With the ability to utilize the Anamorphic (4:3)Mode when filming with the Panasonic GH4 and the introduction of some reasonably priced anamorphic lenses and adaptors, shooting in anamorphic or Scope becomes more and more affordable to independent filmmakers.
To get this extremely enticing look, however, you should use some true 2x anamorphic lenses attached to a camera with a native 4:3 sensor (or, at least, utilize effectively the 4:3 aspect ratio of your camera’s sensor) where more horizontal lines are involved during recording.
Some time ago we’ve covered a popular way to handle and de-squeeze anamorphic footage inside Final Cut 7, Final Cut-X, Premiere Pro CC by utilizing the Dashwood Editor Essentials Anamorphic plug-in. Today Theo from MasnerMedia will show us how we can easily do that by using the available tools and assets in Davinci Resolve 12.
Assuming the majority of your footage is anamorphic, your timeline resolution ideally should match your source, so that you can take advantage of all that extra resolution for color correction and have more options for output.
Once you’ve imported the anamorphic footage and got it into Resolve 12 in the Media Pool select all your clips, right-click and choose Clip Attributes. Under Video tab navigate to Pixel Aspect Ratio and select CinemaScope. In your Project Settings, you should also set the timeline Pixel Aspect Ratio to Cinemascope.
That’s really all you have to do. Now you can enjoy the true beauty of your anamorphic clips. In case, you have some non-anamorphic footage in your Project Settings and Preferences under Input Scaling Preset choose Scale entire image to fit. If necessary, you can change your Output Scaling Preset as well to match your video monitor or final render specs, depending on your video output interface for monitoring or rendering.
Another alternative way to deal with anamorphic footage inside DaVinci Resolve 12 would be to use the Sizing tool in your Colour Page by adjusting the height and width of your clips to custom size and a certain aspect ratio. Select Create to save that as a Sizing Preset that can be further applied to all your clips, or to selected ones of import. It’s important to know and apply the correct squeezing factor of your anamorphic lens/adaptor to get the optimal results.
Either way, you will be able to de-squeeze your anamorphic footage and continue editing just as you would normally do with any other type of media you’ve shot and imported in DaVinci Resolve 12.
[source: MiesnerMedia]
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Hi!
I have a question about rendering the desqueezed images out to MXF files to cut with in Avid offline. I’m working on a project that was shot in 4K UHD anamorphic with 16:9 frame ProRes XQ. I used the cinemascope on the files and then rendered them DNxHD 36. Input scaling was Scale Full Frame with Crop Output Scaling 1920×1080, Center Crop with no resizing. But now that I have them in Avid I feel like the framing is wrong and when I go into frameflex to try and move the image left or right the size of the clip aren’t there. I don’t want to group and cut with this footage if I’ve messed it up. Do you have a good workflow for this?
Thanks!
Malinda