if too real means the same thing as in the Imax user manual. "Half eaten donuts, candy wrappers and footprints can be a real problem and may mean expensive reshoots."

Larry

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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-03-2001 01:06 AM

Another obstacle that it might be neccessary to overcome for a 1.85 anamorphic camera format:

I think I remember reading a couple of places that some had made decisions to shoot lower quality but spherical super-35 in order not to deal with anamorphics. Chicken, bok bok bok.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 05-03-2001 07:26 AM

Some directors and cinematographers prefer Super-35 over using anamorphic camera lenses for a variety of reasons. As Gordon McLeod noted, the anamorphic lenses require more light to obtain the desired depth of field. Anamorphic lenses have characteristic aberrations and distortions (e.g., out of focus highlights are ovals rather than circles). Spherical camera lenses tend to be smaller and lighter. Compared to anamorphic cinematography, "Super-35" gives more flexibility in composition and aspect ratio when transferred to video.

But, because it takes maximum advantage of the image area available on the 35mm negative, shooting "scope" with anamorphic camera lenses can produce images with superior sharpness and graininess. For example, the images in "The Thin Red Line" were spectacular.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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Bernard Tonks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 619
From: Cranleigh, Surrey, England
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-04-2001 04:37 PM

I seem to remember seeing a vast VistaVision and well illuminated picture at the old Gaumont Hendon some 45 years ago. The UK Rank Organisation introduced a anamorphic 1.5 squeeze Vistavision process. Could this have been the first flat-a-morphic ? Visit www.widescreenmuseum.com - VistaVision page 6 which displays the Varamorph.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-04-2001 05:52 PM

Well, there's also the Ultra Panavision 70 process (best known for its use in "Ben Hur") which uses a 1.25x squeeze for 70mm film, in order to achieve a 2.75:1 aspect ratio. Someday, I would love to see this title in its original format; I've seen two 35mm prints of it, one in mag CinemaScope (and IB Tech!) and one regular Eastman optical print; it's great in 35mm, but I'm sure that 70mm would be a totally different experience (much as is the case with Lawrence of Arabia, etc.).

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-04-2001 07:46 PM

Technicolor introduced an anamorphic play off of VistaVision called Technirama. A roughly 1.5x anamorphic compression lens was used during filming on horizontal 8-perf 35mm. Films like Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" used it. Normally, Technirama would be reduced to 35mm 4-perf, or it would enlarged slightly for 5-perf 70mm --as was the case with "Spartacus". Terms like "Technirama 70" and "Super Technirama 70" were applied to such films.

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