On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:11:03 -0400 (EDT) [log in to unmask] wrote: > is it naive to think that the frame on > the film itself could or should contain a clean image so that no masking would > be necessary? A certain amount of masking is used in all projection. Even 'scope, which has the smallest blank frame area of any 35mm format, has to be projected through an aperture plate or else you would see the frame line. The question is of how much masking to apply. Unless you want to abandon the principle of 35mm, vertical motion, 4-perf pulldown (as in Techniscope, in which the camera has only a two-perf motion, resulting in a frame ratio of about 1:2.6), then the wider the picture the greater the frame area which has to be masked off. The nearest you could come to no masking at all is either 'scope or what the National Film Theatre call the "early sound special" ratio. This was in use briefly from the introduction of the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system until the Academy Ratio of 1:1.33 was declared the industry standard - I think - in 1933. Fox Movietone cameras were normal silent cameras (i.e. with a "full gate aperture", occupying the area of film now taken up by the soundtrack, of roughly 1:1.38) with an electric motor fixed at 24fps and modified to expose a variable density track in the area where the sound is on a normal comopt print. Basically, they're the same size as a 'scope frame only non-anamorphic - almost a perfect square (any projectionist who comes across one of these should use a 'scope plate with a 1:1.33 lens, and, after tweaking the masking a little bit, it should look fine). > the real question, as i understand it--and if it wasn't david's it certainly is > mine--is: why can't the director and/or d.p. frame the image so that the boom > mike simply does not appear anywhere in the frame, thereby making it impossible > for the projectionist to screw up?? I have no experience in production apart from undergrad practical classes, so this is purely a guess: I would have thought that if you are framing, say, for 1:1.85, then to have the boom mike outside even the 1:1.33 area in the camera's focal range would, in practice, be so far above the action that it would fail to pick up any sound, especially on MCU's and wider We could be talking 10-15 feet in practice. I'd be interested to know if anyone who has done studio or location work with boom mikes would agree with this hypothesis. I really can't think of anything else. Incidentally, even if you managed to banish all boom mikes to the heavens, the projectionist could still get it out of rack. You'd just see an awful lot of sky with the top of the actor's head being half way down the picture. Or, if (s)he mis-racked it clockwise, an Islamic execution. But if it's that far out (which would have to be at least a perf and a bit, even for 1:1.66) any astute projectionist should realise that when (s)he saw the leader numbers running down through the gate, and correct it before opening up. Leo __________________________________ Leo Enticknap Postgraduate Common Room School of English and American Studies University of Exeter Queen's Building, The Queen's Drive Exeter Devon EX4 4QJ United Kingdom email: [log in to unmask] ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.