Anamorphic Lenses Explained: History, Physics & Design (Part 1)

[00:00:00]Your Eyes are schizophrenic so,  why wouldn't your lenses be?

[00:00:09]This Episode it as all about anamorphic filming…   or… anamorphic photography… for  a little bit of cinematic magic.

[00:00:21]An epic journey of discovery lays ahead of you…  from the simple basics all the way down the rabbit hole… from where few filmmakers return.

[00:00:30]In a nutshell, anamorphic is about squeezing an image horizontally during filming and desqueezing that image for viewing… to achieve that, specially designed lenses are used… such a lens is called an anamorphic lens or sometimes simply… … a “Scope”.

[00:00:48]When we see movies that are shot in scope there is  something in the image that is hard to pinpoint…   there is… something… intrinsically  cinematic about the image.   Something that is not rooted  in the movement of the camera,   nor in the story. It is not about acting,  the wardrobe or the beautiful sets.

[00:01:14]Scopes create their very unique aesthetic…   and this aesthetic got ingrained  into the soul of the audience.

[00:01:21]Shall we continue SCOPE CHAPTER ONE is about the background  of anamorphic. We show you the different   flavours of widescreen cinema from Cinerama,  over Cinemacope to 70mm and Techniscope.  We show you why anamorphic fell out of hollywoods  favour… and why it made it back big… well… wide.

[00:01:41]We explain the physics behind anamorphic  lenses and what makes the image so diffrent   to normal spherical lenses…  what problems come with the  process… practically and optically…   we explore principles different lens designs… the  fashion of anamorphic throughout cinemas history.  …and while we are at it… we  debunk some common misconceptions.

[00:02:07]SCOPE CHAPTER TWO is for those who want to shoot   anamorphic themselves … from  beginners to professionals.

[00:02:14]We are exploring the pros and  cons of anamorphic adapters,   projector lenses, and full  blown anamorphic lenses…  we are going to show you how to build and use  these using a variety of taking lenses.

[00:02:25]And we are going put these to the test… so you can  decide which look makes your heart sing.

[00:02:31]We are going to talk to DIY god Tito  Ferradans And if you think anamorphic is only great for filming,   let us introduce you to Dick Sweeney  and his amazing anamorphic photography.

[00:02:41]We give you tips for creative use  you might not have considers as well   as the do's and don'ts of anamorphic lenses … and of course, we show you how to make   the best out of your anamorphic footage in post It’s a whole world for anyone interested in  photography or cinematography to discover…  For most people there is movie that started it all, for me that was BLADE RUNNER and as it is one of the most   iconic movies shot in scope… I thought,  why don’t start right there?  Holden wants to talk to me… Let’s see what he wants Come in… Why did you call me in…… I am quite occupied doing an   Episode for the Media Division Please don’t move OK?!… …we are going to show the difference  between anamorphic and spherical lenses Same thing!

[00:04:13]Not really… an anamorphic lens has optical  elements that squeeze the image horizontally…   and in post or during projection  it is unsqueezed … so…  Doesn’t make any difference You might think so, but it absolutely  does make a difference… an anamorphic   image has unique characteristics  that we associate with big cinema.  Why is that Leon… …that is completely hypothetical Well… I think we will be able to show that it's not… and explain exactly what makes the difference Take for example … Blade Runner.

[00:04:45]What?

[00:04:47]Never mind… by the way… I stoped smoking a while ago and the smoke bothers me a little… would you mind if you… …what was that for?

[00:05:00]It’s a test designed to provoke an emotional response…… If you want an emotional reaction… go ask me about my mother These are just questions Leon Shall we continue?

[00:05:19]Describe in singly words… only the good things that come into your mind…   about… your mother My mother?

[00:05:29]Let me tell you about my mother Lets start with what anamorphic is all about?

[00:05:49]This is one of our test setups for our practical part…   and this is shot with a spherical lens… a Zeiss CP.2…   A cine lens as perfect… and in itself… as boring… as it gets.  To have a better comparison, we will crop this  image to a typical cinema widescreen aspect ratio.

[00:06:26]Here is the exact same setup but shot on an anamorphic lens…   Doesn’t it feel completely different?

[00:06:40]What is anamorphic all about?

[00:06:43]It is about getting a wide field of view…  Applying an anamorphic lens to a camera squeezes an image …   and an anamorphic lens on a projector stretches it back to its normal appearance This is called an anamorphic process.   The  desqueeze by the projector lens can also be done in post to be displayed on an ordinary display, or to be printed.

[00:07:16]The first time you look into the front of an  anamorphic lens, you immediately realise that   something is very different. The entrance pupil  of the lens is an oval instead of a circle.   You might think that the lens is  actually shaped ovally on the inside,   but turning the lens around, shows  that something very wired is going on…   the exit pupil of the lens is oval too, but  now the oval is wider than tall.

[00:07:42]The shape of the entrance pupil is not generated by an oval  Iris, as that wouldn’t change.

[00:07:49]The Oval shape is a purely optical phenomena caused my lens elements, that are cylindrical instead of spherical.

[00:07:56]Here you can can see the cylindrical shape of anamorphic elements without housing.

[00:08:00]A very simple anamorphic system can consist out  of just two elements, like it is the case here  Both elements together are called the anamorphic block   and are combined with a normal spherical lens to get to an anamorphic lens.  We will get to the specifics of anamorphic lens design later,   for now it is only important to know, that the anamorphic block squeezes the image horizontally.

[00:08:24]But why would you squeeze the image horizontally and what makes it so relevant?   The best way to approach the subject is to explore the history of the process… Anamorphic was invited by the french astronomer Henri Chrétien during the first world war not for use in films,  but for improved battlefield awareness.

[00:08:43]The anamorphic lens, would allow tank crews to have a wide field of view… with only a tiny opening in the armour … with obvious advantages   (Go left) "Nach links" (fake german accent) "Nak klings" (fake fake german accent) If you are a SS officer… I am Micky Mouse But let’s concentrate of the use of anamorphic in filmmaking.  It all come down to the lust for a wider screen in cinema… and being economic at the same time.

[00:09:16]Since the age of silent movies,  the 35mm film format was in use…   …and the aspect ratio was arbitrarily 4:3.  Even in that days, it was obvious that human  vision is considerably wider than that Humans have two eyes and even though the field of views  are overlapping, humans experience the world in a wide way… Movies are a business and innovation keeps the audience coming to the movie theatres…   a wider viewing experience was a surprisingly early goal….

[00:09:47]So… how does one get to widescreen?

[00:09:51]In 1929, Fox Film Studio introduced  the first mainstream widescreen process   that even included sound… “Fox Grandeur”  It almost doubled the width of the image by using 70mm film, while maintaining the same height.

[00:10:08]The resulting quality was nothing short of revolutionary   and it is hard to believe that this scene from the “The Big Trail” are from 1930.  It is amazing how technology changes the way how a movie works on a very deep level… “The Big Trail”   looks, feels and sounds, like something from a much later era.  Unfortunately, the format was very short lived … the great depression captivated the audience and the industry.

[00:10:29]Fox abandoned the format already in 1930 as not financially viable.

