Talk:35 mm movie film

Differences in Movie and still film

I don't know exactily today what's in kodak eastman catalog but a few years ago colors films were different but the B & W were excatlly the same. This mainly IMHO due to the use of artificial light.(by the way motion picture use mainly negative film like most amateur photographer and not inversible film like in super 8). About the perforation it seems there is a super 35mm variant with different perforations. But in seems perforation in movie film could differ at differnet stages between the negative and the final copy to avoid geometrical distortions.

I found this about the subject but I did not read in extenso. http://www.kodak.de/US/en/motion/students/handbook/perforations1.jhtml Ericd 09:54 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

Super 35

My understanding of Super 35 is that a larger picture area is used, including the soundtrack area; this corresponds roughly with the picture area available in the silent area. For theatre distribution the top and bottom are cropped and the image is optically squished to standard anamorphic widescreen size, while for video & TV the exact picture size can be tailored scene-by-scene -- unlike conventional pan & scan, wide scenes can be preserved by zooming out and including that top and bottom space that was cropped out of the theater release. As far as I know there's nothing special with perforations, but I could be wrong. --Brion 22:38 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

I don't know exactly how it's done but super 8, super 16, super 35 are always the same trick : a larger image with the same film width. For super 8 that's done with different perforations for super 16 and super 35 I don't know. Ericd 22:54 Sep 7, 2002 (UTC)

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Same trick: smaller perforations. Look at the end of film formats, I've put in a link to a site with over hundred movie formats - it is an truly excellent site.

I've made a 135 film page too, for photography. There is still a few sentences about photography in 35mm film - IMHO they should be moved to 135. I know the film medium is basically the same, but I would say a split with cross links is the best solution. A reader would normally be intested in either the photo or the movie side - and of course should be told about the connection User:Egil

CS perf

Conversation moved to Talk:Film perforations.

RfC: 35mm articles

Currently, I think our coverage of the various formats referred to as "35mm" is a mess. We have four articles:

• 35 mm film, on the movie film
• 135 film, on the still photographic film
• 35mm format, on the 36×24 mm size in still photographic film or digital photography
• Full frame, on a particular gate size of the movie film

I think it is safe to say that the topic of each article is not readily apparent from its title. There are several issues I'd like to address:

1. Do we really need four articles? I'm open to any solutions, such as merging existing articles, moving things around, creating new overview articles or disambiguation pages, etc.
2. Is there a less confusing way to title the articles? If you google "35mm film" or "35 mm film", almost all of the top results discuss the still photographic film, suggesting to me that the movie film is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this term. Likewise, "Full frame" should probably be turned into a disambiguation page based on a cursory Google search.
3. We have one article called "35 mm film", and another called "35mm format". Should there be a space between "35" and "mm"?

Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:54, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

• My vote is to merge all of the articles into a single "35mm film" article (with no space between "35" and "mm"). Qono (talk) 03:41, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
• From a quick glance at the articles, merge 135 film, 35mm format, and Full frame. The 135 film article seems to be the proper base article, but the name is obscure. The other two articles are quite small and should be mergeable (if not already contained in the 135 article). 35 mm photo format, albeit verbose, comes closer to what a descriptive name would be. The article 35 mm film, however, seems separate. I'd suggest rename that article to something like 35 mm movie film (it is specific to film, the digital world having moved to pixels to describe motion resolutions). Tarl N. (discuss) 06:20, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with all of Tarl N's suggestions, except that I don't think there should be a space between "35" and "mm". My quick Google search almost exclusively returned "35mm". Someone made a good argument for this in 2014 at Talk:35mm format. --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 20:40, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
• Proposal: Move 35 mm film to 35mm movie film. Move 135 film to 35mm film^{see below} and merge 35mm format into that article as a section. Merge the content of Full frame into 35mm movie film as a section, and then turn it into a disambiguation between Full-frame digital SLR and links to the newly created sections in 35mm film and 35mm movie film. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:24, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  Agree. Qono (talk) 03:31, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  Ditto. Whether the content from frame goes into still or movie is largely secondary. This is having the whiff of consensus... Tarl N. (discuss) 04:03, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  Mostly agree but I think that 135 film should be moved to something less ambiguous, like 35mm photo film. I think a problem with the above proposal is that all the current links to 35mm film, which presumably are referring to the movie film, will suddenly be linked to an article about the photo film. 35mm film itself should maybe be a disambiguation? Or a redirect? --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 04:29, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  In that case keeping 135 film where it is would be fine with me as well. We can turn 35mm film into a disambiguation page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:37, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  On that, we disagree. 135 film may be a technically correct title, but it is obscure. As someone who shot 35 mm photos for decades before digital arrived, I never heard it called that, and certainly today most people won't have heard that name. Tarl N. (discuss) 04:42, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

  It's an official name which is used with reasonable frequency and provides natural disambiguation, much like Association football. But instead of derailing this discussion over a naming issue, how about we leave it there for now (as the default option), and after the various merges are completed you can start an WP:RM on Talk:135 film? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:49, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

