So is Casino Royale 2.40:1 or 1.85:1?

[Atrocity]

I downloaded the PS3 trailer and it appears to be 1.85:1 (16x9) aspect ratio, but I thought I remember seeing a review in which the reviewer said it preserves the 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

[Polyh3dron]

According to the IMDb, and if my memory serves me correctly from the theatre, Casino Royale is presented in Scope(2.35:1). I have a feeling those trailers were just chopped so they would look better by filling the screen, but the BD itself will be OAR since Sony has not yet chopped off the sides of a Scope film so it could fill the screen on BD.

So yes, the BD will be in 2.35:1 letterboxed.

[Deciazulado]

"Scope" these days is 2.39 in theaters

[Sinner]

yeah I was also surprised to see the trailer in 1.85, but my BD is 2.35...

[josh1233]

the film was shot on Super-35 and matted to 2.39:1 in the cinema. The Blu-ray is also 2.39.1

[Polyh3dron]

2.35 or 2.39-whatever.... it's all scope.

Oh and some parts were shot in HD, it wasn't all Super35.

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

"Scope" these days is 2.39 in theaters

Not to be picky here, but am oddly fascinated by the varying numbers used to approximate the scope ratio... why 2:39?

For instance, the DP Peter Deming, in an interview said with American Cinematographer said that Lost Highway was shot in (and I am probably paraphrasing) "true panavision. 2:40"... So with Panavision being a scope format... why 2:39 and not 2:40?

God that looks like such a nerdy, picky question reading back over it. Anyway, I for one am interested if you have the answer

[helli3yte]

you guys are killing me with this . english please

[DavePS3]

I'm 99% sure it's 2.40:1 so on a regular widescreen TV, plasma or projection, you'll have black bars at the top and bottom - unless you have a zoom but if you do that, you'll cut off the sides a bit.

[amtctt]

Originally Posted by Atrocity

I downloaded the PS3 trailer and it appears to be 1.85:1 (16x9) aspect ratio, but I thought I remember seeing a review in which the reviewer said it preserves the 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

There are a lot of trailers that cut off the sides and usually it's the 1.78:1 ratio or 16:9 if you prefer. They do this all the time cause the trailers are designed to also fill the screen on most HD sets. This isn't always the case, but they do it a lot.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by josh1233

Actually I believe they matted the 35-Super image in post production. I don't believe they used anamorphic lenses.

Yes that's how they do Super-35 productions in "Scope/Panavision" ratios.

But I said: "Yeah it's a 35mm anamorphic projection (usually called "Scope", "Panavision") (2.35-2.40) ratio film and disc."

The projection is done through 2x anamorphic lens.


(numbers rounded in mm)
35mm movie shot with anamorphic lens for "Scope/Panavision" type projection:

negative:

Camera Aperture: 18mm x 22mm

Projector Aperture: 17.5mm x 21mm

direct copy of that onto 35mm print:

Camera Aperture: 18mm x 22mm

Projector Aperture: 17.5mm x 21mm

shown through a 2x Anamorphic lens = 2.39


35mm movie shot with flat lens for "Scope/Panavision" type projection:

negative:

Camera Aperture: 18mm x 25mm

Projector Aperture: 10mm x 24mm

vertically expanded and horizontally compressed copy of that onto 35mm print:

Camera Aperture: 18mm x 22mm

Projector Aperture: 17.5mm x 21mm

shown through a 2x Anamorphic lens = 2.39



Summary:

Anamorphic shot image: 17.5mm x 21mm -> 17.5mm x 21mm Anamorphic Projection

Super-35 shot image : 10mm x 24mm -> 17.5mm x 21mm Anamorphic Projection


__________________

About trailers being 1.85, well many "Scope movie" trailers are "done" cropped into Standard Widescreen versions (11mm x 21mm) to play along with the other Standard Widescreen movie trailers before the movie. If you got a Scope trailer, you would have to change the projector lens (flat to anamorphic) for that trailer only and change it back for the next trailer or the 1.85 movie, so Scope trailers are usually played just before a Scope movie. If you're watching Ice Age (1.85) that day and they played a Casino Royale trailer they would use a 1.85 trailer. Now if they were playing Happy Feet (2.39), they might attach a CR 2.39 trailer before it, after the 1.85 trailers, and switch the lens once as the CR trailer starts.