[00:10:34]But even with the depression the show did go on… using the economically proven 35mm film  With inclusion of audio, the image area on the the filmstrip   got smaller and even more square, as it now  had to share space with an optical sound track.  The transition to color movies drove innovation for the next two decades… Meanwhile cinemas nemesis… Television… gained more and more traction.  With color TV on the horizon cinema needed its next innovation.  Widescreen was the hype of the day again, spawning different formats   with different approaches almost simultaneously.

[00:11:15]Cinerama was introduced in1952. It achieved a wide field of view by using three 35mm film strips and three projectors. To not get too wide and to further enhance the image fidelity…   the 35mm used a height of 6 perforations instead of the standard 4 The image was projected on a gigantic curved screen.

[00:11:37]Cinerama was a sensation and very successful, but the process had obvious problems.

[00:11:42]It was technically complex and very expensive to produce and show.

[00:11:47]The cameras size and weight was a limiting factor.

[00:11:50]As cameras and projectors  had necessarily different positions it could create nausea inducing perspective effects.   Actors had to look at markers so they would appear to look at their partners given the curved projection.

[00:12:02]The images where not quite seamless as the restored versions of today might imply   and filmmakers had to compose every scene accordingly…  which is probably the reason why Cinerama used   Three strips and projectors instead of two… as two strip system would have its breaking point right in the center of the screen where it would be even more obvious.    The hole process was more like a gimmick than it was about story telling… …a bit like 3D is today 3-strip Cinerama was later combined or completely replaced by a single camera with 70mm film, we will come back to this in a minute.

[00:12:38]All this left room for the first real anamorphic process…  Henri Chrétien already developed and patented the basic process in 1926 with a lens called Hypergonar that squeezed the image horizontally to half its width.   If the same lens design is used on the camera and on  the projector, one can achieve a widescreen image   using the exact same cameras and projectors… just by replacing the lenses.

[00:13:04]That means that cost for cinemas would be very low and the adoption rate would be fast Not only that, all other elements in the infrastructure, from factories to laboratories could remain basically the same.   Twentieth Century Studios bought the  patent and called it “CinemaScope”   It was introduced in 1953… with “The Robe”.  With little technical barriers and restrictions in the composition,   filmmakers could concentrate on telling the story. CinemaScope delivered widescreen cinema with the economics of 35mm film   The principle of the CinemaScope process… using 4-perf 35mm film   with a 2x stretch was often copied and rebranded. Examples are Dyaliscope, Franscope, Totalvision,   and dozens of others. There is a list on  Wikipedia we will link in the description.  While CinemaScope and its later incarnations dominated the market for the time being,   other companies and film studios introduced their own widescreen processes some anamorphic, some spherical. To have a selling argument for their process,   a better image quality by means of a larger negative was usually the key ingredient.

[00:14:20]In 1954 Paramount introduced VistaVision Instead of vertically, the film stock runs horizontally in the camera… like it always did in 35mm photo cameras.   Now, a single frame would not use the 4 perforations that it would use normally,   but it was extended to use 8 perforations.  Many of Hitchcocks Masterpieces like    "North by Northwest" and "Vertigo" where shot on VistaVision.

[00:14:45]VistaVision delivers twice the negative surface meaning twice the resolution and half  the grain size For comparison, here is  a 4-perf 35mm production with “Rear Window" ”The stronger grain in the negative is quite apparent.

[00:15:09]In 1955 the Todd-AO 70mm process was introduced. It is very similar but not compatible to the Fox Grandeur process using a 5 perforation film running vertically in the camera.

[00:15:20]The developer behind it, Mike Todd, was also involved in the Cinerama development and wanted to do  "Cinerama out of one hole” but most Todd-AO theatre installations had only moderately curved screens and the extreme wide-angle camera lenses were used only on a few shots here and there.  It was also the first high frame rate process with 30 frames per second… as it was problematic to print Todd-AO features to other formats,   it was reduced to standard 24 frames per second after only two features.  Todd-AO also launched their own flavour of Scope for 35mm with 2x squeeze David Lynchs “Dune” was shot on Todd-AO 35mm… probably the reason, why  Dune is often mistakenly credited as shot in 70mm 1955 also saw Twentieth Century Studios venture in larger format anamorphic   with a film width of 55mm … coined CinemaScope 55. It was basically immediately abandoned   in favour of the Todd-AO process… so, we will not spend much time on it.

[00:16:26]Just a year later in 1956 Panavision developed a 70mm process called   MGM Camera 65… it was similar to Todd-AO but used the industry standard 24fps from the get go  Panavision added anamorphic lenses with only 1.25x squeeze to match Cineramas super wide aspect ratio   and make cinerama “out of one hole” a reality.  It was used to shoot inserts for Cinerama movies, where a three camera setup was not feasible … like here in the river rafting scene of “How the West Was Won”.  In 1960, Panavision changed the name of the process to “Ultra Panavision 70”.  Ultra Panavision 70 was also used for normal presentations… The process might be best know for “Ben-Hur” ….and for Taratinos “The Hateful Eight” that resurrected the format in 2015.   “Ultra Panavison 70” lenses where also used on an Alexa 65 for Star Wars “Rogue One”  Panavision paired the process two years later with spherical instead of anamorphic lenses under the name ”Super Panavision 70” This format saw iconic features like “Lawrence of Arabia” … and of course, Kubricks "2001: A Space Odyssey" "Technicolor" launched "Technirama" in 1957. It used the same concept of horizontal 35mm film   that VistaVision used, but combined it with an anamorphic process.

[00:18:06]As the negative was already wide, a smaller squeeze factor of 1.5x was used to achieve a standard widescreens image.  Release prints incorporated an additional 1.33x horizontal squeeze, to create normal 35mm 4-perf for 2x anamorphic projections.   The most famous Technirama film is 1960s "Spartacus" … the only time that Stanley Kubrick touched Anamorphic lenses on one of his feature films.

[00:18:37]Technirama used a completely diffrent technical approach than CinemaScope.   Instead of stretching the image is squeezed it, and instead of anamorphic lens elements,   it utilised a curved mirror optic in front of the camera lens.

[00:18:50]In the decades to come, Panavision dominating the anamorphic industry. It was originally founded to   produce anamorphic projector attachments for the CinemaScope process in the mass-market, after Bausch & Lomb's couldn’t build them fast enough.    Panavision founder Robert Gottschalk soon improved upon the anamorphic camera lenses by creating a lens set that included dual rotating anamorphic elements and was able to avoid the dreaded anamorphic “Mumps”.

[00:19:17]This lens set proved to be extremely popular with studios and while many continued to use CinemaScope in marketing and credits,   the lenses used where actually build by Panavision.

[00:19:27]By 1967, even Fox had begun to abandon CinemaScope for Panavision. We will talk later about Mumps and the Gottschalk Method.

[00:19:35]You might have asked yourself all along… what about the obvious alternative to a wider negative to achieve wide screen?

[00:19:42]Just by reducing the height of the negative?

[00:19:45]In 1960 Technicolor Italia introduced the "Techniscope" film format for low budget productions.

