Common Topline

[Steven Parker]

Searched the forums, no luck. Away from my rig, can't test. So...

Curious as whether B16 allows adjusting the visible framelines in the EVF (or even LCD if need be) to allow for common topline shooting. My gut says no, since less than 4K rez always seems to hit the center of the sensor...

Not a fan of common topline shooting, but my director's holding my feet to the fire so he can maximize aspect ratios for different DVD market releases (2.35 for overseas, 16x9 for domestic)

We're talking about zoom/pan in post but I worry about losing too much control of composition.

Any tips/tricks much appreciated.

s

~

 

[Charles Angus]

I've shot S16 for 2.35 with only 16x9 markers in the VF, it's a bit of a pain, but worked out fine.


Just remember not to frame too tight...

 

[Florian Stadler]

I haven't found a way to make common top happen. Should be fairly easy to implement in the next build? Keep 16:9 as the recording format and generate all the other framelines from that common top instead of centered. Only drawback is you would compromise yourself out of the new full sensor width 2.39 format that was announced for b17.

 

[Steven Parker]

yeah, figured as much.

thanks, guys, guess we'll be winging it in 16x9...

s

 

[Ravi Kiran]

Our DP would like to shoot with something close to common top, but not quite common top. We'd like our dailies to be cropped. How would we do this? We're going to do some tests with the framing and creating a matte in Photoshop. What is the true aspect ratio of the 'scope frame guides? And what's the best way to present the dailies with letterboxing?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Our DP would like to shoot with something close to common top, but not quite common top. We'd like our dailies to be cropped. How would we do this? We're going to do some tests with the framing and creating a matte in Photoshop. What is the true aspect ratio of the 'scope frame guides? And what's the best way to present the dailies with letterboxing?

Once you create camera framelines that you like for near common top, aka "raised 2.40", then shoot a framing chart that matches your viewfinder framelines so that post knows where to crop/letterbox. Now whether you want or need to shift the letterbox image back down to center is up to you, I'm not sure of the methodologies. But the main thing is to shoot a framing chart to hold as a reference.

"True" scope framelines are a bit of a grey area - scope projection is 2.39 : 1 but you often transfer a slightly oversized image (usually a bit talller so the image is more like 2.35) onto 35mm negative for projection, and the projector aperture does the final trimming, so the question is whether your framelines match the area transferred to film or the area actually projected. I've never gotten a straight answer on that one, so you should always plan on some trimming happening during final projection.

Many digital cameras with built-in scope framelines opt for a roughly 2.37 : 1 frame as sort of a compromise between 2.35 and 2.39.

I'm talking about unsqueezed images -- the actual image transferred to 35mm has a 2X optical squeeze and is more like 1.19... : 1.

 

[Ravi Kiran]

We set the frame guide to 2.39:1 in the camera and raised it slightly, so that it was not quite common top. Then we shot a piece of paper on which we drew framelines for 16:9 and for our 2.39:1 area. We were shooting at 4K:HD at 23.98fps.

In Clipfinder, I transcoded a 1920x1080 ProRes SQ file adjusting the crop settings to give us a letterboxed clip. What was 2.39:1 in camera was closer to 2.35:1 in Clipfinder. This allows us to edit and screen dailies in 'scope.