Movie Formats: why are there so many?

Very nice setup Tony, here's mine:

Every Roadshow 70mm house in NYC is gone except for The Ziegfeld. All of the Repertory
cinemas are gone too except for the Film Forum which is part time revivals. Radio City
Music Hall still exists but only for live entertainment, not movies. The 70mm Roadshow
cinemas were cetainly more spectacular than any home set up and one of the main reasons
to go the movies decades ago. I still remember the Rivoli which was my favorite theater
of all time. A deeply curved Dimension 150 screen and the projection booth on ground
level so you had a straight (rather than curved) horizon. If you sat in a center 'sweet
spot' seat, the screen wrapped around you and you were literally inside the movie. A
very spectacular experience. The problem with all curved screen houses was that standard
flat 1.85 movies didn't look good on them. Only 70mm or 35mm anamorphic prints which
limited the types of pictures they could book. Among the 70mm Roadshow
movies that played the Rivoli were "Oklahoma!" (Todd-AO 30 frames per second),
"Around the World in 80 Days" (Todd-AO 30 frames per second), "West Side
Story" (70mm), "The Sand Pebbles" (70mm blow up from 35mm Panavision negative)
"Cleopatra" (70mm) and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1976 and 1978 re-issues in
70mm). They built an Egyptian facades for "Cleopatra" and that remained the
exterior decor until it was twinned circa 1986 and then demolished.

I left off another process that was used for two films, "The Bible" and "Patton". It was called
"Dimension 150". It was a 70mm process similar to Todd-AO that used extremely wide angle
lenses that generated a wide depth of field. Otherwise it was a standard 70mm format with
six channel stereo sound and a 2.21 x 1 ratio. If you look at the opening shots of "Patton"
you'll see what those lenses looked like. They seem a bit distorted when shown on a flat
wide screen and play better on the curved screen they were designed for. They weren't used
for close ups and medium shots. Just the wide shots. They were very similar to the Todd AO
bug eye lens used for the travelogue shots in "Around the World in 80 Days" which also distort
the image unless they're projected on a deeply curved screen.

Both Todd AO and Dimension 150 were unique in that they were shown on combination projectors
that could play both 35mm and 70mm formats. The outer sprockets were very large and they
played 70mm prints. There were inner sprockets that were smaller that could play 35mm.
That way they only needed one type of machine in the booth. When 70mm was first introduced,
it required two new projectors and the booth became very crowded with the four machines
(2 for 35mm and 2 for 70mm). The combo machines resolved this problem. Norelco made the
Todd AO combo units and they also had the curved gate and were considered the best projectors
ever made. They are huge though.

I see.

Aspect ratio is often a thorny topic among film and video buffs. It gets tricky when movies
were exhibited in more than one format. For example, "Okahoma!" was originally shown in
an interlocked set up at the Rivoli. That means the soundtrack was run on a separate piece
of film and the projector showed the complete image that was photographed which was a
bit wider than 2.21 x 1. Later, they put the mag stripes on the film which reduced the size
to the standard 70mm ratio. However, it was simultaneously filmed in 35mm CinemaScope
and magnetic stereo prints were made in the 2.55 x 1 ratio without any optical track. Then
for other theaters they put on the optical track which reduced the ratio to 2.35 x 1. So what
was the 'definitive' ratio of that movie. Well technically all three were since that's how various
people saw the film, depending on what format that theater was exhibiting. SuperScope films
were shown in both the anamorphic 2 x 1 format (with black borders on the sides of the scope
image) as well as standard 1.33. There were two versions of films like "Underwater" with
Jane Russell shown in cinemas. Both could be considered definitive presentations of the movie.
A number of early CinemaScope films were shot twice too. Once for the anamorphic prints
and a separate negative that filmed the image in 1.33. "The Robe" and "Brigadoon" were among
those that had two camera negatives since a lot of theaters didn't have widescreens in the
early fifties. Very often even cable stations get this information wrong. I remember when they
were discussing letterbox on Turner classics and used "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" as an
example of what would happen when it was pan/scanned for television as opposed to showing
the entire frame within the letterboxed image. It was a bad example because that movie was
also shot twice and it was never cropped for television. They just broadcast the 1.33 version.

You're welcome.

Regarding the ratios, in my opinion they should show as much as the image as they can for
home video presentations...but not portions that show up things you weren't supposed to
see. For example, VistaVision movies photographed a bigger image than what was used
for the actual release prints. The camera negative was about 1.5 x 1 but the prints
were masked off for 1.66 and usually shown in 1.85. For the television versions of
these films, they printed a 1.33 version from the 1.5 x 1 negative. However, that meant
you were seeing more of the tops and bottoms of the sets than intended. Perhaps the
funniest example of this was the TV version of "North by Northwest". You could see the
bottom of the Mount Rushmore set that Grant and Saint stepped off of. When Grant was
climbing up the side of the house, you could see the movie lights on the bottom of the
frame. The 16mm prints all show this.

