Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: TV Series "Miracles" --shot in Scope?

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-06-2003, 06:38 PM:

ABC has this new TV series, "Miracles" which I suppose is in sort of the same genre as "Millenium" or "The X-Files". I haven't been able to watch a full episode of it from being pretty busy lately. However, one of my coworkers said the first episode scared the crap out of her.

Anyway, to get to the point, I have seen numerous previews of this show. It appears to be shot entirely with anamorphic lenses. But they crop the frame to 1.33:1 pan and scan. Pretty wierd. I suppose the producers want that "movie look" without having the black bars.

I guess ABC is taking the anamorphic look a step farther from all the music videos on MTV using it as a visual gimmick.

Does ABC show this series in HDTV format? What aspect ratio do they show for "Miracles" in HD (if it applies). I forgot whether ABC stays strictly with 1280 X 720p or actually does some 1080i shows.

Considering how some TV series originally air with standard 2.0 Dolby Surround audio but later on DVD sport new 5.1 mixdowns, it might be interesting to see how this show is presented if it gets popular enough to justify a DVD box set. 5.1 and 2.39:1 widescreen? I guess we'll see.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-06-2003, 06:46 PM:

Bobby - Thanks for bringing this up! I will now seek out this show. [Smile]

I found this link to comments by Miracles cinematographer Ernest Holzman: Miracles. It is indeed shot with anamorphic lenses.

[ 02-06-2003, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: David Stambaugh ]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-06-2003, 08:12 PM:

It's sad when a publication like American Cinematographer can't get their facts straight. Native aspect ratio is not 2.40 : 1 when the film is advancing only 3 perfs per frame! More like 3.1:1 or 3.55 over the full silent width.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 02-06-2003, 08:43 PM:

Just as good:

quote:
Anamorphic’s squeeze-and-stretch process causes the out-of-focus imagery to be elongated vertically.

Since when do anamorphics stretch vertically?

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 02-06-2003, 09:03 PM:

Daryl,

It's usually most noticable with background lights and halos created, such as car headlights. When those are out of focus, they will appear to be stretched vertically. It's an anamorphic artifact.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-07-2003, 09:32 PM:

Here is a rather large collage of four DVD frame grabs (but its only around 60K in size). They show off a lot of the artifacts common to anamorphic photography. You can see how items farther in the background stretch vertically.

I, for one, like the 'scope look. One thing that puzzles me is those wide, elliptical reddish halos around strong light sources. It seems like the circle-halo goes right through the anamorphic compression lens without getting squeezed. Everything else does except it. Then when the film is projected and the image is decompressed, that halo gets horizontally stretched.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 02-07-2003, 10:53 PM:

I think that halo effect is caused because its a reflection on the non-anamorphic portion of the lense. The strong light hits the anamorphic portion and reflects onto the focusing portion of the glass inside the lens, creating the halo effect after it passes this first part of the lens optics.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 02-08-2003, 03:10 AM:

also note, of course, that if an object is closer than the focal plane then it will be elongated horizontally (after the image is unsqueezed).

and if a scope shot has a focus pull, you can see the (d)elongation happen. eg, the shot of the school's sign in
"rushmore" (it's in the trailer too). the funniest, and perhaps most "artistic" use of this effect i've seen is radley
metzger's "lickerish quartet". a couple (or more?) is having sex, and we see a shot of some flowers, pulsing in
and out of focus, stretching and compressing, to the rhythm of their groans.

carl

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-08-2003, 11:36 AM:

A focus pull will really show off the elongation effect in the depth of field. That last frame grab from the "Save Me" music video from "Magnolia" is a good example. The shot is tightly focused on the flower as it dollies forward. The focus shifts to the background to reveal the two women sitting on the couch.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-10-2003, 06:42 PM:

Daryl asked (perhaps rhetorically):

quote:
Since when do anamorphics stretch vertically?

Paul answered:

quote:
It's usually most noticable with background lights and halos created, such as car headlights. When those are out of focus, they will appear to be stretched vertically. It's an anamorphic artifact.

I suspect Daryl's point was that anamorphic lenses stretch images horizontally rather than vertically.

EDIT:

Steve wrote:

quote:
It's sad when a publication like American Cinematographer can't get their facts straight.

Their September issue contained a bunch of silly errors including references to Cinerama's original frames-per-second rate as 30 in one article and 26 in a separate article...in the same issue! They also claimed that after the production of How The West Was Won and It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World that all subsequent "Cinerama" productions were made in Technirama or Super Panavision. (Most post 1962 Cinerama films were originated in Ultra Panavision.) There were other errors as well with their otherwise good Cinerama coverage in that issue.

I also remember a few issues back where they did a feature on Men In Black II and claimed it was 2.35:1.

Magazines are bound to make an error from time to time (some more than others). I see errors -- both typographical and factual -- all the time...and it can definitely be irritating. The publication I'm associated with has certainly made its fair share of 'em over the years [Smile]

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 02-10-2003, 07:07 PM:

Paul is right. After seeing the effects so many times, for so many years, I guess you start to forget that they are even there.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 02-14-2003, 09:33 AM:

So is there anyone out there who can describe technically why these "squeezed in" and "stretched out" artifacts appear in anamorphically shot films?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-14-2003, 12:19 PM:

I'm sure Tak Miyagishima from Panavision could explain it clearly. Each anamorphic camera lens tends to have its "signature", which varies with the focal length and f/stop. Part of the "art" of great cinematography is choosing a particular lens to give the "look" desired:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/forum/onFilm/

Posted by Aaron Haney (Member # 747) on 02-14-2003, 04:58 PM:

John McTiernan said in the commentary for the most recent "Die Hard" DVD that he deliberately chose to use an older set of anamorphic lenses for the movie because they produced a type of flare he liked, whereas newer lenses did not. I believe you can also see these same types of flares in his remake of "Rollerball".

[ 02-14-2003, 07:31 PM: Message edited by: Aaron Haney ]

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 02-15-2003, 12:17 AM:

Paul has it mostly right. The halo is created in the conventional part of the lens but it most likely has nothing to do with bouncing off the anamorphic elements. It's just a matter of odds that the many complex spherical elements (depending on the particular lens) far outnumber the cylindrical unit which, typically, might only have a pair of doublets (and counter-rotating diopters). Thus, the likelyhood is that the internal reflection creating the halo from a bright point-source is going to take place among spherical elements. So the anamorphic lens lays down a circular halo on film just like any other lens. This is after the anamorphic elements so it's not affected by them. The only difference is that the anamorphic film is projected with a 2X expansion while the flat film is not.

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-01-2003, 08:35 PM:

Here's a somewhat technical description of what goes on inside the anamorphic lens in terms of artifacting.

http://www.skylarkweb.com/cinema/superanam.html