Negative pulldown is the manner in which an image is exposed on a

film stock Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent ...

, described in the number of

film perforations Film perforations, also known as perfs and sprocket holes, are the holes placed in the film stock during manufacturing and used for transporting (by sprockets and claws) and steadying (by pin registration) the film. Films may have different types ...

spanned by an individual frame. It can also describe the orientation of the image on the negative, whether it is captured horizontally or vertically. Changing the number of exposed perforations allows a

cinematographer The cinematographer or director of photography (sometimes shortened to DP or DOP) is the person responsible for the photographing or recording of a film, television production, music video or other live action piece. The cinematographer is the ch ...

to change both the aspect ratio of the image and the size of the area on the film stock that the image occupies (which affects image clarity). The most common negative pulldowns for 35 mm film are 4-perf and 3-perf, the latter of which is usually used in conjunction with

Super 35 Super 35 (originally known as Superscope 235) is a motion picture film format that uses exactly the same film stock as standard 35 mm film, but puts a larger image frame on that stock by using the space normally reserved for the optical anal ...

. 2-perf, used in

Techniscope Techniscope or 2-perf is a 35 mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1960. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame us ...

in the 1960s, is enjoying a slight resurgence due to the birth of

digital intermediate Digital intermediate (typically abbreviated DI) is a motion picture finishing process which classically involves digitizing a motion picture and manipulating the color and other image characteristics. Definition and overview A digital intermediat ...

techniques eliminating the need for optical lab work. Vertical pulldown is overwhelmingly the dominant axis of motion in cinematography, although horizontal pulldown is used in

IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme ...

VistaVision VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35 mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954. Paramount never used anamorphic processes such as 2.55: 1, CinemaScope but refi ...

(still in use for some visual effects work), and in 35 mm consumer and professional still cameras.

Usage of various formats

History

Most 35 mm film systems, whether they are

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

telecine Telecine ( or ) is the process of transferring film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process. Telecine enables a motion picture, captured originally on fi ...

equipment,

optical printer An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re- photograph one or more strips of film. The optical printer is used for making special effects for mot ...

s or

projector A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer typ ...

s, are configured to accommodate the 4-perf system, where each frame of 35 mm is 4 perforations long. 4-perf was (and remains) the traditional system, and virtually all projectors are based on 4-perf, because 4 perforations is the amount needed per frame vertically in order to have enough negative space for a roughly squarish image, which became the silent film standard aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Later, when the film industry was facing the perceived threat of obsolescence to

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, which also was universally a 1.33:1 aspect ratio at the time (and remained so in many countries until the introduction of DTV), studios started experimenting with various competing widescreen formats.

Current practice

Eventually, aspect ratios of 1.85:1 in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

and 1.66:1 in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

became standard for 35 mm productions shot with normal non-

anamorphic Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted ...

lenses. However, the way the aspect ratio is created with these films is not in-camera, but rather by placing a cropping device, known as an aperture mask, over the film in the projector. What this means is that most films are shot in full screen format (often incorrectly referred to as 1.33:1 but actually 1.37:1 because of the sound tracks), but composed for 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 and cropped that way in projection. Therefore, a fair percentage of the film is wasted, because the cropped top and bottom are usually never meant to be shown, unless it was well protected for Full Screen presentation. 3-perf and 2-perf are only used in the origination and post-production transfer process.

35 mm

2-perf

2-perf camera systems use only 2 perforations per frame on 35 mm film, which gives an aspect ratio close to the 2.39:1 aspect ratio used in

prints. It was first proposed conceptually around 1930, but was not put into practice until 1961, when

was developed at

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

's Italian branch. It has recently been brought up again with the advent of higher quality, lower grain

s as well as

post-production methods which eliminate optical blowups and thus improve quality. While in the recent past, some companies have offered custom conversions of camera equipment to 2-perf, it appears that camera manufacturers are now poised to support the format.

Arri The Arri Group () is a German manufacturer of motion picture film equipment. Based in Munich, the company was founded in 1917. It produces professional motion picture cameras, lenses, lighting and post-production equipment. Hermann Simon ment ...

made 2-perf movement blocks for their Arricam and Arriflex 235 cameras available for rental in March 2007, while

Aaton Aaton Digital (formerly known as Aaton) is a French motion picture equipment manufacturer, based in Grenoble, France. History Aaton was founded by Eclair engineer Jean-Pierre Beauviala, whose efforts have been primarily focused on making quie ...

Penelope Penelope ( ; Ancient Greek: Πηνελόπεια, ''Pēnelópeia'', or el, Πηνελόπη, ''Pēnelópē'') is a character in Homer's ''Odyssey.'' She was the queen of Ithaca and was the daughter of Spartan king Icarius and naiad Periboea. Pe ...

camera, released in October 2008, was the first camera specifically designed for 2-perf usage (as well as 3-perf).

