Filming Type: SPHERICAL, What Does That Mean (1 Viewer)

[Chuck C]

When the "Cinematographic process" lists a movie as "Sperical" What does that mean?
some examples:
Link Removed
thanks for the help

 

[Hendrik]

...do you have a still camera? a video camera? a Polaroid camera? a MAXXUM SLR? an ancient Kodak Brownie? an old 'fold-out' camera inherited from your grandfather? a Canon IXUS? a digital camera? an old 8mm or Super 8mm or a 16mm movie camera?...
...all of these use(d) 'spherical' optics ... the latter can be short-focal-length [a.k.a. 'wide-angle'], extreme short-focal-length [a.k.a. 'fish-eye'], all the way up to long- and very-long-focal-length [a.k.a. 'tele'] as well as multi-focal-length [a.k.a. 'zoom'] lenses) ... as opposed to the anamorphic(*) optics used to film CinemaScope or "Filmed in Panavision" (or DyaliScope, or FranScope, or SuperScope, or WarnerScope, or...) movies...
(*) http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/squeeze.htm
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[Inspector Hammer!]

Spherical lenses are mostly used on films shot in the 'Super 35' process. A good way to spot if a movie was shot using spherical lenses is to look for oval shaped light flares that appear when a light shines directly into the camera during a movie. Films shot in Panavision that uses anamorphic lenses, produces a different type of light flare, in those films it's a bright blue streak of light that shines across the screen. The Die Hard films exhibit this a lot.

 

[Hendrik]

"Spherical lenses are mostly used on films shot in the 'Super 35' process...."
...the above statement is true enough, except that the word 'mostly' should be scrapped... as stated in my previous post any optics that are not anamorphic optics are, in fact spherical optics... and one of the main reasons given (by Directors and DPs) for using the 'Super 35' (or, for that matter, 'Super 16') process is precisely to avoid having to use anamorphic optics in order to create a wide (1.40:1) image on what is, in essence, a narrow film format...
...all movies made before the advent - in 1952 - of CinemaScope (and similar, competing processes, including - I think - the USSR's SovScope) were filmed with spherical optics, from the early 1890s test scenes coming from Edison's lab all the way up to "The Robe" and "How To Marry a Millionnaire" by way of "The Great Train Robbery", "The Phantom Of The Opera", "The Blue Angel", "Gone With The Wind", "The Best Years Of Our Lives", "A Streetcar Named Desire"... spherical optics continue to be used for all movies that are not specifically 'true' widescreen (by 'true widescreen' I mean movies with AR 2.0 or wider - 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 don't really count), regardless of whether the 'Super 35' (or 'Super 16') process is used or not... they are also used for many (but by no means all!) 'true' widescreen movies...
"...A good way to spot if a movie was shot using spherical lenses is to look for oval shaped light flares that appear when a light shines directly into the camera during a movie..."
...sorry, no cigar!
...the 'oval shaped light flares' indicate that anamorphic optics were used to film the scene...
(signed) Passing Pedant
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[Inspector Hammer!]

Hendric,
thanks for the clearification, but I am POSITIVE that i've seen either oval or round light flares when watching a movie shot in 'Super 35', i'm sure of it.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Spherical simply means the film was shot with an ordinary round lens.

A spherical lens doesn't distort in any way and is used for open matte, academy frame, and normal 65mm films.

A good example is Cast Away. The film was shot at 1.33:1 for all non-SFX shots using a spherical lens. The SFX scenes were probably shot on VistaVision, which also use sperical lenses, but the film is run through the camera horizontally. 1.85:1, 1.33:1, 1.66:1, 65mm films with 2.21:1 aspect ratios, VistaVision, and even Cinerama used spherical lenses. These lenses are NOT used only for super-35. ANY film not filmed in Panavision or a scope format was filmed with a sperical lens.

A scope or anamorphic film (2.35:1) uses a special lens which distorts the horizontal image. It squeezes the image horizontally on film. It takes another anamorphic lens to unsqueeze the picture.

 

[Hendrik]

John Williamson: ...ahh... you may be 'sure of it' but you're still wrong! wrong!! wrong!!!
. . . . . .

 

[Michael Reuben]

I am POSITIVE that i've seen either oval or round light flares when watching a movie shot in 'Super 35', i'm sure of it.

Lens flares can occur with any form of photography, depending on many variables. If you're seeing round ones, the film was almost certainly not shot with anamorphic lenses.

M.

 

[Damin J Toell]

but I am POSITIVE that i've seen either oval or round light flares when watching a movie shot in 'Super 35', i'm sure of it.

