Re: digressing as usual (scope formats) (from Re: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS legal status)

From: David P. Hayes
Newsgroups: alt.movies.silent
Date: Thursday, March 26, 1998 9:02 AM

Eric Grayson wrote in message …
>>Actually, TITANIC (Best Cinematography Oscar or not) was filmed with
>>video in mind, in the "Super 35" format (just like the old "SuperScope")
>>which uses the full silent frame and extracts a "Scope" image for
>>theatres. Then the full frame is still available for the TV version
>>which will be re-composed shot by shot for the most aesthetic image.
>>
>IMHO, SuperScope looks much better than "Super 35" because there is still a
>LOT of cropping in the Super 35 prints to make a scope picture. The image
>tends to be VERY grainy in projection. Take a look at the grainiest one,
>which is probably Star Trek 6; you'll see what I mean…

There is (or at least, can be) a lot of cropping of a Super35 image to make the 1.85:1 projection prints, yet the results can look good. "True Lies" was shot Super35, and I know that it was shot 1.33:1 because Video Watchdog magazine published frame comparisons from the letterbox and non-letterbox versions of the laserdisc and VHS releases, and they show that on the same shot, the top and bottom of the image had been cropped for the letterbox. (What's more, only in the non-letterbox version can you see that it is Schwarzenegger and not a double who is performing a stunt, because his head is cut off in the letterbox version--but I digress.)

When I saw "True Lies" in 70mm, the print was very good, better than the typical 35mm print of a film that had been shot widescreen. I don't know what process the lab used to blow up the image as much as it had to and yet avoid grain, but that indeed is what it achieved.

--
David Hayes

 

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