Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: CROPPED SCOPE

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Posted by Philippe Laude (Member # 79) on 05-22-2002, 03:31 AM:

I have a scope trailer of "Monsters, inc." that fills the height of my scope screen but not the full width. When you look at a frame, you clearly see the lateral black maskings.
I just don't understand the usefulness of this, unless the movie itself is in 1X1.85 and you want to show this trailer with a series of "real scope" ones without changing the lenses and aperture plate.

Philippe

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 05-22-2002, 04:43 AM:

We get tons of these type trailers in our booth.
I'm assuming, not being very smart in this department, that if the film is 1.85 they make the trailers in this version......with the black borders on the sides. I've never run a trailer for a scope feature this way. Someone in our head office once told us that making scope trailers for flat features was not only an expensive pain, but that studios might eliminate them all together. I guess they assumed we all had turrets that would automatically change at the end of the trailers. We don't have turrets so we are still running the whole show, trailers and all, in one format.
The only thing I don't like about the "cropped 1.85s" running in scope is they can't seem to get the borders straight up and down. It looks like we put the scope lenes in crooked. I've actually had some audience complaints on this.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 05-22-2002, 06:13 AM:

Quote:

The only thing I don't like about the "cropped 1.85s" running in scope is they can't seem to get the borders straight up and down. It looks like we put the scope lenes in crooked. I've actually had some audience complaints on this.

Isn't this a result of keystoning from the projector location in relationship to the screen and throw?

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-22-2002, 06:34 AM:

Actually, I wish they would release all flat feature films this way. So long as they agreed on a standard width first, unlike some old 70mm widescreen versions I have run in the past...The Right Stuff comes immediately to mind.

Flat 1.85:1 is a hopelessly inefficient ratio. Both in quality and light output.

Scope everything I say.

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"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage". - Indiana Jones.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-22-2002, 07:40 AM:

Printing 1.85:1 to a 2X squeeze anamorphic format print would usually offer a slight advantage for screen luminance because the "scope" print format makes more efficient use of the projector light. Typically, a projector that achieves the 16 footlamberts specified in standard SMPTE 196M for the scope format, will have about 13 footlamberts for the less efficient 1.85:1 flat (same image height). Using a 2X scope lens for both formats would achieve the same 16 footlambert screen luminance for both. The downside is that an optical printing step is needed to "squeeze" the image when making the duplicate negative.

Of course, the "elegant" solution would be to use the scope image area with a 1.5X squeeze lens. The much greater efficiency would give 1.5 times more light than the current "flat" format for the cost of a lens. Unfortunately, the "cost of a lens" for every theatre screen has kept this good idea on the shelf for almost 20 years:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/february97/pytlak.shtml

For those who have subscriptions to the SMPTE on-line library, here is a link to my paper "Scope 1.5X -- Squeezing Even Higher Quality from 35mm Prints":
http://www.smpte.org/members_only/library/download.cfm?file=pytlak.pdf

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Philippe Laude (Member # 79) on 05-22-2002, 09:00 AM:

Thank you John.
Your article is very very interesting (I had already seen it but hadn't paid enough attention to it) , and your idea is marvelous, what a pity it remains but an idea! If such a format existed, I would buy a 1.5X lens for my screening room whithout hesitation. Where do I have to sign?

Philippe

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-22-2002, 10:16 AM:

The "idea" was first proposed by Glenn Berggren and IscoOptic in 1982 in public demonstrations. Others likely considered it before then, since it is simple common sense to anyone familiar with anamorphic projection. My article and SMPTE paper were just trying to remind the industry how good the idea is, and propose ways of implementing it today.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-22-2002, 12:27 PM:

Even with turrets or a second machine, running flat trailers before a scope feature would look terrible in a theatre with top masking for scope. No one wants to see the picture get smaller for the feature. Admittedly, this is more of an argument against top masking than in favor of scope trailers, but it is a real issue. Not to mention that there are theatres which don't have motorized masking.