To make it even more complicated, the movie "Shane" was shot and composed for 1.33 but
when it was released, many studios were switching to widescreen so they projected the
film in a cropped 1.66 or 1.85 format for exhibition. However, this was not the way it was
supposed to be shown so in the case of home video release, it's best to have the 1.33
version rather than the cropped version shown in theaters in the fifties.


As a suppliment on some future release, I would like Warners to release the 70mm widescreen
version of "Gone with the Wind" on DVD. It's pretty wild looking since they went through the
movie on a shot by shot basis to recompose it from 1.33 to 2.21 x 1. They also changed the
title design. The first time I saw the film was in the 1968 widescreen re-issue and being only
11 years old, I thought it was supposed to be that way. I didn't see it in the correct 1.33
ratio until I went to a revival cinema in the seventies.


I guess for the DVD distributors, it's a judgement call in terms of what ratio to use. In general
it's a good idea to try to replicate what people saw in cinemas upon it's release but there
are always exceptions like the above mentioned "Shane" and variations of ratios for the same
movie if it was shot in 65mm or CinemaScope.

Okay here goes...

The higher the f stop when shooting a film, the finer grain and sharper the image will be.
The lower the f stop the grainier and murkier the image will be.

F stops also affect your depth of field. Once again the higher the f stop the greater depth
of field and vice-versa. Depth of field is the sharpness between foreground and background.


The type of lens you're using also has a relationship to sharpness and depth of field.
Wide angle lenses (18mm lens, 25mm lens) have an infinate depth of field. In other words the entire frame will be sharp in foreground and background. Portrait and and Close up lenses (50mm lens,
80mm lens) have a limited depth of field. In other words the person's face or body will be in focus but the background will be blurry.


So these are the tools that cinematographers use and if they're any good, will maximum their
effectiveness for the movie.


So by combining these elements (lighting design, f stop and lens) you can analyze what the
they did.


Here are some examples:

In "Lawrence of Arabia", Freddie Young was filming in the desert which was had a great deal
of sunlight (it was about 120 degrees on location in Jordan) so he
generated an f. 22 exposure. Since there was so much light and the f stop was so high,
the image was razor sharp and had an incredible depth of field in the wideshots. In other
words you could see Lawrence standing in the foreground and the sand dunes miles in the
background were also in razor sharp focus. For the indoor sets Young used a lot of high
key lighting and shot at f. 11 which also generated a razor sharp and fine grain image.
The same look was acheived in the wide shots in Allenby's office. Foreground and background
were razor sharp and the image was fine grain.


Now let's look at the polar opposite type of camerawork in "The Godfather". Gordon Willis
filmed with very limited light at a very low f 2 exposure. As a result, the image was very dark
with whole portions of the frame completely black. The depth of field was very shallow and
the backgrounds were usually blurry. It worked for this movie since it was about
gangsters who operated in backrooms in the dark and make shady business deals or ordered
hits on fellow mobsters. The overall grainy and dark look was intentional. The movie isn't
fine grain or razor sharp but I guess the murkiness of the image reflected the amoral murkiness
of the characters.


Let's examine the lenses used in these two movies and their relationship to the lighting and
depth of focus. "Lawrence" was shot in Panavision 70 so the image in the camera was already
wide and Young composed the shots so that there were long rows of extras on camels making
you feel like you were part of the raids and battles. They used long focal length lenses to
increase the depth of field and sharpness.


"The Godfather" was shot for 1.85 since most of the movie is in close up and the long shots
are usually dark with little detail. There would've been no reason to use long focal length lenses
or widescreen (2.35 or 2.21 70mm) since it was an intimate drama with small groups of people
in the frame rather than an epic narrative with hundreds of extras. This movie used a lot
of portrait and close up lenses rather than the wide angle/wide frame lenses utilized in Lawrence.


In both cases, the lenses, lighting design and f stop and ratio were used stylishly which suited
the genres and narratives.


Now lets examine the film "Fracture" that I discussed in another post. The film was shot in
2.35 widescreen but with very little light. That meant they were shooting with low f stops
of f4 or f2 which meant a shallow depth of field. This really doesn't work for widescreen
films since only the foreground will be in focus and the background blurry. That means a lot
of blurry side image in the wide frame which is distracting. The compositions were mostly
center framed so there was no point in using the 2.35 ratio. This film would've worked a lot
better as a 1.85 film considering the low key lighting, low f stops, center framed
image and shallow depth of field. There wasn't enough going on in the frame to justify it's
width and the compositions weren't artisitically designed. The director and cinematography simply made some bad choices for the format they were utilizing.


Now when you watch any movie, you can guess what type of lens they were using and
how much light was on set or location.

Razor sharp wideshots will be 18, 20 or 25mm lenses.

Portrait shots with a slightly soft background will be 40 or 50mm lenses.

Close ups will be 80mm lenses.