• There are three distinct and separate topics here, 1: the actual film material (used for both still and movies), 2: the 24x36mm size of the frame used in still photography, and 3: the movie "full frame" format. Merging everything would make a quite messy article. IMO, 35 mm film and Full frame could very well be merged, but not the others. --Janke | Talk 07:31, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

  Interesting, I think I see what you mean, but it doesn't seem that the current articles correspond with your three topics. What would you think about merging 135 film and 35 mm format? I think they both fall under your topic #2. Take this quote from 135 film as an example: "The term 135 format usually refers to a 36×24 mm film format, commonly known as 35 mm format. The 36×24 mm format is common to digital image sensors, where it is typically referred to as full frame format." --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 16:29, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

  I think the main problem is that we don't have a good title for an article on the 36x24mm format, if we decide we still wanted to retain one. For example, Medium format is unambiguous and covers different types of physical media on which an image of such size is commonly shot, including 120 film, 220 film, and medium-format digital. What do we call 36x24mm? Anything with "35mm" in it is bound to cause confusion with the various things called 35mm. "Full frame" is also an ambiguous term. "Small format" exists by analogy to medium and large format but is not commonly used at all. I think it's not too much of a loss to cover the format in the 135 film article, because 99% of the time 135 film is shot in a 3:2 aspect ratio. This would be analogous to what we have with APS: an article on the film (Advanced Photo System), an article on the digital sensor size (APS-C), but no article covering the size as a whole across film and digital, which is fine since the information is already in the two separate articles anyways. The main distinction here with medium/large format (which do have their own articles on the size itself) is that while each of those two comprises a broad category of sizes, the concept of a "small format" stretching from, say, smartphone sensor to full frame just isn't attested in the literature.

  As to Janke's 3rd item, the movie "full frame" is clearly a distinct concept but it is so obscure that I think it is better as a section in the article on 35mm movie film. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:32, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

All four of these articles deal with similar topics and none of them are beyond Wikipedia's article limit constraints. I think that they could all be profitably merged. As for the title of the potential mega-merger, several very good choices have been proposed. I personally lean towards Qono's suggestion of using this article entitled "35 mm film".Eliteplus (talk) 22:42, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Disagree with merge of Full frame – surely the article would be better made into something that might include Half frame and other subformats of 135. This has enough meat (or potential meat) to warrant its own article, rather than be relegated to subsections of film formats or scattered within half-frame camera. In general if an article would contain multiple sections independent of say a parent category, as 35 mm might apart from 135 (or in the extreme 'France' apart from 'country', then it should have its own page. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:39, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

What particular meaning of "Full frame" do you think we should have an article on? The current content there is clearly not the most common use of the term "Full frame." As for covering all meanings in one article: yes, there are some cases where it might work (e.g. Football), but absent a clear plan such general-concept articles are frowned upon. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:59, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Actions taken

Per the discussion above, I've taken a few actions which should not be controversial in my opinion:

• Moved 35 mm film to 35mm movie film.
• Moved Full frame to Full frame (cinematography).
• Moved Full frame (disambiguation) to Full frame.
• Restructured 35mm as a disambiguation, with 35mm film and 35 mm film redirecting to it.

I'm still not entirely happy with 35mm format, but I haven't thought of a better alternative yet. Thoughts? Any further actions to take (in general)? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Your first move squeezed out the space in "35 mm" that required by standard SI usage norms. Can we fix that please? Dicklyon (talk) 17:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I think "35mm film" is a more WP:COMMONNAME; it gets 6.47 million GHits compared to 3.68 million for "35 mm film". At this point I think it's become a fixed term rather than an actual unit of measurement; for example, you can refer to a full-frame DSLR sensor which measures 36 x 24 mm as a "35mm sensor" even though no part of the sensor actually measures 35 mm. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:15, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

COMMONNAME doesn't mandate that we adopt common errors. It makes more sense to follow standard usage guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 28 April 2019

• 35mm movie film → 35 mm movie film
• 35mm → 35 mm

– Based on a brief discussion (above) not mentioning our own guidance at MOS:UNITSYMBOLS, spaces were removed from these titles, making them inconsistent with the rest of wikipedia and the advise of standards organization. So let's undo that mistake. The only other place that WP squeezes out the space is in the names of lenses, and it's OK there because those are names as used by their manufacturers. In the case of 35 mm movie film and the other 35 mm topics, it's a measurement, not a name. Dicklyon (talk) 19:28, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME is policy, and supersedes both ISO/MOS guidance on how to format units and "a foolish consistency". We're not here to correct mistaken names that are in common usage; see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

  The difference between the current and correct titles is a styling issue, not a different name. COMMONNAME is not applicable to that decision. And there's no absolute wrong here, just a deviation from following our own consensus style (which is a style that follows the recommendations of standards organizations, by the way). The unspaced version is not a "great wrong", just a wrong style for WP, arrived by a small discussion where opinions were expressed without acknowledging tht we already have a consensus style answer. In that sense, the move was wrong, but that's not so great either; just something we need to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support—Ngram example showing sizeable drop in squashed version as opposed to the ISO version. Large proportion is quite sufficient justification for keeping WP consistent with ISO. Tony (talk) 23:54, 28 April 2019 (UTC)