3-perf

In the early 1980s, Swedish cinematographer Rune Ericson collaborated with

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses dur ...

on the concept of creating a 3-perf mechanism for motion picture cameras. 3-perf minimized the problem of wasted film by changing the camera gate and shutter mechanism so that each frame is 3 perforations high instead of the standard 4-perforations. The 3-perf image's aspect ratio is roughly 1.78:1, which makes it both ideal for widescreen television and very close to 1.85:1 without losing any image outside this area to waste. Because of the smaller frame, the camera effectively runs 25% slower, yielding 25% savings on film stock; the camera will run more quietly because less film is moved through the camera per frame; and the

variant allows for a larger negative area, which can help compensate for increased grain when using higher-speed film stocks. In the late 1990s, noted cinematographer

Vittorio Storaro Vittorio Storaro, A.S.C., A.I.C. (born 24 June 1940) is an Italian cinematographer widely recognized as one of the best and most influential in cinema history, for his work on numerous classic films including '' The Conformist,'' '' Apocalypse No ...

proposed a film standard known as Univisium (also called Univision), which advocates 3-perf Super 35 to create a 2.00:1 aspect ratio.

Disadvantages of 3-perf and 2-perf

The only disadvantage of 3-perf and 2-perf is that if it is to be projected theatrically, it needs to be transferred back to a 4-perf system, which typically means a film print with black cropping on the print itself in order to fit the image onto a 4-perf frame – the same wastage problem as before. Even so, the amount of film shot on a production is much greater than the length of the final film, so 3-perf or 2-perf are still viable cost-saving options for production. Generally, 3-perf is most frequently used for

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...

television productions shot on film, because the film will be developed and then permanently transferred to

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

, rendering projection incompatibilities irrelevant. Recently, this process has become popular with big-budget motion picture production, due to the advent of the

process. The negative is scanned to high resolution (usually HD, 2K or 4K (

digital cinema Digital cinema refers to adoption of digital technology within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be sh ...

)) digital files, colour graded, and ultimately printed back to standard 4-perf for projection. At some point in the future, the final 4-perf print will become unnecessary assuming the cinema distribution and projection chain become fully digital. 3-perf and 2-perf pose minor problems for visual effects work. The area of the film in 4-perf work that is not projected nonetheless contains picture information which is useful for such visual effects tasks as 2D and 3D tracking. This mildly complicates certain visual effects efforts for productions using 3-perf and 2-perf.

VistaVision

VistaVision is a higher resolution,

variant of the 35 mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

in 1954. It uses a horizontal, 8 perforation 35 mm image, similar to that used in

135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a cas ...

for still photography. Paramount did not use

processes such as

CinemaScope CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...

but refined the quality of their flat widescreen system by orienting the 35 mm negative horizontally in the camera gate and shooting onto a larger area, which yielded a finer-grained projection print.

70 mm

Standard 65 mm (5/70) (Todd-AO, Super Panavision)

* spherical lenses * 5 perforations/frame * 42 frames/meter (12.8 frame/ft) * 34.29 meters/minute (112.5 ft/minute) * vertical pulldown * 24 frames/second * ''camera aperture'': 52.48 by 23.01 mm (2.066 by 0.906 in) * ''projection aperture'': 48.56 by 20.73 mm (1.912 by 0.816 in) * 305 m (1000 feet), about 9 minutes at 24 frame/s = 4.5 kg (10 pounds) in can * ''aspect ratio'': 2.2:1

Ultra Panavision 70 (MGM Camera 65)

''Same as Standard 65 mm except'' * Shot with special anamorphic adapter in front of lens * 1.25× squeeze factor, projected aspect ratio 2.76:1

Showscan

''Same as Standard 65 mm except'' * 60 frames per second

IMAX (15/70)

* spherical lenses * 15 perforations per frame * horizontal movement, from right to left (viewed from base side) * 24 frames per second * ''camera aperture'': 70.41 by 52.63 mm (2.772 by 2.072 in) * ''projection aperture'': at least 2 mm (0.080 in) less than camera aperture on the vertical axis and at least 0.4 mm (0.016 in) less on the horizontal axis * ''aspect ratio'': 1.35:1 (camera), 1.43:1 (projected)

Dynavision (8/70) (Also known as Iwerks 8/70)

* fisheye or spherical lenses, depending on if projecting for a dome or not * vertical pulldown * 24 or 30 frames per second * ''camera aperture'': 52.83 by 37.59 mm (2.080 by 1.480 in)

References

* https://web.archive.org/web/20080118094257/http://www.arri.de/prod/cam/technology_3_perforation.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20060713061542/http://www.aaton.com/products/film/35/3perf.php

External links

* Movie Making Manual wikibook article on Telecine including a list of facilities that can telecine 2-perf {{DEFAULTSORT:Negative Pulldown Film and video technology