Techniscope

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Techniscope is a trademark of Technicolor , which has used it since 1963 to describe its own process for making 35 mm wide screen anamorphic films . Techniscope's demonstration format is compatible with that of CinemaScope and comparable processes. In contrast to this, Techniscope uses the camera to record an undistorted widescreen image, which is only compressed anamorphically for the screening copy .

If the demonstration copies were not made by Technicolor itself, but by other copy factories , they were called Cromoscope .

The Techniscope process was most widespread in Italian film productions.

technical basics

Techniscope - single image .

The film step of the usual vertically through the film camera running 35 mm film is at Techniscope only two instead of the normal four perforation holes ( 35 mm 2-perf instead of 35 mm 4-perf ). The individual images have the dimensions 22 mm × 9.47 mm and are therefore only about half as high as the normal image. This creates real widescreen images with an aspect ratio of 2.32: 1. The camera is not equipped with an anamorphic lens and the negative image therefore remains undistorted.

An anamorphically compressed interpositive is produced from the cut Techniscope camera negative ( cut negative ) when copying on the optical printer , so that a normal format image is created with the usual step of 4 perforation holes. From this, internegatives of the same format are drawn in the contact process , which in turn serve as the basis for the projection copies of the same format . During the projection, the images are stretched (rectified) in width with an anamorphic lens and then have the widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35: 1 known from CinemaScope.

With the modern digital processing of a Techniscope camera negative by scanning , a digital intermediate is created so that the further phototechnical copying steps are not necessary.

For film recording, film cameras (mostly Arriflex or Mitchell ) are used, the film step of which has been converted from 4-perf to 2-perf . There are also cameras from Aaton ( Penelope ) that are set up for Techniscope from the start.

advantages

• Techniscope only needs half as much camera negative film material as with processes with normal image size. For this reason Techniscope was also jokingly referred to as the “CinemaScope for the poor”.
• Techniscope does not require expensive and heavy anamorphic lenses on the camera. Instead, normal lenses are used. This means that lightweight and inexpensive 35 mm film cameras can be used for filming, the image window and film step of which have been converted to Techniscope. The low weight enables flexible use as a handheld camera.
• For a Techniscope production, a lower amount of artificial light is required, since there are no light-weakening anamorphic lenses on the camera.
• By using non-anamorphic lenses, vivid-looking close -ups and detailed shots are possible at a short distance in higher quality ( wide-angle shots at close range or possibly also macro photography ). Comparable settings cannot be achieved with anamorphic lenses, since the anamorphic elements in the lens would lead to unnatural image distortions. At Techniscope, the anamorphic recording is relocated to the copier (production of the interpositive), where its imaging errors can be minimized due to the fixed imaging distance.
• With the same horizontal angle of view and the same aperture , Techniscope recordings have a significantly higher depth of field than anamorphic recordings , since twice the focal length is required for the same horizontal viewing angle as with Techniscope, which reduces the depth of field.

disadvantage

• The opposite anamorphic recording reduced camera negative area of the Techniscope picture window brings a loss of resolving power with him as sharpness loss is perceived.

Film samples

Two good study examples for Techniscope as a low-distortion widescreen recording method are Sergio Leone's Western Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (1968), in which Tonino Delli Colli directed the camera, and Keoma (1976) by Enzo G. Castellari .

Web links

• 35 mm film History (English)
• Why 2-Perf? (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Research in the official trademark register. German Patent and Trademark Office, accessed on May 13, 2014 .