The sharper the backgrounds are in the 40, 50 and 80mm lenses, the more light they
had on set and the higher the f stop. The blurrier they are, the less light and lower
the f stop they shot it with.


The more light they had overall in the film, the finer grain the image will be. The less light
they had overall, the grainier the film will be.


When films are transferred to the digital medium, all of these attributes or liabilities will be exagerated. The sharper movies will look ultra-sharp, the grainy movies will look extremelly grainy. Film prints tend to blend the differences more than DVDs.


I could go into color but that's a separate category (warm colors make the image seem closer,
cold colors make the image seem more distant etc.)

While we're on this subject, I thought I'd mention some visual 'pet peeves' I have. These are
things that some cinematographers and directors do that I hate.

1) Rack focus shots. I can't stand it when the cinematographer changes focus within a shot
from foreground to background. It calls attention to itself and reminds you you're watching
a photographed movie. In other words, someone will be talking in the foreground in focus
and there's a person listening in the background out of focus. Then the camera changes the
focus in the same shot to the person in the background putting the person in the foreground
out of focus. Very distracting.

2) Rear screen projection. Hitchcock used it in his movies as did most of the studios through
the fifties. That's when they photograph the road and project it on a screen and put a
real car in the foreground and the actor pretends he's driving. It always looks phony and
the background is obviously just a screen and is grainy and doesn't match the lighting or
depth of field of the foreground.

3) Dollying past the edge of a set. This really gets me angry. A character starts walking from
one room to the other and the cameraman follows him going past the edge of the wall set
to the next set. It's makes it blatantly obvious that they're filming on a set and takes away
the illusion that the set is a real location. Even Kubrick did it in "Spartacus".

blaser,

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Are you referring to the way the close
ups crop parts of the face? That's just a filmmaking technique or decision. Close ups in
wide screen movies are always a problem. Do you show the full head as in a standard 1.33
or 1.85 film with a lot of extra space on either side of the face or do you crop some of the
face to get in closer? Depends on the director. Sergio Leone filled the entire
face within his wide frame which meant the top of the head and the bottom of the chin
were cropped out of the image area. Others show the entire face but try to have an
interesting background so the extra space on either side of the image has a better
composition.

In terms of my pet peeves, rear screen projection was used as a standardized technique
for showing moving shots in a car until the mid-sixties when films like "Grand Prix" and
"Bullitt" had the camera mounted on the vehicle so the actor could be driving. Car mounts
became standard after that. The other method is to tow the car that supposed to be driving
and film the actor from the back of the tow truck. The reason they used rear screen was not
because they were unable to do driving shots with a mounted camera but because they tried
to avoid leaving the studio if possible. The studio moguls liked to keep an eye on all filmmaking
activities to keep directors from going over budget. As soon as you go outside and have to
block off traffic on the street you up the insurance costs and there's the possibility of an accident
or time delays as you deal with the weather, position of the sun and so forth. For example in
the movie "Grand Prix" they circumvented the insurance restrictions and had the actors really
drive those racing cars. Much riskier than having them pretend to drive them in front of
a screen projecting the background but of course much more realistic and spectacular.
The last time I recall seeing the rear screen shots were in the Connery Bond movies.
After "Bullitt" it would be difficult for audiences to accept that type of driving effect.
When you project the road on a movie screen in back of the live actor in the car,
the grain structure doesn't match which gives it away. The background is always
much grainier than the actor. Stanley Kramer corrected this a bit with "It's a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World" by having the background projected footage in 70mm which
was much sharper but it still looked artificial.


I've used car mount shots in some of my movies. In the case of "Space Avenger",
I had the camera mounted on the front of the car at a fixed focal length filming through
the windshield. I was crouched down in the back seat along with the soundman when
we filmed. Pretty crowded but we got the shot. I had to turn on the camera, jump
into the back seat and crouch and then the actor started to drive the car and once
he reached about 35 miles per hour we'd start the shot. Unfortunately we had a lot
of wasted footage while he started to drive and then slowed down and stopped but it
was the only way to do it since I didn't want a cameraman hanging onto the front of
the vehicle. It was better than shooting from the back of a tow truck since they usually
give too much vibration. By mounting it on the hood, you got better steadiness and
you could also get a close up from that angle.

blaser,

The other technique you brought up was split screen images. The first time I recall seeing
them were in a dance number in "It's Always Fair Weather" in 1955 at the end of "Charade" in 1963. They were used in "Grand Prix", "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "Carrie" too. I used it for the bank robbery scene in my film "Soft Money".
There are different ways of using the technique. One is to show different angles of the
same action which was the bank robbery in "The Thomas Crown Affair". In "Carrie" they showed
different portions of the gym where Carrie was wrecking havoc on her tormentors. In "Grand
Prix" they showed different details of the racing cars being prepared. I tried something different
in my bank robbery scene in "Soft Money". One panel showed the thieves blowing the vault
while in the other panel I showed a police car patrolling the area to add some suspense.
It's a technique that is usually associated with the sixties but is still occasionally used today.