A Few Words About Wide Screen cinematography shot in camera... (1 Viewer)

[Stephen_J_H]

There's at least one image of a matte box on the original 1989 Batman (the only one of that series that was hard matted as far as prints go).

I think the purpose of a matte box is widely misunderstood, as the use of "matte" in this context appears to have more to do with reducing glare on the lens and those wonderful "lens flares" so beloved by JJ Abrams.

 

[Vincent_P]

Dario Argento's TENEBRAE was hard-matted at 1.85:1 in camera, aside from a small bit of footage shot in New York City and JFK Airport that's unmatted. I have some MOV clips (maybe 20 mins worth) from the 35mm print that Synapse scanned parts of for their Blu-ray and it's all hard-matted except for that small amount of footage shot in the U.S.

Vincent

 

[Moleman X]

Robert, can those examples really be camera negs? I didn't think those could have optical audio tracks.

 

[TallPaulInKy]

Hammer films apparently did a lot of matting in the camera when the films were shot and the lab would mask as necessary. This was mentioned on numerous commentaries including the one about Curse of Frankenstein which probably inspired this thread. The commentator from Hammer..mentioned the film was hard matted in the camera, but probably used the wrong term. The original version (without the matting) has been restored and appears on several new Blu-Rays so you can see what was left out on the top and bottom of the picture during it's theatrical release in the 60s.

 

[aPhil]

Hammer films apparently did a lot of matting in the camera when the films were shot and the lab would mask as necessary. This was mentioned on numerous commentaries including the one about Curse of Frankenstein which probably inspired this thread. The commentator from Hammer..mentioned the film was hard matted in the camera, but probably used the wrong term. The original version (without the matting) has been restored and appears on several new Blu-Rays so you can see what was left out on the top and bottom of the picture during it's theatrical release in the 60s.

I do not know of any Hammer Film being shot with a hard matte, but that does not mean such did not ever happen.
I have heard people say this (about Hammer Films and a hard matte) for years, and I have never seen evidence.

A hard matte would be a gate inside the camera that does not photograph the full frame of the film.
Shooting with a hard matte is not a post production process (it is something done in the original photography with the original camera negative running in the camera),
nor is a hard matte anything used outside of the camera body (i.e., it has nothing to do with a matte box).

 

[Alan Tully]

Yeah, the 35mm cameras that were used for 1:37 films went on to be used for 1:85 films, as far as I know they didn't start making cameras for 1:85 (& any such camera couldn't have then been used for 'scope films or TV productions). I suppose the answer is to ask the camera makers. I stand by my original view that 1:85 film cameras were as rare a hens teeth.

 

[rdimucci]

I've read that THE DIRTY DOZEN was hard-matted at 1.75:1. If true, this would mean that the 4:3 video releases of the film had the sides cropped. Has anyone done a comparison of the 4:3 and widescreen videos to confirm this?

 

[OLDTIMER]

Probably slightly irrelevant but the camera aperture in a super 16 camera is 1.66. The picture quality can be brilliant. Witness the BBC Colin Firth Blu-ray of "Pride and Predudice".

 

[Carl David]

A matte-box (for keeping out stray light, holding filters, etc) is pretty much standard, yet, as we know, it is not a “hard-matte in the camera” --
I have not heard of a matte-box, which is in front of the camera lens, being used to “matte” the aspect ratio on the film -- That would be rather impractical and offer problems from lens-to-lens.

I really do want to hear more about films that were actually “hard-matted in the camera.”
Does anyone have an image of a the film gate of a camera with a matte for 1.66 or such ?

I think Stanley Kubrick had a 1.77 plate on the cameras on all his films from Barry Lyndon onwards. Not 100% certain on that, however.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

He did not.

 

[aPhil]

Probably slightly irrelevant but the camera aperture in a super 16 camera is 1.66. The picture quality can be brilliant. Witness the BBC Colin Firth Blu-ray of "Pride and Predudice".

