1 The Director of Photography – an overview

Aspect ratios 179
Figure 20.6 Layout of
three-perforation pull-down
negative
Figure 20.7 Layout of
two-perforation pull-down
less keen to rebuild their machines and the distributors, who run the
cinemas, showed no interest at all in re-equipping the cinemas as this
cost would far outweigh the saving in the cost of the print stock. As
a result, any print struck from a three-perforation negative had to
be optically printed up to a four-perforation print and the cost of
this, compared to a straight contact print, outweighed the saving in
negative cost.
Perhaps, as Super 16 mm had to wait, this too is an invention awaiting
its time.As non-linear editing has done away with many rush prints
in favour of a telecine transfer, and telecine machines can usually transfer
three-perforation footage quite easily, we may yet see renewed
interest in this format.
Three-perforation pull-down, some time later, became very popular
in the USA, where many multi-episodic television shows are now shot
on this format with specially constructed cameras utilizing 2000-foot
magazines to enable long takes of continuous action to be achieved.
On these shows, where by far the majority of the screen time is shot in
a studio with three or four cameras, very like a live television studio, a
print is never struck, for the camera negative goes straight to telecine
and is edited and transmitted from this format.
It is interesting to note that, when utilizing 2000-foot magazines, the
weight transfer caused by the film moving from the front of the magazine
to the back is so great the tripod heads used are specially made
with a lead screw under the camera mounting plate and a small handle at
the back so that the operator can rebalance the camera during the shot.
In recent years, the introduction of digital intermediates (DI) – see
Chapter 9 – has renewed interest in three-perf pull-down, for with this
system the camera negative is scanned, just as for the TV shows, and
all post-production is carried out in the digital domain. At the end of
the post-production process, the images are simply played out via a
digital to photomechanical printer but on to a four-perf master negative.
Two-perforation pull-down
Two-perf pull-down was very popular at one time, mainly in Italy,
where Technicolor developed a system to enable ‘spaghetti westerns’
to be made on very low budgets. Some very well known films were
made this way – For a Few Dollars More, etc. This frame layout is
shown in Figure 20.7.
The problem, at the time, was that film stocks were nothing like as
sophisticated as they are today and despite utilizing the full width
of the old Silent frame, right out to the perforations and with no space
for a soundtrack, the picture was never ideal. Although this was
exactly the right aspect ratio for blowing up to 35 mm anamorphic
print, unfortunately the quality of the projected image was noticeably
inferior to one originated on a 35 mm negative using anamorphic lenses.
The cost savings, though, were considerable, for while obtaining the
same size and aspect ratio on the screen, half the original camera
negative was used and there was no need to hire expensive anamorphic
lenses.
Just as with three-perf pull-down, two-perf is having something of
a renaissance. Using modern film stocks, high-quality modern lenses
and DI post-production, very good looking prints can now be obtained.