There's 2 more less common variations. You could have the 2.39 image letterboxed into 9mm x 21mm of the 11mm x 21mm 1.85 area of a 1.85 format trailer (I think I saw last a Firewall trailer like that). Or you could pillabox a 1.85 trailer into 17.5mm x 16mm inside the 17.5mm x 21mm of a Scope format trailer.

[Deciazulado]

Film has "resolution", as in resolving power. It's usually measured in c/mm (cycles per millimeter) also known as lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter), a line pair being one black line, one white line.

So you take a film that resolves 100 lp/mm and you expose a negative area of 11.33mm x 21mm (1.85 Projector Aperture) and you would get a resolving power of 1133 x 2100 line pairs for a negative of that format/dimension. One line pair would be roughly equivalent to 2 pixels (one black one white) so you could say the film's theoretical resolving power was 2266 x 4200 pixels. But the photographic image is made by exposing the film with an image formed by a lens, and this lens also has it's own resolving power. So when you combine both component's resolving powers (lens and film) you get an image that has less resolution than each individual component's capacity. Lets say something like 1600 x 3000 "pixels".

Also "resolving power" is a limited measurement, it just tells you what's the limit of fine detail (frequency) achievable, not it's amplitude (contrast) which is measured using MTF (Modulation Transfer Function). So you could have 1600 x 3000 "pixels" on film but they could be just at 5% contrast or amplitude, while lower frequencies (say objects twice as thick) ("800 x 1500" objects) be at 50% contrast or amplitude, and so forth. When you talk about digital "resolution", like 720p or 1080p, since it's "digital', you could theoretically have a 720 x 1280, 1080 x 1920, etc, checkerboard or lines test pattern have those at 100%. For real life photographic images that might be less as there's aliasing to consider.

Originally Posted by TallCoolOne

Just to confirm this thread's original topic, i have CR bluray here and the back says High Definition Widescreen Presentation (2.40:1).

Yeah it's a 35mm anamorphic projection (usually called "Scope", "Panavision") (2.35-2.39) ratio film and disc. Menu and HD supplements are in 16:9 ratio with clips inside the HD supplements in the film's ratio.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Jack Torrance

God that looks like such a nerdy, picky question reading back over it. Anyway, I for one am interested if you have the answer

But of course! Would you care for a mint?

(I'll use aproximate numbers sometimes to simplify)



Ok, 35mm Silent camera aperture (the "hole") is 1.33

About 18.75mm x 25mm

Also remember that the intended area to be seen is slightly smaller that this "Camera Aperture" area exposed, to safegard against mechanical and optical errors. It's approx. 5% smaller

So we could say the "Projected Aperture" is 1.33

but

18mm x 24mm



When the 35mm Optical Sound format was created, a couple of mm of that Camera Aperture width (to the left of the image) were used up and covered with the optical track image. Having the intended projected image area be smaller in the first place helped but wasn't enough. So we lost about 3mm of Projected width:

So roughly you got a new "Camera Aperture" of about 1.17

About 18.75mm x 22mm

And the Projector Aperture to that, about 1.17:

About 18mm x 21mm



Of course this image was "squarer" that the Silent one, so it was decided to use "thicker" lines separating the frames vertically and they were made to bring the image height down to make the projected image width similar to the previous "Silent" image, but not quite exactly the same width:

What we got is what you may have heard named as the Academy Standard Sound Aperture 1.37

So you could say that for the Academy Sound Camera Aperture you would only need a new "Camera Aperture", about 1.37, of

About 16mm x 22mm

And the Academy Sound Projector Aperture would be, about 1.37, of

About 15mm x 21mm



As you see, I keep saying "about" to keep the numbers simple, but since The Academy is important I'll specify the precise numbers now too:

0.600" x 0.825" or 15.24mm x 20.955mm 1.375 Aspect Ratio

(Note that it's 1.375, not 1.33
1.33 is the Silent ratio and the analog TV ratio)




What does this have to do with Scope and Panavision and Super-35 and Anamorphics?