True about Super 16, but that was the “locked-in” ratio -- I think Super 16 (which had film perfs on only one side of the frame and not both sides of the 16mm frame) was primarily (someone correct me if I’m wrong) for shooting the less expensive 16mm format with blow-up for 35mm theatrical distribution in mind.
One could compose/frame for 1.85 within the 1.66-to-1 native aspect ratio of Super 16 and have some 45% more usable image area for a blow-up for 35mm 1.85 projection than you had with standard 16mm film.

 

[Carl David]

He did not.

Are you replying to my post?

 

[Lord Dalek]

True about Super 16, but that was the “locked-in” ratio -- I think Super 16 (which had film perfs on only one side of the frame and not both sides of the 16mm frame) was primarily (someone correct me if I’m wrong) for shooting the less expensive 16mm format with blow-up for 35mm theatrical distribution in mind.

Actually 16mm sound film has always been single perf to make room for the optical track. Super 16 is basically identical to Super 35 in that it doesn't have that optical track thus maximizing the image even further than the old double perf silent era standard.

 

[aPhil]

Actually 16mm sound film has always been single perf to make room for the optical track. Super 16 is basically identical to Super 35 in that it doesn't have that optical track thus maximizing the image even further than the old double perf silent era standard.

True that 16mm sound film is single perf for sound projection, and I think single-perf for shooting news film with the old magnetic track used for sound-on-film for TV news departments prior to the coming of light weight & portable videotape cameras for news.
Still, outside of sound-on-film for immediate use on newscasts, standard 16mm films were usually shot with 2-perforations (one perf on one side and another perf on the other side). As with 35mm motion pictures, the sound track was recorded on a separate recorder (again, with the exception of news film).

In the 1980s, Super 16 with the single perf on one side of the film was a bit more expensive than standard 16mm with perferations on both sides.
After the turn of the century, it seemed that single perf became more common, but, in the 1970s & 1980s, single perf for filming in Super 16mm had to be special ordered. I went through this on a film in the mid-1980s that considered shooting Super 16, but that was abandoned as at the time there were not many camera houses that had the format (so, if you had camera problems or needed multiple Super 16 cameras, you might not have backup cameras available).

 

[mBen989]

Someone asked about Mary Poppins.
Well, I remembered where I found snips of a film print.

 

[OLDTIMER]

Apart from the historical perspective, physical matting in the camera these days is a moot point since almost all modern movies are now shot digitally. My understanding is that professional digital cameras can hard matte in the camera electronically if desired.

 

[Vincent_P]

And movies that are shot in 35mm these days typically shoot 3-perf, which has a native widescreen ratio.

Vincent

 

[Henry Gondorff]

Someone asked about Mary Poppins.
Well, I remembered where I found snips of a film print.

This is a release print. Virtually all Disney spherical films from the late 50s throughout at least the 80s had 1:75:1 hard matte superimposed on the 35mm prints but were photographed open-matte for showing on 4:3 TV and 16mm non-theatrical.

 

[Alan Tully]

Ah, Super 16, I'm almost an expert on that. It's just single perf negative stock. In my film lab days I graded what I think was the first feature to be filmed on that format (it probably wasn't), it was called Secrets (1971), & the lab engineers had to go through all the lab kit (synchronizers, rewind machines ect.) to make sure they didn't scratch the soundtrack area. It didn't really catch on much until the early nineties, when widescreen TVs came in & they started filming TV dramas in Super 16. I graded hundreds of programs right from the negative on telecine, all in 16:9. The cameraman would always shoot a line-up chart at the start of the production (usually along with the lens tests), you needed that chart to line up to, as you had to lose a bit of picture from the top & bottom of the frame (Super 16 being 1:66, so we had to lose a bit of picture to make it 16:9). Happy days.

 

[Lord Dalek]

This is a release print. Virtually all Disney spherical films from the late 50s throughout at least the 80s had 1:75:1 hard matte superimposed on the 35mm prints but were photographed open-matte for showing on 4:3 TV and 16mm non-theatrical.

Actually, Disney didn't start hard matting until Oliver & Company in 1988. All 35mm cells I've seen of Rescuers, Fox and the Hound, and Great Mouse Detective are full frame.