Scarlet-X with Anamorphic Todd-AO Lenses

[Nat R]

Hi All,
I'm a currently putting together a project and I've got my hands on a Scarlet-X. We were thinking about renting some quality Zeiss compact primes but my DoP tells me today that he can get his hands on a set of Todd-AO anamorphic lenses so I watched some video online and I do like the anamorphic look for this project but I have some concerns that hopefully somebody can address. I have been told that there is a quality loss due to the Red's 16.9 sensor and the recording space of the anamorphic lenses. One of my main reasons for going with Red is to have the 4K resolution to blow up and resize for post effects. How bad is this quality loss? The other concern is with regard to the post workflow and it's complication. Does anybody have experience with this? Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Ben Scott]

There's no 'Quality loss'. You'll just be cropping some of the picture to get a 2.4:1 aspect ratio.

 

[Brian Merlen]

well technically cropping it does cut away some pixels. People usually do Anamorphic shoots with Arris to take advantage of the 4 by 3 sensors some of their models have. I don't think the issue is significant though, the Red is a higher res camera even after the cropping, debayer, and what have you. The fact your going for Scarlet probably indicates the budget isn't significant enough for an Alexa anyway.. I don't think post will be extensively complicated, not sure if you meant with the cropping issue, or the fact not everyone knows how to work with r3d files... But in either case I think a halfway savvy post person would be able to overcome the cropping issue and these days most people have worked with r3d files, all applications support it, GPU acceleration has reduced the need for Rocket X rentals (but I have one available at a rental facility if you do need to book one). I think it would work out fine. You can always go even higher res with Dragon or Epic if your concerned about the debayer+cropping killing too many pixels...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Test, test, test.