[SidneyFalco]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Not quite. With Super 35, they use all of the negative area, including the part that had been used for the soundtrack. It was generally matted to 2.39:1, and then anamorphically squeezed during printing. One of the "advantages" (if you want to call it that) of Super 35 was that when it came to pan-&-scanning for video, they'd re-matte to 1.85:1, and then pan-&-scan, resulting in less image being lost on the sides.

(As an aside, for the original laserdisc of The Abyss, the Super 35 film was matted and letterboxed at 1.85:1, and I actually find that a more pleasing ratio than the 2.39:1 that it's supposed to be.)



One of the things to keep in mind is that, for the most part, the widescreen processes were designed around an exposed negative of 1.33:1. I imagine the reason for that being that they didn't want to have to redesign the cameras and film. Each process in its own funky creative way, would take that 1.33:1 negative image and make a widescreen picture from it, whether it be CinemaScope/Panavision, Cinerama, flat matted, or whatever.

I just said the same thing, lol. Super35 shoots full neg and is matted later, and anamorphic squeezes to fit the neg.