American Cinematographer - May 2017 - 63

Photos and illustrations courtesy of Benjamin B.

the theater by the film projector's lens.
Initially the anamorphic aspect ratio
was 2.35:1, but evolved to 2.39:1, or
2.40 for short. The aspect ratio of the
squeezed image is half that - at 1.196,
or 1.2:1 - and fits snuggly into the
1.37:1 negative area of sound film.
When cinema made the transition to digital at the turn of this century,
it was far from clear that anamorphic
would survive as an important format,
because the initial digital cameras had
sensors targeting a 1.78:1 ratio, which
was a poor fit for the 1.2:1 anamorphically squeezed image.
One of the important innovations
of Arri's Alexa camera was a "4 by 3"
sensor mode, which was specifically
designed to accommodate anamorphic,
with an imaging area similar to 35mm
film. Thanks to this and efforts from
other digital-camera manufacturers,
digital anamorphic is a vibrant standard
today. Indeed, some filmmakers are even
using anamorphic lenses on 1.78:1
sensors, with a tighter angle of view
than traditional anamorphic.
The ideas in this article are the
result of my collaboration with two
friends: Patrick Leplat, director of operations and technical marketing at
Panavision Alga in Paris, and cinematographer Pierre-Hugues Galien,
AFC. Patrick was one of the early

Opposite: Benoît
Meignan (left)
and Emmanuelle
Vivier, shot with
a 50mm Primo
Anamorphic
prime at
Panavision Alga
in Paris. This
page, clockwise
from far left:
Cinematographer
Pierre-Hugues
Galien, AFC; 1st
AC René-Pierre
Rouaux;
Meignan; Vivier;
camera assistant
Adrien
Guillaume; and
Panavision Alga's
Patrick Leplat.

promoters of using anamorphic lenses
with nontraditional sensor sizes and
shapes, notably with Red cameras.
Patrick kindly loaned us the equipment
and let us shoot in Panavision's rental
facility, where I used to work many
years ago.
2. Test Setup and Crew
In our tests we shot with traditional 2x anamorphic lenses on an Arri
Alexa XT, and compared them to spherical lenses framed for 2.39:1 on the same
camera. We were fortunate to shoot
with Panavision anamorphic lenses:
Primo Anamorphic Primes, an E Series
135mm, an ALZ11 48-550mm (T4.5)
11:1 Primo Anamorphic Zoom, and an
AWZ2.3 37-85mm (T2.8) anamorphic
www.theasc.com

zoom. For spherical lenses we used
Primo primes. Our ArriRaw frames
were timed, selected and transferred to
TIFF using the Panavision Rush
Management system developed at
Panavision Alga.
Pierre-Hugues Galien is an upand-coming cinematographer whose
credits include Maintenant ou Jamais
(Now or Never, directed by Serge
Frydman), Tout Pour Être Heureux (Dad
in Training, by Cyril Gelblat), Au Plus
Près du Soleil (Too Close to Our Son, by
Yves Angelo) and Jour J (D Day, by
Reem Kherici). Pierre-Hugues shoots
both film and digital, and his work
involves a special focus on emulating
35mm looks with digital images.
Pierre-Hugues gathered a
May 2017

63
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2017
