movie story by Epson R-D1

isorgb

isorgb

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I really like widescreen shots.
Panoramic is great.
2.40:1 is Panavision view.
I tried to do it with R-D1 + 50mm + 28mm. I took these frames for Panavision format.
...

NINE TO ONE

#1
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#2
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#3
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#4
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#5
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#6
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THE END
 
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love it, very cinematic.

may I correct the term though, 2.39:1 is called "anamorphic" or "cinemascope", panavision is just the company that makes the most widely used anamorphic lenses, which turns 1.19:1 to our beloved widescreen format.
 
Congratulations indeed. Wish I had my R-D1 to document the coming of my two little ones.
 
Xax said:
love it, very cinematic.

may I correct the term though, 2.39:1 is called "anamorphic" or "cinemascope", panavision is just the company that makes the most widely used anamorphic lenses, which turns 1.19:1 to our beloved widescreen format.
Click to expand...

I'll do a little correcting myself. The aspect ratio of anamorphic productions has not been absolutely constant through the years. Cinemascope was originally 2.54 : 1. The earliest Cinemascope movies, such as "The Robe" were released with magnetic sound tracks and 2.54 : 1 aspect ratio. Later, an Optical sound track was added, to make what were called "mag-optical prints." Since the optical track occupied some of the film width, the aspect ratio had to be reduced accordingly, to 2.35 : 1.

Originally, Panavision was indeed the name of a wide screen process. Early releases by Panavision had "Filmed in Panavision emblazoned across the screen; just as 20th Century Fox wide screen had "filmed in CinemaScope." They were, after all in competition. There was an interesting reason why "Filmed in Panavision" was dropped. It had to do with another competitor, Todd-AO.

The first two Todd-AO releases were spectacular. One was "Around the World in 80 days" with David Niven and Cantinflas. As time went on, several Todd-AO films were flops, one after the other. The public began to identify Todd-AO with bad movies. They stayed away in droves. The competition wised up fast. New releases no longer had the name of the process right up in the audience's face. Instead, they settled for "Cameras and lenses by Panavision," and "Cinemascope lenses by Bausch & Lomb" discreetly in the end titles. As my dad, a motion picture executive in south Florida said to me: "The screen could be flying through the air on wings, but if the picture is bad, no one will go to see it." Exhibitors and producers no longer wanted the public to identify the process with the movie.

Panavision also released a number of pictures in 70mm format. This format is not needed today, because theaters and screen are smaller. At the same time, film stock and lenses are sharper. And today we have Xenon lamps instead of the carbon arc lamps used in 1950's. All these changes meant that the picture could be adequate without the need for 70mm print. Over the years, there have been a number of processes: 70 mm Panavision (non anamorphic); 70mm film combined with a mild anamorphic stretch (Ultra Panavision 70); and 35mm Panavision. The aspect ratios for these processes were all a little different.

Add to all of this that some theaters were not able to accomodate the full width of the anamorphic wide screen. The Miami Theater in Miami Florida was a case in point, and probably an extreme example. Sometimes the extremes of the picture width had to be cropped with custom aperture plates in the projector. Movies began being photographed with "safe area" marked in the finder, so that the edges could be cropped for narrow theaters and for TV . All this contributed to aspect ratios that varied in the presentation.

An early process that did not catch on, but probably should have, was Paramount's VistaVision. This one consisted of running 35mm film horizontally through the projector. (that's right: they were way ahead of IMAX in thinking of running the film horizontally). The width of the film became the height of the picture. The width of the frame was increased by lengthening the number of sprocket holes of the pull down (which now became the "pull across). The maximum aspect ratio was 2 : 1, but the pictures were photographed with safe area that allowed them to be cropped as small as, I think, 1.66 : 1. Paramount chose 2 : 1 because, they said, a picture needs some height to convey a sense of "depth and grandeur." In my opinion, having experimented with this in still photography, they were right!

Edit: strike the word "correcting" and make it "commenting" or even "rambling" in my first sentence. And I thought of the other one of the early Todd-AO pictures that was very good: Oklahoma! The name "Todd-AO" by the way is from the collaboration of Mike Todd and American Optical. Dr. Brian O'Brian at AO developed the lenses for this process.

Well, that's enough. We will leave three-panel Cinerama, IMAX, and a few others for another time!
 
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Xax, Rob-F - Thanks for your info. I'm not movie expert, filmmaker, photographer. I just like widescreen and when I took these pictures I thought about these frames. Your information is very interesting. Rob, do you work for movie?

Xax, I saw your photos. They are really great and I would go in that direction. Very interesting and impressive. Your pictures are inspiration for me.
Thank you.
 
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