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And while it's a relatively large improvement for low cost, it's not cheap. Figure $1000 for a 1.5X anamorphic adapter; $800 for another prime lens (probably the same focal length as the existing 'scope lens), 2 hours of tech time to install and file plates. At a 10 plex, that's about $20,000.

I'd love it, but it would have to be like the silverless soundtrack thing: pick a timeframe, and everyone sticks to it.

And because I haven't had my coffee yet, I will (in a cranky manner) note that the silverless soundtrack WILL go off as scheduled since that will be a cost savings to the studios/distrubutors, but that ELR's and 1.85 anamorphic won't anytime soon because that doesn't save studios anything. I'm really sure that the president of Warners or 20th Century gets up each morning and says; "I have to help the environment..."

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The image looked right, so I knew I wasn't using the wrong lens. I checked my apeture plate and I was using the right one for a scope print. My platters are on the right so I looked up at the traveling film and saw black bars matting the scope print. *Phew* it's supposed to be that way. .

But I stil think it looks terrible to play it on the screen like that. Anyone out there actually change their masking during these parts?

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"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"

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We're doing the masking adjust at the appropriate moment and it looks pretty good. (LOVE that anamorphic 1.85:1).

It's a little annoying though, that Dreamworks couldn't have used their 1.85 ratio logo on the beginning. It is full frame and sort of negates the purpose of the hard matting to follow. Easily fixed, of course...Whoops!

Although shooting the film with 1.5X anamorphic camera lenses would have the advantage of also using a larger image area on the negative (less graininess and better sharpness), they are not yet available. For our demo, we shot the film with spherical lenses, and did the 1.5X anamorphic "stretch" in an optical printer when we printed the duplicate negative. Kodak worked with IscoOptic to make the prototype 1.5X lenses for the printer and projector. Imagica USA did the optical printing. We hope to show this demonstration to distributors and exhibitors soon, in hopes that the "Scope 1.5X" format could be used to help larger theatre screens increase light levels dramatically.

For a discussion of how Kodak hopes to revive interest in this improved 35mm format, see the article I wrote in the February 1997 issue of "Film Notes for Reel People":
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/february97/pytlak.shtml

Printing a 1.85:1 image with a 2X squeeze and masking the sides of the image so it can be projected with the current 2X anamorphic lenses is also a good idea, but it doesn't offer the significant increase in light that a 1.5X anamorphic system would give. "The Horse Whisperer" and "Galaxy Quest" are examples of recent films that used this technique to mix formats in a "scope" picture.