Super 35

Super 35 (originally known as Superscope 235) is a motion picture film format that uses exactly the same film stock as standard 35 mm film, but puts a larger image frame on that stock by using the negative space normally reserved for the optical analog sound track.

Super 35 was revived from a similar Superscope variant known as Superscope 235, which was originally developed by the Tushinsky Brothers (who founded Superscope Inc. in 1954) for RKO in 1954. When cameraman Joe Dunton was preparing to shoot Dance Craze in 1982, he chose to revive the Superscope format by using a full silent-standard gate and slightly optically recentering the lens port. These two characteristics are central to the format. It was adopted by Hollywood starting with Greystoke in 1984, under the format name Super Techniscope. Later, as other camera rental houses and labs started to embrace the format, Super 35 became popular in the mid-1990s, and is now considered a ubiquitous production process, with usage on well over a thousand feature films. It is often the standard production format for television shows, music videos, and commercials. Since none of these require a release print, it is unnecessary to reserve space for an optical soundtrack. James Cameron was an early, consistent, and vocal supporter of the format, first using it for The Abyss. It also received much early publicity for making the cockpit shots in Top Gun possible, since it was otherwise impossible to fit 35 mm cameras with large anamorphic lenses into the small free space in the cockpit.

Super 35 is a production format. Theatres do not receive or project Super 35 prints. Rather, films are shot in a Super 35 format but are then — either through optical blowdown/matting or digital intermediate — converted into one of the standard formats to make release prints. Because of this, often productions also use Super 35's width in conjunction with a 3-perf negative pulldown to save costs on "wasted" frame area shot and accommodate camera magazines that could shoot 33% longer in time with the same length of film.

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