Spherical lenses give round lens flares, while anamorphic lenses tend to give flares that stretch horizontally across the frame (and the color isn't necessarily blue). While it is certainly possible to use anamorphic lenses when filming for 2.4:1 acquisition using Super35, I don't know of any films in which it has been done. So while you've certainly seen round lenses flares before in Super35 films, if you saw a distorted lense flare, it was shot with anamorphic lenses and wasn't Super35.

DJ

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Hendric,
as you can see, others have seen them as well.

Why so heavy handed in your post? You've got a wink smiley, but the excessive exclamation points are not necessary.

 

[Michael Reuben]

as you can see, others have seen them as well.

Others have seen lens flares. Hendrik's point (and mine and Damin's) is that the mere presence of lens flares doesn't tell you what type of photographic process was used.

M.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

While we're on the topic, what exactly does it mean when something is said to be shot "flat"? Not in terms of 3-D, but it's often used in conjunction with spherical....are they synonymous?

 

[Damin J Toell]

While we're on the topic, what exactly does it mean when something is said to be shot "flat"? Not in terms of 3-D, but it's often used in conjunction with spherical....are they synonymous?

Yes. Flat/Spherical are generally synonymous, just like Scope/Anamorphic.

DJ

 

[Chuck C]

exciting, thanks all

so which is "better"? anamorph. or sph. ?

 

[Michael Reuben]

so which is "better"? anamorph. or sph. ?

They're just tools with different characteristics. Neither one is "better".

M.

 

[Seth Paxton]

A couple of problems with Anamorphic lenses can be depth of field, light pickup (amount of light needed), and of course the obvious bending of lines near the edges of the frame.
A better way to spot spherical vs anamorphic is to look at the cigarette burns. You burn a circle on the frame (unless you aren't so good with the cigarette ) and if you then show that frame anamorphically that true circle on the cell will be streched wide into an oval.
If it is shown flat then the geometry of the circle remains unchanged.
Which is better really makes no sense to ask once you understand it. It is a lot like asking which is better for playing music, guitar or piano.
What is true is that the knee-jerk aversion to non 2.35 films around here lately is getting a bit out of hand. While HTF wants OAR and it's fun to utilize your widescreen set, 2.35, 1.85, etc have no inherent "betterness" over other ARs. It's all about what the director is trying to show and how he wants it shown.
Yet the LBX/OAR fight has made some people into widescreen monsters. If Fincher wanted to do a 1.37 black and white film tomorrow I'd be all for it, or at least as interested as always in his work.

 

[Damin J Toell]

so which is "better"? anamorph. or sph. ?

Just to build on what Michael said, this is kind of like asking if a pen is better than a pencil. I don't mean that to sound as if I'm demeaning you for asking the question in the first place, but rather I mean that there really isn't an answer. Pens excel in some areas (e.g., permanence, absorption into a given surface), while pencils excel in others (e.g., erasibility, the ability to smudge for shading). So it would be kind of absurd to say that a pen was somehow definitively better than a pencil. Instead, they're just things tools can be used to achieve certain artistic goals, and neither is perfect for every single imaginable job. Same with lenses.

DJ

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

A better way to spot spherical vs anamorphic is to look at the cigarette burns. You burn a circle on the frame (unless you aren't so good with the cigarette) and if you then show that frame anamorphically that true circle on the cell will be streched wide into an oval. If it is shown flat then the geometry of the circle remains unchanged.

Not exactly. You'll only be able to use this trick to establish whether or not the PRINT you are viewing is presented in 'scope (a.k.a. "anamorphic") or flat. The cue marks (what some call "cigarette burns" - I never heard of that term until FIGHT CLUB) are ALWAYS circles on 35mm prints - they are punched into the printing negative at the lab. The projection lens will make them stay as circles (flat) or distort them to ovals ('scope).

 

[Michael Reuben]

A better way to spot spherical vs anamorphic is to look at the cigarette burns.

Seth, if you're referring to the reel change markers, then no, that isn't a good way to spot the difference. Films shot in Super35 (i.e., with spherical lenses) for exhibition at 2.40:1 go through an anamorphic squeeze when release prints are generated. Those prints are then projected through the same lenses used to display films shot anamorphically. So they too have oval-shaped cigarette burns.

M.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Films shot in Super35 (i.e., with spherical lenses) for exhibition at 2.40:1 go through an anamorphic squeeze when release prints are generated.

That would make sense Peter and Michael. Thanks for clarifying. I wasn't really thinking about S35 2.35 (2.4) films.
What I really had in mind was that on the film being projected you had a circle and after the projection lens distorts it, you don't. But then since spherical capture with intent to mask to the wider aspect still requires the 2.40 to fit on the projection print somehow...