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Topic: Could this be a real B&H CinemaScope 55 anamorphic?

Larry Myers
Master Film Handler

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

posted 11-19-2005 06:24 PM

I am wrong about the 3X anamorphic. A reduction from 8 perf to 6 perf and still keeping the film to 55mm wide would require a 1.5x anamorphic vs a 2x. I went the wrong way.

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 11-19-2005 11:02 PM

quote: Larry Myers
An 8 to 6 perf reduction from negative to print would also mean the print would no longer be 55mm wide. That is if the reduction is in both directions.

Wrong. It is the frame within the 55mm that was reduced, not the film width itself.. This was to allow enough space for 6-track magnetic sound. Ecxamples can be found here on Martin Hart's Widescreen Museum site (and cited earlier in this thead by John Pytlak):

Widescreen Museum's coverage of CinemaScope

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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 11-20-2005 05:45 AM

well, there's the visual evidence. note that cs55 negative and the cs55 experimental print have their perfs positioned differently. was there a reason for this? seems to me they could just as easily have used the same film format and put more hypothetical mag tracks within the perfs rather than without.

carl

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 11-20-2005 06:14 AM

Yes, it would seem so; I don't know why they proposed to do it this way. Since the print frame was smaller than the negative one, contact printing from one to the other wouldn't have been possible, so the difference in perforation position wouldn't be any real disadvantage.

I wonder how they would have made the prints if this format had caught on, by direct optical reduction from an 8-perf negative, or by contact from a 6-perf interneg. In either case, camera negatives would not need to be a shorter pitch than the print stock.

I have seen a frame of 6-perf print at a lecture by Brian Coe at MOMI sometiime during the '80s. Like the sample in the Widescreen Museum it was not striped. Has anyone here seen any striped 6-perf print?

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
The movement I had did have a 32 tooth 55mm sprocket with a 16 tooth 35mm sprocket inside that.

That's interesting; I've never heard of a 8-perf print format; any idea why this was made? Did they ever propose a 8-perf print format with interlock sound, and then changed from that to a reduced image size with mag stripe? Something like 65mm Todd-AO prints with interlock sound; the, mute, test material screened at Bradford this year was a 65mm print.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-22-2005 05:50 AM

quote: Steven J Hart
I notice that the front page to your Brooklyn Center Cinema Website states:
Featuring DTS® state-of-the-art, THX-type Digital Stereo, Dolby SR, and Mulit-track Magnetic Stereo presented in
6 Channel Total Surround
MegaSound™
and the largest, true CinemaScope screen in Brooklyn
using Bausch & Lomb
Ultra-High Definition CinemaScope 55 Lenses

Yah, thanks for pointing that out, Steven....I was hoping no one would notice. [Wink]

I will have to change it now....that's why I asked about the lenses. But not before I find that guy who said they were CinemaScope 55 lenses and beat him silly and get a retraction. Besides, we are step by step replacing all our lenses with ISCO Blue Stars. On the other hand, as with all advertising hype, there are always some liberties taken, like "THX-type" Digital Stereo....what that means is, er, we followed as many of the THX specs as we could, but we don't actually have THX certification (which we probably wouldn't get with those B&H CinemaScope anamorphots)....we have THX-type....kinda like when soup is flavored with meat, not actually made with it....kinda like that. [Embarrassed]

And what's a "true" CinemaScope screen? Well, one where we don't crop the width like most of the mulitplexs did years ago when that copy was first written. There were lots of conversions in Brooklyn and almost all used 2:1 screens, i.e., UN-true CinemaScope. Of course by that logic, we also have a True-Academy screen. You hype whatever you can.

And then again, "6 Channel Total Surround MegaSound" is, well, really what everyone else calls 5.1 Like I said in one other post, that "point 1" nomenclature was Dolby's crummy idea, not mine; I say, a theatre owner buys a bunch of amps enough for six channels and six speaker systems and has got sound coming out of all of them, hey.... I say he gets to call it SIX channel sound. When the 70mm theatres started getting prints that didn't actually have 5 channels behind the screen screen any more, but had only 3 with the other 2 being used for extended bass, they didn't have to start saying they had 4.2 sound did they? Besides, the subbass is the most impressive channel of them all; I am not about to religate it to a measily .1 Nope, I got 6 Channels damn it and I am stickin to it!

We've also got Wide Screen Dimension...i.e., 1.85ar. which is why there is ALWAYS a cartoon before every show....so we can go from 1.33 to 1.85 with both a curtain and mask change and everything -- even going from 1.33 to 1.66 looks impressive. And now that I am getting in our new ISCO Ultra MCs, our Wide Screen Dimention monkier might have to change.... I am thinking: Blue Star Wide Screen Dimension 185. Yeah, I'm thinking about it.

Come on guys, this is the MOVIE business; we invented hype.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-22-2005 06:58 AM

THX is an owned trademark of THX so it may not be used without their consent...you might get into problems there. If I were to have skirted the issue a bit I would gone for "THX Approved" equipment.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-22-2005 08:24 PM

Good point. But I think it would be even more misleading to say "approved" when indeed they didn't approve it (if they DID approve it, we actually BE a THX house).

When you use a trademark in a narrative, I believe you can do so without specific permission if you say "Such-and-such is a registered trademark of the Such-and-such Corporation." You see that all the time in text about products. Now I am no lawyer (me mum brought me up an ethical person, she did) so I have no idea if putting that statement would actually protect me from the wrath of the trademark owner. On the other hand, not a whole lot of people understand THX, especially not our older audiences. It wouldn't be any big deal to drop it althought....it makes the sentence awkward anyway. However, people DO understand MegaSound. When I get around to figuring out if Warners actually has that trademarked, I'll footnote that too with the registered Trademark legalese.

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Larry Myers
Master Film Handler

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

posted 11-27-2005 10:23 AM

In looking at both the examples of Cinemascope 55 reduction prints from 8 to 6 perf and 8 to 4 perf, the reductions are indeed in both directions keeping the 2x anamorphic.

Although, the 8 to 6 perf IS printed on 55mm film, the image itself is now much SMALLER then 55mm wide. Actually the original negative 8 perf image in 55mm film isn't exactly 55mm wide since room is still needed for the perfs.

If you really think about it, the 8 to 4 perf reduction could still be printed on 55mm wide film leaving lots of room for anything else someone might want to add to the film. That still doesn't make it a 55mm wide image.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 11-27-2005 10:39 AM

quote: Larry Myers
If you really think about it, the 8 to 4 perf reduction could still be printed on 55mm wide film leaving lots of room for anything else someone might want to add to the film. That still doesn't make it a 55mm wide image.

True, but the same applies to 35mm; the image is about only 22mm wide on sound film, Even on silent film it's only about 24mm. There's an even bigger difference on 70mm. The closest a frame came to filling the width of the film would probably be silent Pathe centre perforated 9.5mm, but even that has a very narrow margin down each edge.

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