I think that the reason why most scope trailers of flat films are printed with black borders is that it is cheaper to "windowbox" the 1.85 picture within the scope frame than to do a sort of "vertical pan and scan" operation to fill the entire scope width. For trailers, I actually think that the latter would look better because, as others have pointed out, the borders exaggerate the effects of keystoning on the screen.

In a theatre with side masking, I like the idea of running only flat trailers and then switching to scope for the feature, but I would only do this in a two-machine booth. I wouldn't trust automated lens turret changes to work properly, and it would probably put excessive wear on motorized turrets anyway.

As to the 1.85 format--I agree that it was a lousy idea from day one and that the 1.5x anamorphic idea makes quite a bit of sense. Unfortunately I don't see it happening; theatre owners are too cheap and the popcorn kids who can't tell the difference between flat and scope probably lack the mental capacity to handle another format.

The current DLP setups are using something similar to the 1.5x anamorphic idea for "flat" (1.85) films, however.

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 05-22-2002, 01:01 PM:

All our adverts and trailers come in 1.85:1, and if the feature is showing in scope we switch lenses (just before the Dolby snipe); from my experience watching films around the country this is normal practice for the UK. As a single screen this is really helpful as we don't need to keep dual inventory of trailors/ads.

If we had a turret I'm not sure whether we would trust it, but as we don't don't (and we only have one projector) we swap the lense and aperture manually (fun for trainees). We just have a peice of black film in the appropriate place to give us time to do it. We don't have masking (college won't let us) and the curtains can only be moved from the front of the auditorium so we set them for scope, and show the ads/trailers in the middle (which makes keystoning a bit obvious, esp. given the floor of the booth is about level with the top of the screen).

John

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 05-22-2002, 02:07 PM:

Do you close the curtins and play some intermission music during the lense change (like we do)? Or do you just have a very stort stretch of black film and change the lense and plate quickly?

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 05-22-2002, 02:37 PM:

The other PITA is the scope-in-flat trailers. There are a lot of "film experts" watching the films who come out and inform the ushers that the film is being projected wrongly. Oh well, at least somebody is watching. It isn't unusual for someone to come out and say "it's been out of frame/hopelessly defocused/without sound for 15 minutes"... so it was OK to watch it like that for 14 minutes? And no, we can't rewind it and show that part again...

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 05-22-2002, 03:07 PM:

quote:
Do you close the curtins and play some intermission music during the lense change (like we do)? Or do you just have a very stort stretch of black film and change the lense and plate quickly?

The black is about 12 seconds, so we don't do anything other than close the douser on the lamp whilst we do it (and count to fifteen to allow for nerves).

John

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-24-2002, 12:55 AM:

John P said:

>Of course, the "elegant" solution would be to use the scope image area with a 1.5X squeeze lens. <

John, this industry move far away from "elegant" a long, long time ago!

Frank

Posted by Philippe Laude (Member # 79) on 05-24-2002, 01:13 AM:

<John, this industry move far away from "elegant" a long, long time ago!>

Frank, what do you mean?

Philippe

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 05-24-2002, 03:16 AM:

quote:
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Do you close the curtins and play some intermission music during the lense change (like we do)? Or do you just have a very stort stretch of black film and change the lense and plate quickly?
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I just close the douser & do a super quick change.
3 seconds is my best, but I have been known to fumble.
Usually I ensure a rating cert is just before the feature so customers don't miss anything important.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-24-2002, 03:32 AM:

Although it was rare that we performed lens changes at the Northpark, we always tried to have 2 operators handling the task whenever possible. One person would be holding the anamorphic and close the douser, while the second person immediately pulled the flat lens. Then as quick as the first person got the anamorphic in and set in place, the second person had the aperture changed and opened the douser. We had that procedure down to 3-4 seconds! That's almost as quick as the fastest turrets.

Oh well, the good old days are long gone.

Posted by Brian Tristam Williams (Member # 1235) on 05-24-2002, 04:38 AM:

Surely the question of closing curtains and playing background music for a frikkin' lens change doesn't appy to those machines with automatic turrets and automation? I mean, our machines take around 2,5 seconds for a lens and aperture change, so surely you can't mean *those* lens changes?

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"One man can make a difference."

