20,000 Leagues Under The Sea masked (1 Viewer)

[DeeF]

If these pictures are derived from the DVD exactly, then the aspect ratio shown is 2.21:1.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The image isn't totally unsqueezed.

 

[RolandL]

OK.

 

[RolandL]

Sorry

http://members.cox.net/rlajs/20000.htm

 

[GerardoHP]

Looks like the "unsqueezed" image looks better (i.e., less "fat") than the unsqueezed one.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Roland,

Thanks for those excellent captures/comparisons.

-dave

 

[DeeF]

It's true, the image before squeezing looks more natural.

Hmm, I wonder...?

 

[DeeF]

Is it possible that this movie was improperly filmed, and then projected with too much squeezing?

I'm not suggesting that anything is wrong with the DVD, just wondering why the unsqueezed image looks more natural to my eyes.

Possibly it has always been this way from the beginning, and everyone attributed the "fat" quality to the problems of Cinemascope.

 

[GerardoHP]

The CinemaScope squeeze is not random but a standard used during filming and projection, so it's not possible that the picture was always shown with "too much squeezing."

But the distortions inherent to early and/or cheaper anamorphic lenses (like WarnerScope) sometimes appear to be slightly corrected when the picture is not completely unsqueezed.

 

[DeeF]

This is the first anamorphic DVD in my collection that looked funny enough on my monitor to make me check the settings of my player. It just looked overly squeezed, and the ratio seemed wrong.

 

[Rob W]

Take a look at the shots where characters are looking through binoculars. The binocular mattes are perfectly round, indicating the film has been unsqueezed correctly.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

Ah-ha! Well spotted, Rob!


Gordy

 

[Ernest Rister]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was only the 2nd film shot in CinemaScope, and the first sci-fi/fantasy film shot in CinemaScope. I would expect some odd photogrpahic issues -- especially since the entire film was shot with ONE LENS!

If you don't have it, it is easily one of the best DVD sets the Walt Disney Company has ever produced, and it was named one of the ten best DVDs of 2003 by yours truly and also Entertainment Weekly (too bad many DVD sites like DVD File, IGN DVD, The Digital Bits and even our own HTF never got around to reviewing it -- damn shame, actaully...we all bitch when Disney makes a lackluster DVD of an obscure title...they release a stellar DVD of a true cinema classic, and the top DVD sites don't even bother to review it).

 

[Robert Crawford]

Ernest,
If would be nice if you did a proper search before making such a statement that HTF didn't do a review of this dvd release. Perhaps, the same thing happened with the other sites too? I don't know, but what I do know for certain is the following HTF Review link.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea HTF Review

 

[Ernest Rister]

Mr. Crawford:

I did a Software F & D search for 20,000 Leagues, and this thread was the closest thing to a 20,000 Leagues discussion that popped up (How do you think I managed to fish up this old thread in the first place? )

This is what I did, and maybe you can tell me what I did wrong:

Go to "Search This Forum"

Type in "20,000 Leagues"

Select "Slow" Option in the Drop Down Menu

Select "Posts"

Hit go.

The 20,000 Leagues review never appears. Why? Dunno. Maybe I should only search thread titles? It seems illogical to search only the titles of threads, when surely a review of 20,000 Leagues would mention the name of the movie in the body of the post, and subsequent responses to the same would also mention it.

The Digital Bits has no review for 20,000 Leagues in their archives, nor does DVDFile, nor does IGN. Forgive me if my failed search attempt of HTF-Software-F&D seemed to confirm a continuation of the trend. I apologize if you took offense.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Ernest,
There is no need to edit your post by addressing me, since everybody makes mistakes every now and then.






Crawdaddy

 

[Nathan*W]

The review was on page 4 of the search you outlined above.

 

[John Whittle]

Here are a few interesting notes about 20,000 Leagues.

As has been noted this was a very early Cinemascope film and the lens was loaned to Disney from Fox (a long drive from Beverly Hills to Burbank in case it had to go back and forth).

The early lenses suffered from some "non-linearity" was was corrected with later B&L lenses (all "Cinemascope" trademark productions were shot with B&L lenses).

There were also problems with close focusing of the new anamorphic lenses and to solve the problem with mininature photography, the Disney boys created "squeezed" models to shoot and they were photographed with standard lenses.

As for centering. The original specs did not include an optical track and the picture was centered differently than a standard academy production. When the mag-optical prints were introduced the picture was again centered the same as the Academy aperture. When Technicolor made mag optical prints, they re-centered the matrix used to make IB prints. Other labs which made contact prints didn't have this ability in Eastman color unless an optical intermediate was made which degraded quality.

At one time theatres actually rotated the bases of their projectors slightly to re-center the four track mag Cinemascope prints on the screen.

It seems there were lots of transfers made in the past by people who were not aware of the history of the production specs used at various times which explains some centering errors. All Cinemascope pictures were made with lenses with a 2x compression/expansion ratio. Some othere lenses exist for some special processes like Technirama (1.33x) and the original Superscope (1.5x).

John

 

[Ernest Rister]

"The review was on page 4 of the search you outlined above."

There is a thread authored by JZ with one reply called "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" on page 4, but it isn't the HTF review. The HTF review does not appear at all on my end of the internet poop chute when I do the search as I outlined it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

If you're going to look for a thread that's over a year old then you should do a search utilizing the slowest search option. If you done that and confined your search to threads by using "20,000 Leagues" then you would've come up with Ron Epstein's Review thread on page 2.






Crawdaddy