Reservoir Dogs (1992): Tarantino's 35mm Print Reconstruction

[CSchmidlapp]

I always thought the sundance screening went bad because it was a scope print and they didn't project it with a anamorphic lens!
It makes sense he shot for a 4:3 aspect ratio due to its life being for home video, but so did James Cameron and he and his DP composed for both. Was it the DP that leaked this information?

Your project looks awesome and im acquiring the 'Tarantino print' version now. Will be back later
Thanks for your hard work on this.

[PDB]

Looks great Falcon. You are really busting these out!

[Stamper]

Nope not the DP. Tarantino rewrote a bit what happened at the catastrophic premiere. If you take the open matte and matte it to 1.77 you can see the movie plays perfect. It was shot for 1.85:1. Somehow he decided after the premiere that it was full scope botching many compositions in the end but giving the film a more epic feel.
I'm guessing he was unsure until his back was on the wall.

The talk about anamorphic is bullshit, the movie is shot with spherical lenses so there were never anamorphic prints like for anamorphic films. Why would the theater be not able to zoom in or matte an open matte print? Every theater does that.

[ilovewaterslides]

Generally, movies that are shot on Super 35 are converted to anamorphic for the release prints.
Projectionnists can indeed matte a flat print. They can't matte it to scope though. They can't "zoom in" either

[The Aluminum Falcon]

Thanks, guys! Excuse the mistake about Cannes v. Sundance. Fixed all posts.

[Stamper]

Yes but that print couldn't be anamorphic because Tarantino says it exposed all kind of stuff in the frame not supposed to be seen.
He's scrambling eggs!

[CSchmidlapp]

Nope not the DP. Tarantino rewrote a bit what happened at the catastrophic premiere. If you take the open matte and matte it to 1.77 you can see the movie plays perfect. It was shot for 1.85:1. Somehow he decided after the premiere that it was full scope botching many compositions in the end but giving the film a more epic feel.
I'm guessing he was unsure until his back was on the wall.

The talk about anamorphic is bullshit, the movie is shot with spherical lenses so there were never anamorphic prints like for anamorphic films. Why would the theater be not able to zoom in or matte an open matte print? Every theater does that.

Sorry bud Im confused! If I take the 'Open Matte' release from this thread (The UK PAL DVD) and matte it too 1.77.1, I pretty much get the 2.35.1 with the sides cut off.
Is there a different 'Open Matte' version you are referring to (French DVD)? If so it must be quite close the full S35MM frame and show a lot more picture information, as what I'm seeing is consistent with how one would frame on Super 35mm for dual Cinema 2.35.1 and Home Video 1.33.1 release ARs.

In my logic, if it was indeed shot for 1.85.1, it would have looked more like the UK PAL DVD with more information on the sides or the BD with no black bars over the image.

Generally, movies that are shot on Super 35 are converted to anamorphic for the release prints.
Projectionnists can indeed matte a flat print. They can't matte it to scope though. They can't "zoom in" either

If you projected a scope release print with a standard lens, would it look vertically stretched to 1.33.1 (Then matted to the screen AR) ?

[CSchmidlapp]

Yes but that print couldn't be anamorphic because Tarantino says it exposed all kind of stuff in the frame not supposed to be seen.
He's scrambling eggs!

Or he had to take a non-anamorphic version of the print due to there lack of lenses. (An open matte version struck from the inter negative? Im unsure where the 'scope' conversion to release print would happen but Im guessing at that point.)

Would make sense on all accounts of the story.

In the quote here http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1653159/...a-disaster he does say its a scope film which leads me to believe a scope print. Im unsure the technicality's of showing a film at a festival like this. Would the lack of a lens be known ahead of a showing?

[CSchmidlapp]

Any more information on the French open matte?

[MrBrown]

Once there were some screens online showing the differences between the French open matte and the Canadian open Matte DVD.
After the first 1.33:1 DVD newer full frame DVDs were not open matted, but pan and scan.