Looking for "The Terminator" (1984) theatrical color grading [FOUND]

[zoidberg]

If the prints were indeed hard matted at the lab stage then every single frame would be masked, yet we know this isn't the case as there is evidence the animatronics work was left open and the animated VFX spill over the black bars.
I'm not sure why people think hard matting is this intangible thing, it's literally the gate of the camera

[CSchmidlapp]

If the prints were indeed hard matted at the lab stage then every single frame would be masked, yet we know this isn't the case as there is evidence the animatronics work was left open and the animated VFX spill over the black bars.
I'm not sure why people think hard matting is this intangible thing, it's literally the gate of the camera

So 'Hard Matting' is practiced at the filming stage.
Thank you for answering the question.

Like pointed out earlier it's not intangible, but pointless.
Again, it goes against what I (and others here obviously) have learnt.

[CSchmidlapp]

Terminator was not shot hard matted, but open matte. The editor confirmed this to me in person.

Id still love to hear about when you talked to Mark Goldblatt.

[Chewtobacca]

Honestly I just think it boils down to controlling 100% what is captured on film

That's what I've always understood as well.  With a hard matte, you don't have to rely on the projectionist to get it right, you can use the camera like a viewfinder to frame shots as you go, and you don't have to go through the footage matting it afterwards, which is easier with modern software than it was in the past.  Essentially, you can film with an AR of your choosing, effectively independent of the film stock you happen to be using, which might not be your first choice.

[zoidberg]

That's the way I think about it, you set up the camera with the chosen aperture and don't have to worry about anything outside of frame ever being shown accidentally due to misframing by the projectionist. Someone like Cameron would consider this information 'junk', obviously with super 35 he changed his mind somewhat, however even then the super 35 features he shot were all 'common top' with the anamorphic blow-up taken from a fixed area of the negative. As the whole frame is used for anamorphic you cannot accidentally show more information (besides the optical track). So he still had control over the final image in cinemas but a little extra for the 4:3 home video releases.

Something which comes to mind whilst discussing this is the recent 4K scan of DotD whereby the entire 1.37 negative area was scanned including the area reserved for the soundtrack, the result being crew members, boom mics and such being visible. It was exposed on the negative but never meant to be seen (and indeed would never be seen in cinemas as it would be replaced by the optical soundtrack). Likewise the first BTTF DVDs which were completely misframed and had to be recalled.

Basically when it comes to projection if the print is letterbox masked via printed black bars at the top/bottom of the frame, those edges of the projected image will be sharp (ie 'hard') whereas if the mask is applied via an aperture plate in the projector plate, the edges will be out of focus (due to not being in the same focal plane) and will appear blurry (ie 'soft'). 

Having a snoop around various film forums to glean more information it seems that the practice does go back several decades but as with so many analog things there were no concrete standards in place, besides the 'standard' ratios of 1.33:1, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1. Films with an initial 'open' release print would be re-released hard matted, but if the film is projected properly then the result would be the same to the audience anyway. Whether having a hard-matted negative is not 'best practice' is debatable, probably best left to another thread.

I would love to be proven wrong about The Terminator being shot hard-matted but AFAIK every 4:3 home release is essentially a pan-and-scan, this in itself is inconclusive, this just means that the elements used for transfer were themselves hard-matted. Perhaps the negative is indeed fully open-matte but I guess we'll never know.

This whole thing reminds me of the 'Robocop was shown in Europe at 1.66:1' deal, where there is almost no evidence or proof of this being the case (besides the Criterion laserdisc having this ratio) but is considered a universal truth

[CSchmidlapp]

Great thread

[zoidberg]

CSchmidlapp,
Going back to what you said about Peter Jackson and his early 8mm films, he used a genuine anamorphic lens. It was attached to the camera while shooting to squeeze, then placed in front of his projector lens to unsqueeze for viewing.

[CSchmidlapp]

CSchmidlapp,
Going back to what you said about Peter Jackson and his early 8mm films, he used a genuine anamorphic lens. It was attached to the camera while shooting to squeeze, then placed in front of his projector lens to unsqueeze for viewing.

Oh, That's pretty awesome.
Ive not seen the doc since it played in the mid 90's when Bad Taste played on one of our TV channels in the U.K.
I believe the clip shown was a 'Bond' fan film he made and always remembered it as some kind of mask on the lens!
I even tried to make a letterbox lens cap for my VHS-C camera as I had just began making films myself.

Ive had a quick look around the internet for a mention of Hard Matting in camera but found nothing concrete.
It certainly looks like T1 was shot using this method from the stills earlier on in the post, i just find it really bizarre.
Awaiting more input from Stamper due to his earlier comments.
I thought it may of been a thing when cinemascope had just appeared as a way of monitoring, but since the advent of video monitoring it seems kind of redundant.
Time to adjust my understanding of the process once again

[PDB]

From the seventh edition of the ASC manual, you can hard mate in camera:



For the record, I agree with Zoidberg and Chew, Cameron probably shot 1st unit on T1 and Aliens with a hard matte in the camera. The prints of both T1 and Aliens are majority hard matted with a few shots and the SFX shots open matte (the stop motion Terminator shots and the Alien Queen puppet are two such examples). If they hard matted on only the prints, those SFX shots should be hard matted also. It is 100% a control thing, because it forces the projectionist to take extra care to center the frame for projection. Which was a problem in the 80s and 90s with the rise of multiplexes that didn’t care about quality. That was contrary to majority of 80s 1.85 productions who shot open matte for the eventual home video release on good old 4:3 CRTs.

Cameron sacrificed versatility for control. Sounds like a very Cameron thing to do.

[Chewtobacca]

Someone like Cameron would consider this information 'junk', obviously with super 35 he changed his mind somewhat, however even then the super 35 features he shot were all 'common top' with the anamorphic blow-up taken from a fixed area of the negative.

Star Trek VI must have been 'common top' as well, or something very much like it.  When comparing the (OAR) BD to the OM broadcast, I noticed that aside from the fact that the former had a little more picture information on the top, the latter's extra material was all on the bottom, meaning that a single cropping setting restored it to OAR.  I had to reframe a few shots, mostly effects ones, but that was it.