Well because in a sense those formats are interdependant to those 4:3 movie ratio camera aperture "holes".

When they planned the original CinemaScope format in the ealy 50's, they were going to project the sound using a separate 35mm projector for the sound and use the full Silent camera aperture to shoot with a 2x anamorphic lens for the image. 2x 1.33 = 2.66

But then, they ended using the magnetic track CinemaScope projection format (4 thin magnetic stripes of sound on the image print). This format used 35mm film made with smaller sprockets, so that freed space up, but still it wasn't enough to get a 2.66 wide image with the added magnetic stripes. So the Projector Aperture was reduced to 2.55 wide to acomodate the magnetic sound stripes on the prints.
So early Cinemascope movies were shown as 2.55 wide,

with the Projector Aperture being about 18mm x 23mm
(remember how the Silent was 18mm x 24mm)

If you want it in inches:
0.705" x 0.898" 2x 1.275 = 2.55 Aspect Ratio


But then most movie theaters didn't want to use (or couldn't afford) magnetic sound (they would need to go from mono optical to 4 channel magnetic) so eventually Scope movie prints added optical sound (and latter eliminated the magnetic tracks and small sprockets) and as you saw before when we switched from Silent to Sound, the optical track covers part of the width, on the left. (That's why you might notice some old Cinemascope movies being off-center, with image missing on the left. Those were magnetic Cinemascope 2.55 negatives duped straight into optical sound Cinemascope 2.35 prints without optical recentering of the image)
To accomodate the optical track on the prints, the Cinemasope aperture area was changed (reduced in width) to about 18mm x 21mm, Which gives you a 2.35 aspect ratio after the 2x anamorphic lens. If you have sharp eyes this is what the Silent + optical track dimensions ended originally(18mm x 21mm) and the 21mm width looks to be the same as the standard Academy Sound width (15mm x 21mm) but actually the width is slightly different, but you get the idea. In precise numbers: 17.907mm x 21.0312mm. In inches:

0.705" x 0.828" 2x 1.175 = 2.35 Aspect Ratio

This was standarized in 1957


Cinemascope films should be edited using a special splicer but when edited with normal equipment the splice lines would show on screen, so a few years later it was decided to decrease the vertical aperture slightly to hide them. The new dimensions were 17.8mm x 21.3mm. In inches:

0.700" x 0.838" 2x 1.197 = 2.39 Aspect Ratio

This was standarized in 1970


Now we get to "modern times". In the mid 90's new Digital Sound systems appeared. For compablility with current optical sound systems, the DTS control track was inserted in a small empty area between the optical track and the left of the image. For Standard Widescren movies (Projector Aperture of 11.328mm x 20.955mm, or 0.446" x 0.825" 1.85 Aspect Ratio) (which is the same Projector Aperture width as Academy Sound) nothing needed to be changed. For Anamorphic prints the 0.838" width was reduced to 0.825" to be safe and to bring it into line with the Standard Widescreen Flat lens prints (Now both Scope and Flat sound projection (Academy/Widescreen) have the same print width: 0.825"/20.955mm. So all three shapes now share a common width)

So the modern Scope print standard is 17.5mm x 21mm or in precise numbers:

0.690" x 0.825" or 17.526mm x 20.955mm 2x 1.195 = 2.39 Aspect Ratio


Since the 2.39 width or area intended is created by a projector plate, the basic camera didn't need to be changed. Only the groundglass lines telling the cameraman what will be seen.



Now we have newer tech and things like 2K scans of Super-35 and Anamorphic negatives are created. 2k basically means 2048 pixels across the Silent Camera (or now called full) Aperture width.
Cinematography. Difficult to see. Always in motion.


I know what you're thinking. You shoulda taken the violet pill.

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

But of course! Would you care for a mint?

.

Deciazulado - thanks for the info on scope ratios... most informative and greatly appreciated!