Posted by Jdogg5431 at okc-65-26-233-80.mmcable.com on August 30, 2001 at 14:22:26:
In Reply to: CLERKS in anamorphic widescreen on DVD?? posted by stucker@javanet.com on August 30, 2001 at 13:19:27:
It was filmed on 16mm, I believe. Anything filmed on 16 or 35mm can be filmed flat. That means you basically have a 4:3 area on the screen. From that you can mask off (soft-matted) a 16:9 area for theatrical release or widescreen home exhibition. This will cut the top and bottom of the picture off, but if filmed with 16:9 in mind you won't be removing any valuable area. Just wasted space. If the movie is then put on to the film as 16:9 stretched to fill the 4:3 area, then the film transfer becomes anamorphic. When played theatrically with the anamorphic lense on, it will be stretched back out to 16:9 even though it fills a 4:3 area. For home release (DVD), your 4:3 tv's remove lines in order to recreate the 16:9 area. A widescreen tv and a non-anamorphic disc does the same, removes lines to give 16:9. An Anamorphic DVD on a 16:9 tv is essentially the same as a projector w/anamorphic. It will unsqueeze it with no resolution removed. Any movie wider than 1.78:1 can be done anamorphically with a large gain in picture resolution without cropping on the sides. Once converted to a 1.78:1 area, squeezing widscreen back into a fullscreen area creates an anamorphic transfer. You can create an anamorphic transfer even if the original print wasn't. You can't see any difference with current movie sources (DVD), although theatrically you could probably see a difference between one that was filmed anamorphic and one that wasn't.