Films meant to be shown masked

[John Armer]

I've a few films in my collection which were originally shot full-frame and meant to be screened masked to give a widescreen aspect when projected.

I'm not taking about films released masked for widescreen with the letterboxing printed in (like the U8 release of the 1979 DRACULA and the marketing cut down of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK); rather, films where the masking needs to be applied manually later to give the correct aspect ratio.

I was watching my Red Fox print of NORTH BY NORTHWEST last night and you can see the studio lights in a scene near the end at Mount Rushmore. My print of PREDATOR has some extraneous text at the bottom of the frame in scenes were you are watching the alien's POV.

I believe traditionally 35mm projectors had gates which were the correct ratio - has anyone converted gates on their S8 projectors to do the same thing? I have thought about getting a spare gate for my Eumig 938 and 940, modifying it to the correct ratios and swapping it when watching prints like this.

[Paul Adsett]

John,
Switching the gate on the Eumig S938/940 is a major task, it would take at least an hour to do it. Not like the Eumig 800's where you can slip in a new gate assembly in a few seconds,

[Maurice Leakey]

John

In the early days of CinemaScope many cinemas aped the wide screen by just changing their lenses and sliding in a new mask with reduced top and bottom. However, problems soon started with actors heads being cut off.

Film studios soon changed to prints with frames which had a black bar top and bottom.

Now, TV was a problem with these reduced images not filling the screen, so film studios then had their camera viewfinders marked with two dotted parallel lines. Instructions were to place the action between the lines. This served a double purpose.

1) Cinemas no longer had heads cut off
2) TV was also happy as the frame now filled their screens.

I have hundreds of Super 8 films and have never experienced the trouble you have mentioned. Perhaps you have just been unlucky. It does seem a major job to do as you suggest for a few prints.


Maurice

[Oliver Feld]

John
Somehow I like the visible microphones at SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and the strangely disappearing special effects of THE TERMINATOR at top and bottom of the image
or the laserbeam in GOLDFINGER which works also outside the image.
But I would also prefer a masking equipment at my Beaulieu machine.
This would be more of movie magic.

[Osi Osgood]

Many of the optical super 8 features, are unmasked prints, so you are getting the full or almost full 35mm film. Sometimes you get letterboxed and full frame images in your print.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Derann's Gremlins cutdown has a mixture of full frame and masked footage. In a couple of the U-8 digests the overhead boom mic is visible. It would be nice to switch to a gate with proper masking, but as has been said, this is impractical on most small format projectors.

[Graham Ritchie]

John

I have often thought that an adjustable gate would be the way to go for Super 8, simply by moving a lever, both top and bottom masking could close or open at the same time. I have scope films on Super 8 where you are not getting onto the screen the full scope frame due to the gate. Having a larger gate but with adjustable masking would be the way to go. However another limiting factor to all this, could be the rear elements of the the lens itself. mmmmm time to build another Super 8 projector with all these features in it

[Maurice Leakey]

Some of the earlier Bell & Howell 16mm sound projectors had a variable gate mask. The actual aperture remained at 4 x 3, but there were two sliding panels behind the gate which were actuated by an adjuster at the top of the gate. It was very easy to use.

I did mobile operating in the 50s and some features came with 4 x 3 framing and then, suddenly black bars, and then just as suddenly back to 4 x 3. This happened throughout the length of the film. So the adjuster was set accordingly.



Maurice

[Paul Adsett]

The boom microphone is visible in some of the scenes of my Derann print of High Society. Also visible during part of the title sequence are the horizontal Vistavision perforations.

[Brian Fretwell]

I did mobile operating in the 50s and some features came with 4 x 3 framing and then, suddenly black bars, and then just as suddenly back to 4 x 3. This happened throughout the length of the film. So the adjuster was set accordingly.

Maurice

The first showing of "The Blues Brothers" on British TV suffered from that but they didn't do any adjusting in those days.