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-24-2002, 04:54 AM:

When I was doing lens changes with the film still running, I would deliberately use clear spacing rather than black (with the douser closed, of course!). This was so that, in a dimly-lit projection box, it was easy to see where the spacing ended and the head leader of the feature started.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 05-24-2002, 05:36 AM:

quote:
The black is about 12 seconds, so we don't do anything other than close the douser on the lamp whilst we do it (and count to fifteen to allow for nerves).
John

I'm going to have a go at this after the summer. There is a scope dolby snipe before the feature. An incase I fumble i could eat into the start of the running time of that and it wouldn't really matter.

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 05-24-2002, 05:52 AM:

Hey Brad:
When I worked in a single screen booth many years ago just outside Boston we used to call that "featherbedding".
How many projectionists does it take to change a lenes and a plate?
(just kidding, of course)

Posted by Brian Tristam Williams (Member # 1235) on 05-24-2002, 06:41 AM:

Well, how many projectionists does it take to change a lamp? Lots, 'cos many hands make light work.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-24-2002, 09:54 AM:

Brad,

I sure would like to see two of those concessionaire/assistant manager/projection attendants perform that transition! (UA, btw, no longer calls the people who they put in the booths "projectionists" they are "projection attendants." I kid you not.

Frank

Posted by Tom Fermanian (Member # 1094) on 05-24-2002, 07:31 PM:

You know, a few years back, we where shown in Washington DC a fine scope style system called ISCOVISION Mr. Glenn Bergen had helped invent it! It was said that then most scope configurations mesured in theatres where about 2 to 1 ratio,chopping the scope 2:35 down, loads of screens where stretching the 1.85 to 2 to 1 cropping shamelesly. Iscovision was proposed to be one only ratio with a 2 to 1 squeeze with film running at 30fps. We had seen a demonstration in an older Cinerama theatre in Washington, results where quite good! to bad it did not cath on,, the full frame (4 spockets) was used utilizing the full picture (available),only optical soundtrack was used.

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 05-25-2002, 02:13 AM:

I think you are mistaken. Iscovision involved a 1.5X squeeze ratio which would result in 1.85 images from (approximately) Scope dimensioned frames, resulting in greater light efficiency and greater resolution (for films actually shot that way as opposed to being blow up to this format) owing to the considerably greater frame area. I don't recall any discussion of a different frame rate. See John Pytlak's posts in this thread.

Posted by Tom Fermanian (Member # 1094) on 05-25-2002, 02:26 PM:

Maybe your right on the squeeze, but I think that I do recall talk about 30fps??? I also remember that The film had to be shot in this format???

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-25-2002, 06:43 PM:

30fps was proposed at the same time but there was nothing said it had to be 30fps

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-26-2002, 02:56 PM:

A few months ago, John Pytlak revisited the Iscovison format at the New York SMPTE section meeting, giving a very informative demonstration which clearly showed the significant,visible improvement in the screen image which the 1.85 anamorphic system produces. His demo pointed out how easy it would be to impliment this system with minimum cost on both the production end and exhibtion end.

Alas, it doesn't have the word DIGITAL slapped all over it so it is probably doomed. Big question is, will exhibitors spend the $2000 per screen for the new anamorphic lens needed so they can improve their 1.85 image? Not many. But the industry expects these same miserly exhibitors will be lining up to shell out $180,000 to buy Digital Light Projectors which offer NO improvement in screen image! I can't stop laughing.

Posted by Tom Fermanian (Member # 1094) on 05-26-2002, 03:13 PM:

Very Simply, It will take a long time for me to believe that any compressed Audio/video signal or data, be it via satelite,cable or disc will be "pirate proof", nothing is pirate proof, still 3000 4000? 35mm prints to check on in north america is to my knowledge still easier to supervise than the above mentioned, So I firmly believe that 35mm film should be improved i.e. iscovision or something else, even DTS 70MM, And leave a proprietary format "FILM" exclusive to cinemas! Digital projection could be instaled in smaller venues for film availability, or smaller screens in multiplexes for specialised films & events. Hey I can dream as cheap in 35 that in digital?

Hey let's call Iscovision Digital Iscovision!

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