[00:19:54]Techniscope is especially famous for being used in the so called “Spaghetti Westerns” like “A Fistful of Dollars” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” It simply reduced the hight of the frame from 4 perforations to 2 perforations.  As every frame only takes up halve the hight,  only halve the amount of film was needed during photography.

[00:20:17]Techniscope was a production-only format, the frame was enlarged from a 2-perf flat ratio to a 4-perf anamorphic ratio for distribution.

[00:20:27]Enlarging the image subsequently enlarges the negatives film grain, which gives Techniscope a gritty look but savings for lenses, film, and development are considerable.  The 35mm Cinemascope/Panavision process remained the gold standard for blockbuster productions throughout the next few decades… and this is exactly what burned the anamorphic look so deeply into our minds as something epic and desirable. We just associate the look with big cinema…   and, how wouldn’t want this in ones own footage So, if everything is so nice and clear, what changed?   Why did anamorphic almost made its way to the shelves of cinemas historic curiosities?

[00:21:15]1984 was a year that brought something else to the table… and that is "Super 35" Super 35 is a production-only-format on 35mm stock by using the space normally reserved for the optical analog sound track.

[00:21:30]Super 35 that was introduced under the name "Super Techniscope"… Techniscope can be seen as super 35s daddy.  “Silverado” was the first feature to be shot in Super 35.  The larger 3-perforation surface and improvements in the emulsion   made anamorphic main technical benefit… a less grainy negative… more and more obsolete.  Super 35 is basically a larger and slightly cleaner version of Techniscope.  Super 35 is usually shot with 4 perforation instead of 3 to allow alternative aspect ratios,   but only 3 perforations of the negative are used for the classic widescreen release.  Films shot on super 35 can be distributed with added anamorphic squeeze  or as prints for spherical projection with large parts of the print remaining black.

[00:22:22]Here we have 3 different 35mm film strips, that demonstrate the interchangeability of processes for different release print formats.

[00:22:31]This is a filmstrip of “Dune”.  Dune was shot in 4-perf 35mm anamorphic… and this is a 4-perf 4-perf 35mm anamorphic release print.  This is a filmstrip of “Shutter Island” that was shot on Super 35   and this a 2-perf 35mm spherical release print… you can see how much of the print remains unused  But here it get’s interesting… this is a filmstrip of “Fight Club”   that Fincher shot in Super 35… and this is a is a 4-perf 35mm anamorphic release print.

[00:23:03]Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can get anamorphic characteristics into the image   just by squeezing an image in post. The lens used for acquisition is what matters in that regard.

[00:23:15]James Cameron and many others preferred Super 35 spherical as it showed less aberrations.  When computer entered the movie scene, anamorphic processes became even more unpopular.  Super 35 shots didn’t have the quirky oval out of focus areas…   especially those cause problems when computer generated effects are supposed to look seamless.  Cameron was a driving force in CGI with movies like "The Abyss" "Terminator 2" and of course "Titanic" CGI and the success of these movies almost killed anamorphic.

[00:23:58]Super 35 would remain the preferred blockbuster format for over a decade Anamorphic was still used whenever a nostalgic element was desired.

[00:24:09]Ironically it was the computer again, that caused  a resurgence of anamorphic lenses.

[00:24:14]Digital cameras  had their breakthrough around 2010 with the release of the Arri Alexa and the RED ONE cameras.  Many deem the digital image too sterile.

[00:24:23]A softer,  more romantic anamorphic look became popular… once again.

[00:24:29]The evolution of CGI brought better models to simulate anamorphic characteristics,   and the aberrations can now sell a visual effect as it helps to fuse reality and CGI together.  A very beautiful example for the power of imperfection… like here in "Ex Machina".   It also invokes a feeling of authenticity, when old instalments of a franchise where shot anamorphic.

[00:25:03]The Star Trek and Star Wars reboots where shot with anamorphic lenses   as was "The Mandalorian"  … primarily for nostalgic reason. We will talk a bit more about that in “The Poetry of Anamorphic”.

[00:25:17]A bit of irony lies in the the history of anamorphic.   While in the beginning anamorphic was used to “squeeze” more quality out of the given film stock, today it is used to beat up an otherwise sterile digital image.

[00:25:30]Now that we have our “reason why” anamorphic saw the light of the projectors,   why it became the preferred blockbuster format, and introduced the most prolific names, we will explore what makes the image of an anamorphic lens different – and desirable.

[00:25:44]When shooting spherical, lens choice has often surprisingly little effect on the final image.   Differences in apparent sharpness, tint,  flares, distortions… …most lens characteristics are subtile This is our test sequence shot  with a Zeiss CP2 Macro Cine lens……   and here with a Canon FD 35mm f2.0  concave. We chose these two lenses,   because these are as different as it gets given  our arsenal and the the specifics of this shot.

[00:26:30]Most of the time, you will have  to open up a lens pretty wide   or look for very specific things to tell  vintage from modern or cheap from expensive.

[00:26:39]With Anamorphic lenses that quite different.

[00:26:43]Lenses have way more character and  quirks, vastly different sharpness,   distinguishable flares with different colours  and shapes, heavy aberrations, wonky breathing,   wild distortion… shooting anamorphic is to embrace  many things that where once considered flaws   and are today tools to breath soul  into the sterile digital world.

[00:27:09]It is often proclaimed that shooting anamorphic  generates its own unique perspective…   and it really depends what  you mean by perspective.   In common language that could just mean that  it has its discernible characteristics – which   it absolutely has. But if you mean  perspective in a geometrical way … no.

[00:27:29]An anamorphic lens has basically two focal lengths  in one… the real focal lengths that is written on   the lens, for example 40mm, and with a 2x scope,  like in this example a 20mm at the same time.

[00:27:43]Many people thing that different focal lengths  would have different perspectives, but that is   not true. Perspective is generated by the the  distance between camera and subject only… which   is why the perspective of an image taken with  a tiny Phone sensor, can be identical to a full   frame camera. That is the equivalency of lenses. As both focal lengths of an anamorphic lens are n Isn’t a longer lens more  “flattering” to a human face?  A longer lens is flattering because you  are further away for the same framing,   and that is what causes the  compression of ”features”.   So… an anamorphic lens is not  more flattering… for this reason.

[00:28:37]Does an anamorphic lens have a  different perspective in another sense?

[00:28:43]Typically, the Bokeh of an anamorphic lens  is Oval, and as we see, not only the Bokeh   but all out of focus areas in the image a more  or less oval… Highlights are just more obvious.   This creates a very unique  perception of dimensionality   as the brain has “shape” as one more cue to  dicern the distance to an object… a “different   perspective” if you want to call it that way. Let us explain why anamorphic produces these oval   characteristics. It is a very complex subject and  we will try to simplify it as much as possible.  First of all… as we showed you in the  beginning of the episode. It has nothing   to do with the shape of the iris of the lens…  it is round just like with an ordinary lens.

[00:29:27]The different focal lengths of an anamorphic  lens are key to an altered depth of field   and the shape of the Bokeh.

