The Big Picture

Here's another photo of multitrack 35mm film which shows the actual movie image. This version does not have DTS as you can see. A newer version of 35mm film called Super-35 has been developed, that omits the old optical soundtrack (the squiggly one) and uses that space to expand the image area. James Cameron is a big fan of Super-35. Note that even if a movie is shot digitally, prints like this must be made for theaters that don't have digital projection capability.

Note the picture looks squashed...that's because it is, this is an "anamorphic" print made from a Panavision camera negative. This is called "Anamorphic Scope". The lens in the projector will expand this back out to a 2.39:1 widescreen picture when shown. There is an interesting reason the picture is squeezed like this, and it has to do with avoiding film waste: the projector shutter area takes up four sprocket holes of film length and if the image was printed on the film in widescreen, large areas above and below each frame image would be wasted. By using an anamorphic process this film area can be used. It's a very complicated optical process and involves using cameras with special oval-shaped anamorphic lenses to capture the picture and a projector with the same lenses to expand it. The resulting image is very close to what you would get with spherical lenses (the 1.85:1 "Academy Flat" process uses a 3-sprocket shutter with spherical lenses). There are some differences though, that you may only notice if you know what to look for. Next time you see a Panavision film in the theater or on video, watch out for these telltale signs that the movie was shot anamorphically:

- There is a kind of lens flare that shows in bright areas of dark scenes as a long horizontal line that is typically blue. Look for it in car headlights and flashlights. This is so common it's sometimes used on purpose and there are software packages to simulate it in non-anamorphic films. Here it is:

- Cylindrical perspective can occur with wide lenses of less than 40mm. This artifact causes straight horizontal picture elements, like horizons, to become curved the farther they are from the lens axis, but they remain straight when centered. Look for it especially in close ups of horizontal patterns like car grilles. Wes Anderson is a big fan of this look.

- Out of focus elements in the background do not look round as they normally should - they stretch vertically into an oval shape.

- This one is, to me, the most noticeable. I used to see this and know something was funny but not know what it was. When the camera shifts focus, say from a background subject to a foreground subject, there is a dramatic vertical stretch in the elements that are going out of focus. If you find the right scene this will be very obvious. Again, this is such a big part of the look of modern cinema that there are ways to fake it after the fact.

- And there is a flaw that is not very common in newer movies but used to pop up on older films, called "Anamorphic Mumps". It's a byproduct of a non-uniform squeeze across the image field and it causes some areas to appear more stretched than others. If this happens in the center of the frame and it's a facial shot, the actor will look a little like they have mumps. Very uncommon today and I imagine if it did happen it would be removed in post production.