Univisium - 35 Mm Univisium Camera Proposal

35 Mm Univisium Camera Proposal

Storaro recognized that ubiquitous HD origination was not yet viable and therefore proposed an alteration to standard 35 mm photography to create a 2:00:1 aspect ratio and economize on film.

By using a negative area similar to that of the Super 35 frame (which utilizes the full width of a 35 mm film frame "perf-to-perf" as opposed to traditional 35 mm which utilizes a smaller area of the 35 mm frame offset to the right to accommodate space for an optical soundtrack) combined with 3-perf frame size (as opposed to standard 35 mm photography which uses four perforations per frame). The Univisium camera would use an aperture opening of 12mm x 24mm (.945" x .472") and three perforations per frame, which would eliminate the waste associated with 2.40:1 Super 35 mm photography (wherein nearly 50% of the frame is discarded) by creating a natural 2.00:1 aspect ratio utilizing the whole film area.

In addition to using the full film area, using three perforations per frame as opposed to four equates to using 25% less film for the same shooting time. With the traditional four perforations per frame, 35 mm film (at 24 frames per second) runs at 90 feet per minute (4 minutes 26 seconds per 400 feet of film), three perforations per frame runs at 67.5 feet per minute (5 minutes 56 seconds per 400 feet of film). This would mean each magazine of film would have 33% more shooting time and a production that shot the same overall length of time as a four-perforation film would use 25% less film.

The proposal also points out that the 2:00:1 aspect ratio can be achieved using standard spherical lenses, forgoing the need for anamorphic lenses, which are more expensive, slower (require more light) with less photographic depth of field than their spherical counterparts (which are higher quality, smaller, faster (require less light), with less aberrations (imperfections) associated with them. There are also a greater selection of spherical prime and zoom lenses than there are anamorphic lenses.

It is also pointed out that 3-perf will result in a quieter camera than 4-perf as there is less intermittent movement per frame.

The format also calls for shooting 25 frames per second, which eliminates problems associated with transferring film to video in the PAL and SECAM system and is still fairly simple to transfer to the NTSC video format.