[00:29:34]You might know that the Bokeh of a  longer focal length is larger than   that of a shorter focal length with all other  factors remaining fixed. One might assume   that this is simply du to the magnification  of the Bokeh, but that is not the case.   The actual size is the magnification squared.

[00:29:53]This means that an 80mm lens has 4  times larger Bokeh than a 40mm lens.  In a 2x anamorphic lens the focal length  have a smooth transition into each other   and the resulting Bokeh is oval.

[00:30:07]You can also see it this way. An anamorphic lens squeezes the image by   it’s factor – in case of a 2x lens, it squeezes it  to half the width. The Bokeh on the other hand is   squeezed by it’s factor squared – in case of a 2x  lens, it is squeezed to a quarter of it’s width.   This means, if we apply the same desqueeze factor  of 2x in projection or post, the image returns to   it’s normal width but the bokeh is still half as  wide as it would normally be. It appears as Ovals.

[00:30:40]This also means that lenses with a smaller  factor will have a much less pronounced effect.  For 1.33x you have Bokeh that is 75% the  width, for 1.5 it will be 66% the width.

[00:30:55]For reasons that are to complex to describe them  in this “short” form, you can see oval bokeh   that is wider than high in some setups. This  basically happens when you manage to mismatch   the focus of two blocks when using a DIY setup. As the depths of field is shallower at the same   framing, f-stop and format compared with  spherical lenses, anamorphic lenses offers   visual cues from large format photography  with the economy of a smaller format.

[00:31:23]Let’s take it this statement with a grain of salt.

[00:31:26]While that is technically correct… you usually  don’t shoot anamorphic at the same f-stop.   Anamorphic lenses are slower than comparable  spherical lenses and aberrations are stronger   when shot wide open. Lenses need to be stopped  down to sharpen up… especially in the corners.   Shooting at f2.8 is considered fast for  anamorphic. You will have no problem   finding spherical lenses that can deliver the  same sharpens and even shallow depth of field   by just being faster… with the  economy of needing much less light.  What spherical lenses just can’t do, is to give  the “oval of confusion”… as the out of focus areas   have a distinctive shape, it gives human  vision an extra cue for depths perception There is also another trap that  one might easily step into.  Does a 2x anamorphic really deliver twice the  field of view compared to a spherical lens of   the same focal lengths? That really depends.

[00:32:28]If you are shooting spherical and and anamorphic  on the same negative size or sensor crop… Yes…   but unless you shoot on a Alexa 4:3 or a  micro four third camera you usually don’t.  Most sensors on the market are build for wide  screen acquisition.…Like HDTV with 16:9 or   DCI with 17:9 aspect… or follow photography  standard sizes like Full Frames 3:2 aspect.  If you shoot anamorphic, you will shoot  a 6:5 or 4:3 crop on those sensors…   or crop to something like that in post. Otherwise  your image would get “way” too wide and on top   of that, the anamorphic lens is very likely to  vignettes outside of the crop it was designed for.

[00:33:18]If you are shooting 80mm 2x  Scope utilising a 6:5 Crop   on Full Frame sensor…… you will  yield a much smaller field of view   than when using a 40mm Spherical lens and the  same Full Frame sensor without cropping in.

[00:33:36]We will not go into the details  of why lenses flare in general.   There are many diffrent kinds of flares and  reasons why lenses flair, or how coatings help   to improve light transmission and reduce flair. Just this much… when light hits the surface   of glass to air, part of the light reflects  and part of the light enters the lens. Light   can bounce inside a lens, reflect on Iris  blades or other shiny features of the lens.   The color of flares depends on the  color of the light entering the lens,   and the coatings of the lens elements. Every lens has its very unique flair   characteristics that is the combined product of  its optical design, number of elements, coatings,   glass, mechanical features and last but not least  the state the lens is in. Things like scratches,   fungus, radioactive decay, or just dust and dirt  will alter the original characteristics of a lens.

[00:34:30]Anamorphic elements do have  their own flare characteristic   that add to the characteristics of the  spherical elements. Some more, some less.

[00:34:40]Lets get to the elephant in  the room … horizontal flares  Most anamorphic lenses produce  a distinctive horizontal flare…   so distinctive, that it is usually  the first thing that catches the eye.  You could say that horizontal flares became  part of pop culture… being strongly associated   with what many perceive as “the cinematic look”. The are often enhanced for dramatic effect   and sometimes faked and stylised …  sometimes even in pieces that ARE   shot anamorphic like here in Donnie Darko…  we will talk about faking flares later.  Therefor it is also something that many new  users seek to reproduce … this goes so far,   that these flares tend to be a bit overused.

[00:35:28]In a spherical lens the trapped light is usually  reflecting the round shape of your entrance pupil.   Same is true for anamorphic, but the trapped  light is affected in an opposite way the bokeh is.   The streaks that you see are essentially really  really stretches out horizontal ovals. If you   get very close to the anamorphic lens, you can  see the ovals turning into streaks half the way.

[00:35:52]As flaring is not a desirable feature with  projector lenses… some have very suppressed   flare characteristics… like the the ISCO Red star We will show you all sorts of diffrent anamorphic   flare characteristics with all our  test setups in SCOPE Chapter two.

[00:36:12]The anamorphic block of the lens systems will  enhance the distortions of the spherical elements,   so, a good rule of thumb is, that an anamorphic  lens has more distortions than a spherical lens   with the same field of view… exemptions apply. A  lot of modern anamorphic lenses are corrected to   show as little distortions as possible – but  very often, especially the barrel distortion   is considered one of the key  characteristics of anamorphic lenses   and embraced as such, like here in “La La Land”.  Barrel distortion can have the effect to lead   the eye of the audience to the center of the  screen. It is basically a “look here effect”.   Depending on the design, a lens can  also have pincushion distortion,   so the exact opposite of barrel distortion. Cooke  and Glaswerk lenses show this kind of distortion.  These distortions come with a host of  problems that we will talk about later.  Other distortions are caused by the Anamorphic  block itself and produce an uneven stretch   factor across the field of view. When you shot a wider field of view   than lens design was intended for, or the  anamorphic block is just not well designed,   the image is overly squeezed on the sides of  the image … this is called “over compression”.  This is usually not what one wants to  embrace. Human vision is particularly good   at reading faces, and warped faces a very  obvious taking the audience out of the story.  Even more distracting is the  so called “Mumps” distortion.  Certain designs of anamorphic lenses loose their  stretch for close objects … a close up of a face   looks slightly stretched… giving  the talent traits of facial swelling   like they happen during a Mumps infection. Panavisions dual rotating anamorphic   “Gottschalk” patent and other methods where  designed to deal with this distortion.   We will talk in our practical part about  methods on how to deal with distortions in post.

[00:38:10]Lens breathing is usually frown upon in  filmmaking, as the changing framing during focus   ramping can be quite apparent. Accordingly, cine  lenses are designed to minimise focus breathing.   This is when an anamorphic  lens says “hold my beer”.   The two different focal lengths of an anamorphic  system exhibit different strengths of breathing…   causing asymmetrical breathing. Even modern  corrected lenses show considerably more breathing   than their spherical counterparts. Wider lenses  produce more apparent breathing than longer ones.   Anamorphic breathing is sometimes described as  more “dramatic” and Panavisions Gottschalk method   pronounces breathing which is why anamorphic  films throughout history are full of asymmetrical   breathing… like here in the “Untouchables” This way or another… there is little you   can do about it but to avoid focus  ramping all together… so embrace it.

