OT: Harry Potter (was Re: Yet Another cabe Pretty Printer)

[Ryan Powers]

On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 11:29:31AM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth said:

> On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 12:14:30AM -0400, Bill Vermillion wrote:
> > > I personally can't imagine the 35 to 90mm blowup is that impressive.
> > 
> > It was shot in Super35.
> 
> Ah.  Haven't been reading AC as regularly as I used to...
> 
> > But one reason for using horizontal IMAX is you don't have the
> > problems with the anamophic 35mm projection.   You lose more
> > brightness and contrast when you stretch it out and therefore by
> > using IMAX you retain more contrast and brightness, though you are
> > still limited in resolution of the original.
> 
> So the optical printer doesn't have those problems when doing the
> anamorphic stretch?

It may be that theaters use cheaper anamorphic lenses. But you're
talking about widescreen shot on 35. Super35 is something very
different.

Instead of shooting for widescreen and using pan and scan for
television, the film is shot in 4:3 for television and masked off
for widescreen in the theaters. The director sets up the shot with
both formats in mind. James Cameron uses this format. 

The downside is that you end up with lower resolution widescreen
and with the top and bottom chopped off. It would be pointless to
buy the widescreen version since you would be getting less of the
film instead of more which is unfortunate since widescreen is more
natural. In the future when everyone has widescreen televisions the
Super35 films will be seen as inferior.
 
-- 
Ryan
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