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Author Topic: Of All MPAA films for 2002, how many were in flat or Scope ? Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-23-2003 10:44 PM                     I question that number since in most plexes I go into to service I end find most of the machines set for scope  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 04-25-2003 09:56 AM                        Wow! I don't see how I missed this thread. I have stats for this. I'll post them later. For now, I'll post this: In the Huntsville/Decatur area, 219 scope movies and 234 flat movies have been released from July 7, 2000 to April 25, 2003 . I believe there are 5 movies released during this period that I don't have aspect information for. I want to break this down by year -- time to add a few lines to my Perl script!  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 04-25-2003 10:07 AM                        I think that the percentage of "scope" releases has been trending upward of late, likely because distributors are less afraid of "letterbox" video releases on DVD. Would be interesting to see the percentage of anamorphic origination vs. Super-35 for "scope" releases.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-25-2003 10:25 AM                     John, can you suggest any useful data sources for Super-35 versus anamorphic origination? The only useful place I can think of to find that information in an automated fashion is the FITA forum on this site... the only other place I see that information is in the occasional article in In Camera and the like, but it's hard to pull that information in an automated way... --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 04-25-2003 10:26 AM                        OK. Here's my data broken down by year: July 7, 2000 to end of 2000: 43 flat, 29 scope (60 percent flat) all of 2001: 71 flat, 69 scope (51 percent flat) all of 2002: 93 flat, 88 scope (51 percent flat) 2003 up to and including April 25: 27 flat, 33 scope (45 percent flat) This is for the 5 first-run Huntsville and Decatur, AL theatres. The partial year percentages aren't to be trusted much since by July, most of the big summer movies are already released (the 2000 stats), and the big movies haven't begun to be released this year (2003). As for super35 or anamorphic origination for the movies, I only note that data on movies I see, which is only a small fraction of what's released. It would be nice to have that data for all the movies released though. If you're wondering why my program is setup to count flats and scopes, rather that just displaying the data on the WWW site, it's because until a couple of months ago, there were screens here that were only capable of showing movies at 1.85:1, cropping scope. This is no longer a problem here in Huntsville (Thanks Regal!), but the deduction given for the problem in the rating was based on the number of screens that were unadjustable and the number of scope and flat movies released in the area!  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 04-25-2003 11:45 AM                     It is by now impossible to depend on the process credits For many years, Panavision distinguished between - "Filmed in Panavision" for anamorphic productions and - "Filmed with Panavision cameras and lenses" for all productions shot with spherical lenses, like many TV shows, 1.85 films and Super-35 productions. But in the last years, I saw a number of major films that were definitely shot in "Super-35" (should be "Inferior-35" to me) but bore the "Filmed in Panavision" logo onscreen. Remembers me of the stupid "Panavision 70" name from the 1970s which caused so much confusion over the years; many people thought that these 35-to-70mm blowups were real 65-70mm productions.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 04-25-2003 11:45 AM                        quote: John, can you suggest any useful data sources for Super-35 versus anamorphic origination? As a start, you can use the Internet Movie Data Base http://www.imdb.com and search on Technical Specifications: Here is a search for "Super 35": http://us.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?PCS%3ASuper+35 Here is a search for "Panavision": http://us.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?PCS%3APanavision Use with the usual caveat regarding the accuracy of imdb listings.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-25-2003 11:33 PM                     I was hoping for a better source than the IMDB. I'm afraid I don't think its sufficiently trustoworthy to spend any time on. I did look at the FITA though. Since 1 January 2002 (starting with topic #350, Gosford Park), there have been 409 topics in FITA. Of them, 205 contain the word "flat" and 156 contain the word "scope." A whopping 18 mention Super 35 (that is, they match the case-insensitive regular expression 'super.*35'). That includes chit-chat of people asking "Was this in Super 35?" So, we get 43% scope, 57% flat, and 5% super 35. I don't have a lot of confidence in those numbers. On the other hand, it's pretty close to Mike Perju's, "55% of all US films are released in 1.85". Mike, could you substantiate that number? Where did it come from? And does it include 1.66:1 flat as well? Oh, and the super 35 number has false positives because there are no line breaks in the raw html, so it includes some super 16 references (e.g. Lana's Rain), and I was too lazy to render the html before running the count.  |  IP: Logged Kamakshipalya Dhananjay Expert Film Handler Posts: 190 From: Bangalore, India Registered: Aug 2002 posted 04-26-2003 03:12 AM                     well, I believe that the number of scope films coming out of the US are increasing as some suggest. The 55 % for flat films might apply for 2000 or 2001. In my search for scope films this year and the later part of 2002, I also find an increase in scope over flat. I wonder if I could club this topic with another that concerns the percentage of screens that are ready (without masking) for scope or flat in a given territory. I have conclusive and thoroughly researched information that for all the 13965 screens in INDIA, the unmasked screen size is ready for the scope, that is, 2.39 : 1 or in some cases 2.35 : 1. Not one screen in INDIA is structured for an unmasked presentation of 1.85 : 1 or its variations 1.66 : 1. So, I am sure that screens here that regularly play American films might be happy to learn that there is an increase in the number of scope films from the US. There is hardly any information forthcoming on the scenario in Europe. I believe that the percentage of screens outside the US (particularly in the Europe and the Asia) are predominantly scope sized too. Any figures for this ?  |  IP: Logged David Kilderry Master Film Handler Posts: 355 From: Melbourne Australia Registered: Sep 1999 posted 04-29-2003 04:23 AM                        You can't beat a film shot in scope, but Super 35 is still way better than the wasteful 1.85:1 widescreen image. In addition to the bulky anamorphic lenses on cameras, another reason for Super 35 was the ability to shoot in lower light situations than the anamorphic would allow. David Kilderry  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-01-2003 10:20 PM                        I have always admired the way Europe or rather all the non-US film industries resisted Hollywood's adaptation of 1.85 in its lust for easy wide screen with little regard for image quality. Although foreign films still seem to come in at a very high percentage still using 1.66 spherical, a growing number of productions are falling to the 1.85 mania, mostly prints from Japan -- and they don't seem to be ambiguous about it either -- they are hard matted at 1.85. I hope it is not a trend, as the 1.66 looks just fine. All the image enhancing advantages of that larger frame geography that have already been enumerated are quite apparant when running 1.66; it would be a shame if it fell into disuse. My question is, has the SMPTE identified and defined 1.66 as a standard, or is it a de facto standard just because there's a big chunk of the world that is doing it regardless? The most outragous assault on image quality was the half-assed idea....no, make that the FULL-assed idea (it took TWO companies to come up with it) of reducing the film speed and the height of the film frame. Who came up with this idea you ask? Why Technicolor and UA Theatres -- their eyes fixed on the $$ rather than the screen. Technicolor, so they had less poundage to ship and UA so that they would significantly reduce print handling time....all the more reason to eliminate the projectionist. Ooops, I stand corrected -- UA refuses to even use the word projectionist any more -- they are "booth attenants." Frank  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-02-2003 08:22 AM                        quote: My question is, has the SMPTE identified and defined 1.66 as a standard, or is it a de facto standard just because there's a big chunk of the world that is doing it regardless? Standard SMPTE 195-1998 specifies the projectable image area for 1.66:1 non-anamorphic aspect ratio as 0.825 x 0.497 inches (20.96 x 12.62 mm) in Annex A.4 and Table A.1. The standard also suggests that hard matting be printed into the duplicate negative and NOT be used in the original camera negative, and should have an image height of at least 0.505 inches (12.83mm). (Annex A.4 and A.5).  |  IP: Logged

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