[00:39:09]Generally, an anamorphic image is softer than a  spherical one. Including cylinders in the optical   design results in a small amount of astigmatism  – a type of optical aberration that is unique   to anamorphic lenses and that we perceive  as pleasing softness. There are 16 primary   aberrations instead of 5 for spherical lenses. This is one of the major reasons to use an   anamorphic lens in the first place – breaking  up the sterile looking digital image. Depending   on the lens design and the the f-stop used,  aberrations become stronger at the sides of the   image. An anamorphic lens that stays sharp  in the corners while opening up the iris,   is usually considered of higher quality. In any  case, reframing, digital zooms or punching into   the image is usually not a good idea when using  Anamorphic lenses, as your crop gets too soft.

[00:40:04]If you say that Anamorphic is more flattering  to the talent… this THIS would be the reason.   Which brings us to our resume of image  characteristics of anamorphic lenses.…  The characteristic of the oval fall  off is unique to anamorphic lenses   and can not be reproduced in post without  acquiring depth information for an image.  The flares, distortion, and softness give the  image an emotional touch. Like something that   is a part of ones memory rather than  something that happens in reality…  You should always be aware,  that shooting Anamorphic today,   also means to degrade the image  irreversibly during photography.

[00:40:44]As you probably know… you can fake the  anamorphic look to a certain degree.

[00:40:49]As this is the Anamorphic episode and not the  anamorfake episode, we will keep this very brief.   We only mention this at all, because we would  get a lot of comments complaining that we didn’t.  You can create a somewhat anamorphic look in  post. You start with applying a crop to match   the desired aspect ratio, and after that  you simply add distortions and CG flares.  Flares are more or less easy to reproduce  in post. These ones are made with the Flare   Plugin from VideoCoplilot. Taste is a scarce  resources and CG flares can quickly look cheesy.

[00:41:33]Alternatively, you can go the practical route  and use a fishing line attached to the lens   that generates light streaks that resembles  the horizontal flares of anamorphic… a bit.  You can also mod the lens by inserting  an oval iris matte to shape your Bokeh.   There are filter with that includes  the oval iris and fishing line.  DIY expert Chito has dedicated videos that  show you exactly what to do and what to expect.

[00:42:05]Of course, it will never look  as good as real anamorphic.  This is not to say that one couldn’t  make Anamorfake look awesome.  David Fincher conjured a 70s feeling  for his Netflix series “Mindhunter”   by giving the spherical footage  an anamorphic treatment ion post.   While the overall look is not very  anamorphic, he certainly nailed the flares.

[00:42:30]By the way… there is Anamorfake Anamorphic…  “John Wick” looked very distinctively anamorphic   using Vantage Hawks but these lenses didn’t  performed to the teams liking in dark scenes,   so those where shot spherical on Cooke lenses.  The production team behind the sequel decided,   they wanted a sharper look and more flare control…  so they went for the Arri Master Anamorphic.   These tend to flare very little. … so they  added a custom streak filter directly to the   sensor of their Arri Alexa. The result is a quite  unique flavour of the anamorphic look. Love it   or hate it… it embraces and amplifies  the comic style of the John Wick series.

[00:43:09]So, if you choose to go the Anamorfake  road… go ahead … make my day.

[00:43:15]There a different ways to achieve an anamorphic  squeeze or desqueeze. One can use prisms to skew   the image, or a curved a mirror in front an  ordinary lens, or… cylindrical lenses. We   will stick to the cylindrical lenses as it is  the only design that is really relevant today.

[00:43:31]Let’s get back to our simple anamorphic  Block from the beginning to go into the   specifics of anamorphic lens design. Like we explained, an Anamorphic lens   consists of an anamorphic block that adds a  squeeze or stretch, and a spherical block,   just like any other lens. Anamorphic lens   elements have a cylindrical instead of a spherical  shape. You can see immediately, that the alignment   of these lenses is from great importance.  A spherical lens can be rotated without   affecting the image, a Cylindrical element has  to rotated by 180° to have the same effect.   This is why an anamorphic block  and the elements within it   have to be finely tuned to align to  each other, and the spherical lens.

[00:44:04]To focus a spherical block you  can move the whole lens back   and forth… or you can just move the relevant  elements while the rear elements stay in place.   With anamorphic, to get a sharp image you need  to make sure there is no astigmatism – if you   only move your spherical and keep cylinders  untouched – you will always get astigmatism and   no sharp image at all. Focus can not be achieved  by moving the whole system back and forth anymore.

[00:44:33]The simplest way to focus is, to  move the spherical block as usual,   and focus the anamorphic block separately. This method is called “double focus’” There are cine lenses that work in exactly  same way, but they have one focus ring.   They simply couple the focus systems mechanically  – movement of the spherical block back and forth,   and movement of the cylinders closer or further This method is called “mechanical synchro” The original CinemaScope lenses build  by Bausch&Lomb used this method. Also,   the P+S Kowa Evolution that we will test in  our practical episode is focused in this way.  mechanical synchro has one downside. As  your cylinders move closer for close focus,   they loose potency and generate less squeeze.  Sometimes a 2x lens will become 1.7x lens   at 1m close focus, and manufacturers  will limit close focus there,   because generally the closer you  go, the more squeeze you loose.  In the old days this was a problem, because the  de-squeeze during projection was fixed at 2x,   while the squeeze during acquisition varied. Close up shot of actors looked like their   faces where swollen, which is why this  phenomenon was called anamorphic mumps.  These days you can counter this  in post, but it's cumbersome.  We will talk more about anamorphic mumps later Panavision's has it’s own  method. As we mentioned before,   it was a key ingredient to their  success over Bausch&Lomb designs.  The anamorphic block is fixed, while the spherical  block moves behind it. Two lower power anamorphic   elements are added between the two blocks, or  inside the anamorphic block. They are rotated   so their effect cancels itself out. When focussing  the spherical block, the lower power elements are   rotated in the opposite directions focusing  the anamorphic block, without losing squeeze.   Now you get a constant 2x squeeze. For this reason  they are called counter-rotating astigmatizers.  While the optical design is by Walin, this  focus method is named after Panavision’s founder   and lead engineer as the “Gottschalk method”.  It is said that first Panavision lenses are   Baush and Lomb cinemascope Batlars (that had  mumps) with this mechanism inserted in them.   These days Caldwell Chameleons and Xelmus Apollo  use this focusing method as the patent expired.

[00:46:57]Simpler and easier to service  is the method used by Todd-AO.  The principle is similar to the one  used by Panavision – the spherical   block moves while the anamorphic block stays  in place. Inside the anamorphic block - is a   group to correct astigmatism, and  this group moves back and forth.  While the mechanics are simpler,  there are still a lot of moving parts.  Vazen is rumoured to use this method  fort their 28mm and 85mm lenses.

