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

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 11:14:08AM -0500, Ryan Powers wrote:
> 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. 

Hmmm...  Seems to me that that would be a *helluva* lot harder to
protect for.  You effectively can't use the top and bottom at *all*,
and it makes micing miserable as well, no?

> 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.

You're saying that instead of shooting 6-perf anamorphic, they shoot
8-perf spherical and mask?  Yeah, I guess you *would* lose some
resolution that way.  Of course, film is much more impressive than it
used to be, too...

Cheers,
- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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