Anamorphic involves (usually) adding an element to the front or rear of your standard lenses. This doubles the focal length and makes the lenses effectively one stop slower. For example: The Panavision 11:1 zoom goes from 24mm to 275mm ? t/2.8. The anamorphic version of the same lens is 50mm to 550mm ?t/4. So, right away, you see you need more light. You'll be even better off if you can shoot at a 5.6. Anamorphics are heavier than Super 35 and in shorter supply. (If you want to see something ugly, go to a rental house when a few shows are prepping anamorphs and lenses are in short supply. Sale days at Mervyns have nothing on anamorphic preps at Panavision.)

Some anamorphics are so heavy (Arriscope) they have their own handles. Think about that for a minute. A handle for the lens! Are they kidding me? 1 set of Panavision Primo lenses fits in 2 cases on a Super 35 show (that's 14.5,17.5,21,27,35,40,50,75,100,150mm). On an anamorphic show, a similar set of primes fits in 10 (yes 10!) cases. Additionally, if you plan on any steadicam or hand held, you'll need another whole set of lightweight lenses. These lenses will not be coated as well and will have a tendency to flare (and handheld is when you are more likely to get flares). And don't forget your zooms. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Super 35 is lighter and you have all the options that you usually have with standard 35: same lenses, etc. You will run into occassional vignetting problems with Super 35 on the wide end. An operator can see focus in Super 35, while it is very difficult to see all but the most aggregious focus problems on anamorphic. On a difficult shot, it is customary at the end of the shot for everyone to "Freeze" so the operator can flip the viewing system to spherical, drop in the magnifier and check to see that focus was ok. This assumes cooperation with the actor. Focus on anamorphic is not for the faint of heart, as most problems don't show up until dailies.

With a few specialty exceptions, the widest you will get with anamorphic is about 28mm (equivalent to 14mm in Super 35). Depending on your extraction, you can go as wide as 10mm on Super 35.

Contrary to popular belief (even amoung some camera assistants) depth of field is not different anamorphic vs. spherical (that is Super35). A 75mm lens is a 75mm lens. The difficulty lies in the lens selected. Since the lens is backed by an anamorphic element which spreads the image 2x on its sides, the framing of shots changes. For instance, a 35mm lens in anamorphic has the same top to bottom angle of view as a 35mm lens in spherical. But it is twice as wide in anamorphic (about 17mm). If you would usually shoot your 2-shot with a 35mm, you bounce up to 75mm (cutting depth of field in half) for the same 2 shot in anamorphic. This leaves you with a 180mm for your close-ups. Everything is twice as long. Ouch. 75mm is a long lens on a steadicam. Let's hope they want to do the singles on the dolly.

Anamorphic uses the whole ground glass. From an operator's standpoint, that's bad, because you have no room to see booms coming into the shot or flags about to wreck your day.

With Super 35, you do a blow up to anamorphic when you strike your release print. This could lead to some focus surprises: a shot that was edgy (and a lot of edgier stuff is getting into films now that most editors are cutting digitally and not projecting cut sequences) before blow up is now unusable in the final print (bit late to find that out). And there's something about anamorphic that seems richer and goes beyond the blue anamorphic flares that I've seen put in in postproduction.

Looking back over this, it looks like I'm anti-anamorphic. I'm not... I've done a few anamorphic shows. But it's a level of difficulty I don't recommend to anyone other than pros. There are a lot of careers sitting at the bottom of the Anamorphic Sea.

"On a good gate, that's a wrap."