[00:47:25]Using Variable diopters is a  simple and elegant concept.  The spherical block is fixed to infinity focus,  the Anamorphic Block fixed to infinity focus,   and they never move. In front of this  system two more spherical lenses are   added. These two elements cancel each  other out when they are very close,   but as you start spacing them apart they  introduce dioptric power to the system,   shifting your focus closer and closer.  That's why they are called variable diopters.  This is used in Vantage Hawks, Cooke Anamorphic,  Atlas Orions, Technovision, Cineovision,   Lomo roundfronts and others. An amazing budget friendly lens   that does this is the Iscorama. ISCO had a  patent on this focusing method for a while.

[00:48:12]You can use Variable Diopters from different  manufacturers to add single focus to an   existing system. We will test that and show  you tips and tricks in our practical part.  Downsides are size and weight as they need to be   large to avoid vignetting …  which they still tend to do.

[00:48:30]This method can get more sophisticated  – Cooke is using more than two elements,   spaced to correct for various aberrations.  Glasswerk One also uses a variation of this   principle, but intricately mixes cylinders  and spheres. If an anamorphic lens uses   a Variety diopter is revealed by  flat surface of the front element.

[00:48:45]The bokeh of front anamorphic  lenses are elliptical because   of the placement of the cylindrical  elements. Anamorphic elements don’t   necessarily have to be in the front of the  spherical Block… in most design, they are,   but other put the elements between the spherical  elements… like the Arri Master Anamorphic for   example. The effect of that design together with  coatings tame the anamorphic characteristics   a lot. Bokeh ist still oval like you can  here see in “John Wick 2” and the images   are relatively sharp. The Arri Master Anamorphic  flare only very little. This is why they often   used im Commercials and movies that don’t go  for a distinctive anamorphic look. You could   say that they deliver a compromise  between spherical and anamorphic lenses.  The anamorphic elements can also be placed behind  the spherical elements… like the Angenieux Optimo   Anamorphic zooms do. If the Anamorphic squeeze  happens behind the spherical block, it doesn’t   affect the shape of the entrance pupil, the image  of the spherical lens with all it’s features gets   compressed… so, in this case you’ll see very  little anamorphic features (The Nice guys).

[00:49:43]BTW, the lens you saw in the beginning of this  episode is a massive Bausch&Lomb projection lens   that was build for drive-in cinemas. It  does work well with longer focal lengths   and when you are planning to film something  from a 50 meters away. This and the sheer   size and weight make it impractical to work  with… which is why it is not part of our test.   But it is a great way to show optical  effects… and knock out burglers.

[00:50:08]The anamorphic look resonates with so many  filmmakers as something that just gives footage   that magical cinematic feel. This  is mostly based on our perception.   We are just used to see anamorphic characteristics  in large scale cinematography… so much, that it   just triggers our brain to make that connection if  we see somewhat mundane things shot in anamorphic.   That is especially interesting as the anamorphic  look was or is by no means homogenous… let us   explore that with “the fashion of anamorphic” There is one franchise that perfectly reflects   the fashion of what a blockbuster  feature film should look like … Like no other franchise, the bond movies can  take us on a journey through anamorphic fashion.  If you are not an expert, it is quite hard to  tell which of the bond movies were shot spherical   and which ones where shot anamorphic…  and I really don’t blame you… because,   for the most part, it is  intentionally hard to tell.  Bond startet of with Dr. No in 1962, followed  by From Russia with love and Goldfinger,   all these where shot spherical in times where  Anamorphic was the gold standart for big cinema.   Thunderball changed that and  the following Connery Bonds   where shot anamorphic. Maybe it took three  successful bond movies to give the studio   the confidence for a budget allowing  the more expensive anamorphic process.  What is intersting here is that it looks  almost identical, besides the wider aspect   of the anamorphic movies. Neither grain, nor  sharpness seems to be significantly different.   “Thunderball” and “You only live Twice” miss  a lot of the characteristics we associate with   the anamorphic look. The reason for that is on the  one hand, that the scenes are shot relatively flat   and at a high f-stop is used to sharpen up the  image and create a deep Depths of field. Things   like anamorphic flares where considered a flaw  and are therefore almost absent … with very few   exception… boy had I search for this one. And  this is why we watch that one it again… there!

[00:52:26]This remained the way to shot anamorphic for  the most part until… from 1969 filmmakers   slowly started to embrace what was considered  flaws in the past, maybe, to add a layer of   realism to their images. The same years bond  movie shows flaring like no bond did before.

[00:52:50]The first Roger Moore Bond “Live and let  die” from 1973 didn’t only introduce a new   Bond but it also returned to spherical lenses…  It seems like Roger had to earn his own rights   for the expensive anamorphic process and “The Man  with the Golden Gun” remained with the format.   After that Bond returned … to the anamorphic  process… and it stayed that way, all the way   through Roger Moores rain, through Timothy Daltons  Bonds and right through Pierce Brosnan era.   From a cinematographic point of view I would dare  to call the second anamorphic wave in Bond movies   the “boring era”… the format was not  used in a playful way and didn’t bring   anything worth mentioning to the table. Bonds reboot and the desire to turn Bond   into a more gritty, more realistic agent  thriller brought spherical back to the   franchise with “Casino Royale”, “A Quantum of  Solace” stayed spherical, and as you might know,   Roger Deacons is really not a fan of anamorphic,  which is why “Skyfall” was shot spherical.  Dop Hoyte van Hoytema is always good for a  surprise and his visual interpretation on   Specter is a wild ride of mixing digital and  analog in different formats from 35 to 65mm,   as well a sherical and  anamorphic. And it looks amazing.   “No Time to Die” will continue  with with non conformity recipe.

[00:54:17]This brings us to the question if one should… or  should not mix anamorphic with spherical footage.  Besides what Hoytema does in “Spectre” … it has  been done throughout the history of anamorphic   movies especially when special effects where used.  Special effects from before the times of computers   often used multiple exposures for compositing.  Multiple exposures causes the natural film grain   to be amplified… that’s why special effect  shots often used a larger negative format   as those had a smaller and therefore  less apparent grain to begin with.   Star Wars made use of Vista Vision  format for the special effects…   here are some special effects without  the dreaded Special Edition overhaul.   Blade Runner used 65mm negative for the special  effects. Anamorphic not Anamorphic, Anamorphic and   not Anamorphic. That flows quite nicely… doesn’t  it? The wider format and little grain of the large   negative made anamorphic unnecessary.  Also, the Asymmetrical lens breathing,   distortions and wonky depth of field would have  made the life of the VFX artist a living hell – If   it wasn’t that already, as they couldn’t see what  they where doing during the multiple exposures.  Beyond the special effects there where  always situations where the demand for   high lens speeds or other technical needs, made  the filmmaker drop in spherical shots… probably   without you even noticing it watching it the  first time. We already mentioned John Wick…  There als situations where filmmakers show of with  their key sequences shot in large formats like   IMAX… shot sherical in contrast to the anamorphic  rest… like her in Mission Impossible: Fallout Like we said before… anamorphic can give  a vibe of something that is a part of ones   memory rather than something that happens in  reality… It can work as a poetic abstraction.   Which is why mixing anamorphic and spherical  can be used to differentiate parts of a story…   like diffrent timelines, perspectives,  or altered states of mind.  In “Interstellar” Christopher Nolans and  Hoyte Hoytema utilise anamorphic 35mm to   invoke a world in decay in contrast to  spherical IMAX as an element of hope.

[00:56:44]This is a sequence of “Westword” that is generally  shot spherical… but in the Second season,   one of the protagonists enters a virtual world  that resembles the outside world … still, we   immediately know that something is different and  that we are not in Westworlds “reality” any more.   The scenes work like a dream state… utilising an  expressive anamorphic look. This will also give   us another opportunity to compare spherical and  anamorphic shots, that are otherwise very similar.   What looks more “cinematic” to you?

[00:57:25]You can count on Wes Anderson to turn this  principle upside down … in the fabulous “The   Grand Budapest Hotel” The anamorphic scenes  are the “reality”, while the story being   told within that reality is shot spherical and is  presented with a native 4-perf 35mm aspect ratio.  So, can one mix spherical with  anamorphic… es… and absolutely yes.   But like always, you better know  exactly why you do and when.

[00:57:58]The Grand Budapest Hotel is a  perfect example for our next segment.

[00:58:03]How does one compose an anamorphic image…  just like one would any other widescreen   image? One should keep the limitations  off the specific lenses used in mind.   While 70mm film or an Alexa 65 has no problem  to give an accurate image all over the field   of view, we already explored aberrations and  distortions, also, close focus is a problem.   Anamorphic can become a limiting factor  regarding placement of objects within   the frame depending on the specifics of the  used lens. It is usually a bad idea to put an   important feature of the image too close to one  of the sides. Anamorphic lends itself to centred   compositions for purely technical reasons. That  doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t place   objects in the corners… one should just have  an eye on technical issues in that regard.  If we are talking about framing for a  wide aspect in general… of course it is   a fact that a wide aspect ratio lends itself to  different compositions compared to a narrow one,   it just offers different possibilities that are  interesting to explore. While the human body   or face are vertical, widescreen movie have proven  again and again that this doesn’t need to be a   limiting factor. We could make a dedicated episode  just about about composing, but as this is the   anamorphic episode, and as anamorphic is not even  necessarily wide, we will keep this part brief.  It is interesting what the man himself Ridley  Scott has to say about framing for widescreen  It’s not easy to meat your maker Given todays technology there is usually no  technical reason to use anamorphic lenses,   and quite a lot reason not to. With most cameras you will not   use the whole sensor using anamorphic lenses. Anamorphic lenses are more expensive, larger,   heavier, have more flaws, and are harder to focus.  On top of that it is harder to add CGI elements  They are just way more unpractical  compared to spherical lenses.

[01:00:54]We talked a lot about how anamorphic lenses  can add another layer of poetry to an image…   but does that mean that anamorphic  images “always” look more cinematic?

[01:01:04]One should keep in mind that  many legends of the film industry   are not fond of the anamorphic process. Stanley Kubrick only shot Spartacus anamorphic   and he never looked back… that must  have been a horrible experience.   While most of his famous work  has a narrower aspect ratio.   He revisited widescreen with 2001  using spherical lenses on 70mm film.

[01:01:33]“2010:The year we made contact”  recreated HALs server room,   and 2010 was shot anamorphic. This gives us  another chance to directly compare the effect   of anamorphic lenses with spherical  lenses in very similar circumstances.

[01:01:56]What do you think? Do you think that anamorphic  adds to the cinematic feel of the scene?

[01:02:02]Another anamorphic one timer is David  Fincher with Alien 3… after he killed all   our favourite characters and the franchise  he never shot another anamorphic movie…  He went on to shoot masterpieces like  “Seven” and “Fight Club” that are cinematic.  His technique of catching the audiences attention  by locking them to the protagonists eyes requires   a lot of cropping and reframing that simply  doesn’t work well with the anamorphic process.

[01:02:34]Roger Deakins famously doesn’t shot anamorphic…  stating that this is based on his roots in   documentary work. He loves for an image to be  as clear and technically clean as possible. His   school of thought is thar good cinematography  doesn’t need to hide behind aberrations.

[01:02:52]Alfred Hitchcock never shot on Anamorphic, though  it is not clear wether disliked the process.   He was contracted by Paramount, and  Paramount was invested in Vista Vision.   Four of Hitchcocks features use the wider  and cleaner negative of Vista Vision.

[01:03:08]… and, of the people … there is Ridley Scott.  Having influenced our modern perception of how   an anamorphic movie should look… we walked  away from it after 1985s “Legend”. He did   so for practical aspects. He felt, that scopes  would inhibit his freedom in visual storytelling.

[01:03:28]We think it is very safe to say that you can  make spherical lenses look just as cinematic   and iconic as you can using Anamorphic lenses.  There are just so many fabulous  filmmakers that prefer spherical lenses and so many iconic movies through  history that have been shot spherical… it should really sober one  up and think out of the oval.  Never use anamorphic as an excuse for  lack of soul in your cinematography.

[01:03:59]Shooting spherical can be liberating… because one  thing is sure… shooting anamorphic IS unpractical The lenses are slower and shooting with higher   f-stops to sharpen the image  up requires more light on set.  Most anamorphic lenses are heavier making  it harder to move the camera freely.

[01:04:18]The softness and wonky depth of  field make it harder to focus.   It is more likely that you have to repeat a shot  just for that reason. With anamorphic movies, you   see a lot of “missed focus” like here in Rachels  famous walk in scene… here is the plane of Focus…   and she walk right out of it. Did you ever notice  that before we showed you? It is refreshing,   how litte this seems to bother  filmmakers and the audience.

[01:04:44]It is often stated that anamorphic  productions a more expensive   because the wider field of view.  Sets would need to be larger   and more extras are needed. We think this is is a misconception.  We can stay with Blade Runner to show that you  can shot a narrow field of view with anamorphic.  Scott is famous for his love of longer focal  lengths and Blade Runner hardly uses wide shots   other than Visual Effects shots. This  is in part because of the budget.   Scott made test shots of the futures LAs streets  using wide lenses… realising that the width of   the anamorphic frame would reveal that the set was  much smaller than they would have liked it to be.   Longer lenses gave a confusingly narrow field  of view… to many people, too many Neon signs…   a claustrophobic vision of overpopulation and  a feeling of being powerless. And… this way,   the same extras could run trough the frame  again and again without it being too obvious.

[01:05:41]Anamorphic can work against you… especially when  you try to use a camera on a Dolly or a steady cam  I did enjoy the movie La La Land… if you missed  it, see it… it is a perfect example for big cinema   enjoyed best on a large screen. It invokes the  feel of old cinema musicals with a modern twist.  One of the ways it conjures the  atmosphere is by using anamorphic lenses…   and as the absolute counter example  to Blade Runner … it predominantly   uses extremely wide lenses. 35mm  Panavision C and E to be precise.

[01:06:10]Wide anamorphic can show strong distortions…  and while many consider that as character   it can be distracting. In a scene like  this, it is not a problem, but in the   moment a scene gets “graphical”, it does. As a graphic designer by trade I get OCD   when I see a street bending of the frame  from distortion like here… here… better.

[01:06:32]La La Land also shows how important  it is to keep the horizon levelled…   in this scene the distortions and a moving  horizon caused by swinging steady cam   caused me to get sea sick in cinema…  no really. I started feeling sea sick.

[01:06:45]With filmmaking there is always one golden rule  Does something help to put the audience  into the story… or does it pull them out   of the story. In the moment it does  the latter… it can become a problem.

[01:06:58]Anamorphic is all about taste… do you like it or don’t you like it… and…   what about it do you like… what do you dislike? (close) You may like anamorphic images … or you   may not. You may find them unnecessary or just  don’t think the hassle and cost is worth it.  ……… Or… you might simply  be in love with anamorphic  Today, Anamorphic is simply a matter of…taste Throughout this episode, we showed you that  there have been many diffrent Anamorphic   stretch factors in cinema 1.25, 1.5,  and most commonly 2. Stretches over 2x   never played a role worth mentioning  in lens design for cinematography.   The amount of stretch in a process more or less  determines how strong the anamorphic look is, and   how clear the image looks in the end. Stretches  of 1.5x and above have a quite distinctive look   while stretches of 1.33x and  below have a more subtile look.   All stretches can produce horizontal flares.  If you are using a wide sensor or one of the   larger LF sensors like Alexa LF and Sony Venice,  and you are going for the standard widescreen   cinema aspect ratio, a lower stretch like 1.5x  or 1.6x will also enable you to use the full   sensor instead of a narrow crop. Connoisseurs  might tell you that only 2x stretch will give you   the classic anamorphic look but it really comes  down to your taste and the desired end result.   2x anamorphic might look too soft in a project  that aims to deliver pristine image quality.  While the stretch factor and the shooting format  pretty much determined the final aspect ratio in   the past, today you choose one and the other  separately for creative or political reasons.   For example, Netflix prefers a 2:1 aspect  ratio over wider formats. The quality of   the image is usually high enough to crop the  image to any other final output aspect ratio,   than the one you started out with. In  Scope Chapter two, we will show you,   how you can get a native narrow aspect ratio  using a 2x Anamorphic lens… using a little trick.

[01:09:27]In our upcoming SCOPE Chapter it is all about the  practical aspects of Anamorphic. We will build and   test a wide variety of setups using adapters  and projector lenses… and we will pith those   against full blown cine lenses like the Atlas  Orion, Kowa Evolution, and Lomo Square Front.   If you dare to use anamorphic  lenses in your next project,   this should help you to find the  sweetspot for your taste and budget.   We will also show you some tricks and tips  and test some diopters for close focus.   We’ll have a talk with DIY guru Tito from  “Anamorphic on a budget “ who testet about   every adapter and projector lens that is  out there, we are going to talk to Dick   Sweeny about anamorphic in photography. And of  course, we show you how to make the best out   of your anamorphic footage in post. If you watch this shortly after the   initial release, SCOPE chapter two will  be released in the next couple of weeks,   please subscribe and activate notifications, if  you want us to let you know. If SCOPE Chapter two   is already available… just go ahead… we will  put a link in the end screen of this episode.

[01:10:36]The Media Division wants to thank Max from Exo  Optik for his collaboration on this episode.   He is one of the admins of the “Anamorphic  Shooters” Facebook group and he is an authority   on everything anamorphic. He fact checked our  script so we don’t echo some of the misconceptions   you find all over the web. By the way, Exo  Optik rehouses vintage anamorphic lenses.   Please check them out and send them your love on  Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/exooptik) and   instagram (https://www.instagram.com/exooptik/)  for some extra cool projects and gear   all around anamorphic – they surely deserve  it. I’ll put links in the description  And while we are at it: Anamorphic Shooters  is one of the best places to be for somebody   interested in the subject… full of good  information, inspiration and nice creative   people. So, if you want to to start or grown  with anamorphic, this is your first address.

[01:11:24]We would also like to give a shoutout to  Sebastian Fischhold for generously letting   us use his LAOWA Probe lens without the  intro wouldn’t have been half as cool, and   to Charles Pinto for trading his B&H scope. One  slobbery kiss goes out to Christoph Gross-Fengels   who used his audiophile wizardry to make my  voices better fit the Blade Runner sequences.

[01:11:45]We would also like to thank the Marmelade for  letting us use their studio and their awesome   spike motion control robots for our lens test.  Special thanks go out to the studio team with   Niklas Eichten and Tom Hauser, as well as  Max Hahn who shot a lot of the B-Roll… and   Dierk Hagedorn that was our  Knight in shining armour.   Big Love goes out to Cine One that  supplied us with the Anamorphic cine   lenses we will use in the test and that shot  some of the sequences used in this episode…… all   of you get a nice dedicated  shout out in SCOPE Chapter two.

[01:12:20]So many people gave us great input and we are  very thankful for all the love and support   we receive from you. It is the community behind  the Media Division that makes all this possible.   If you want to get in touch with us, you can do in  the comments, but if you want to go a bit deeper,   please join out closed MEDIA DIVISION facebook  group. If you want to see what we are cooking in   general or what is in the work for our next  episodes, please follow us on Instagram, …   you will find links in the description… there  you will also find a link to our Amazon store,   where you see and shop the gear  that we use on our productions.

[01:12:55]If you want to support us actively, you  can do so by becoming a member of the   Media Division YouTube channel. Just click  on the “Join” button and choose you tier.

[01:13:04]With the Scott Tier you can show us a little  love by supporting our work with 99cent per moth…   enabling us to make more  and better content for you.  You will also get access to our members only  episodes like the film emulation Deep Dive,   and the Anamorphic Buyers guide that  will be released with SCOPE chapter   two. Also, your name will appear in  the end credits of the epic episodes.

[01:13:22]With the lynch tier you can really make a  difference, for 4.99 a month you will gain   access to the action packs, that we release  with even episode… this will include LUTS,   Footage, Templates and many other cool things  related to each episode. This time, we will give   you the LUTS we used for the knight sequences  as well as the Blade Runner spoof, and a bit of   the original Knight footage to play with and to  evaluate the quality without YouTube compression.   We will also give you the After Effects project  of the Lens Design Part, that utilises the   Element 3D plugin. Of course, you will gain  access to all the action packs of t he past.

[01:13:59]The Kubrick tier is our Pro tier… you will  support us with 9.99 a month and for that,   you and you will get a direct line to us. Kubrick  members can consult us anytime. Maybe you have a   upcoming project or you want to purchase gear…  I am sure we can help you quite a bit with that.   Also, Kubrick Members get a shout  out at the end of our epic episodes.

[01:14:21]And talking about our Kubrick  members… the following Kubrick   members helped us to make this episode possible Of course we love all our other members two…   please consider become one of our  supporters by joining one of our tiers  In any case, leave us a like  gif you think we deserve one.

[01:15:36]Thanks a lot for hanging and hope to  see you in SCOPE Chapter 2 or any other   of our epic episodes… I’m Nikolas, signing out  nerdilischous wishes… shoot something amazing!