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If you see a movie in the theater today, more likely than not, you're going to see it in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. What's an aspect ratio? It's the way of measuring the proportion of an image. A film that is 1.85:1 is basically 1.85 times wider than it is tall. I'll leave the thread more open for discussion later, so conversation is encouraged. First off, let's look at aspect ratios... All examples are from Blu-Rays verified as correct, as well as displaying the film's original intended format 1.33:1 - "Full Aperture" silent (used on most films made before sound) and sound films intended for sound-on-disc (Vitaphone) presentation. Not a theatrical presentation aspect ratio in wide use after 1932 until digital. There were some widescreen experiments during this time, but few survive.  The Freshman (1925, Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)  Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)  The Jazz Singer (1927, Alan Crosland)  Dracula (1931, Tod Browning) Note: While it was released with sound-on-film, it was shot with the intention of sound-on-disc allowing for a full 1.33:1 image. 1.20:1 (or 1.19:1) - "Movietone" format (used on many sound-on-film releases from 1927-1932 worldwide). Same vertical resolution as 1.33:1, except with the left edge cropped due to accommodating the soundtrack area.  Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)  City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)  The Big Trail (1930, Raoul Walsh) [Movietone version] 2.10:1 - Grandeur (short-lived 1929-1930 large format system with similar specs to 1950s-present 70mm except with sound on film).  The Big Trail (1930, Raoul Walsh) [Fox Grandeur version] Note: Only The Big Trail and The Bat Whispers survive complete from this period. The narrower image is due to an optical soundtrack on the 70mm film. 1.37:1 - "Academy" Ratio (widely used on nearly every film made from 1932 to 1953). Often slightly cropped to 1.33:1 for video.  Poor Cinderella (1934, Dave Fleischer)  The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming [and others])  Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)  Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)  Rashômon (1950, Akira Kurosawa) 2.59:1 Curved - Cinerama from 1952-1962. Used three 35mm cameras with a 50% taller frame size, yielding a curved panoramic image. Less than a dozen films made in the process.  Cinerama Holiday (1955, various)  How the West Was Won (1962, various) 1.66:1 - Just before CinemaScope, but after Cinerama, studios tried out a wider aspect ratios. Used more outside the US after the mid-1950s. Films usually shot with full 1.37:1 area, but matted in projector to this ratio. Native aspect ratio of Super-16 films.  Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock) Note: Rear Window started production during the short time when 1.66:1 was their preferred format until VistaVision  Giant (1956, George Stevens) Note: Giant was started prior to 1.66:1 being phased out, but exhibitors were still asked to show at the ratio. Other notable films: Shane (first 1.66:1 release, but shot for 1.37:1) 1.75:1 - More common widescreen format used. Default aspect ratio for most European productions prior to 1.85:1 adoption. Ususally cropped slightly to 1.78:1 for video or undermatted to 1.66:1.  A Hard Day's Night (1964, Richard Lester)  The Jungle Book (1967, Wolfgang Reitherman) Other notable films: Mary Poppins (and most Disney films until mid-1980s), 1.85:1 - The most common aspect ratio. First used in 1953, continues to be one of the main aspect ratios of cinema. Often slightly undercropped to 16x9 for video.  On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan) Note: The Blu-Ray provides the original 1.85:1, a "opened-up" 1.66:1 version, and unmatted 1.37:1 version.  Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)  Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock) - VistaVision  8 1/2 (1963, Federico Fellini)  Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)  Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Robert Zemeckis) - partially VistaVision  Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyazaki) 2.00:1 - Widescreen aspect ratio used in 1950s prior to standardization. Mostly used by Universal. Also used for brief SuperScope process. Later adopted as "Univisium"  Vera Cruz (1954, Robert Aldrich) Note: First release in SuperScope.  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel) - SuperScope [Shot for 1.85:1 originally] Other notable films: Magnificent Obsession, This Island Earth, Revenge of the Creature, Jurassic World 2.55:1 - First incarnation of CinemaScope in 1953. First use of anamorphic lenses on 35mm in wide use. Wider aspect ratio due to wider area used with sound on film via magnetic stripes. Later adapted to more familiar 2.35:1/2.40:1.  The Robe (1953, Henry Koster) Note: The very first CinemaScope feature released.  Lady and the Tramp (1954, various)  The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, David Lean) Note: Filmed prior to standardization of 2.35:1 and released cropped from 2.55:1. Restored version uses full intended width. Other notable films: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Rebel Without a Cause, Lola Montes 2.20:1 - Modern 70mm and Technirama. Started use in mid-1950s and continued to be used today.  Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick) - Technirama  West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins) - Super Panavision  Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean) - Super Panavision  The Sound of Music (1965, Robert Wise) - Todd AO  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick) - Super Panavision  TRON (1982, Steven Lisberger) - Super Panavision (CGI-only shots in Super-35 and VistaVision)  Baraka (1992, Ron Fricke) - Todd AO Other notable films: Oklahoma!, Hamlet (1996), Tomorrowland 2.35:1/2.39:1/2.40:1 - Standardized anamorphic scope widescreen by 1956. Also used for most Super-35 films. Currently standardized to 2.40:1 and still in use.  The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut) - Totalscope [CinemaScope clone]  High and Low (1964, Akira Kurosawa) - Tohoscope [CinemaScope clone]  Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola) - Technovision (Panavision clone)  Big Trouble in Little China (1986, John Carpenter) - Panavision[/sub]  The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson) - Panavision  ParaNorman (2012, Sam Fell/Chris Butler) - Canon EOS 5D Mark II (digital 5K stills) 2.75:1 - Ultra Panavision - Same process as regular 70mm except with a special anamorphic lens allowing for a wider image. Very few films. Usually exhibited in 2.55:1 theatrically, but most videos are uncropped.  Ben-Hur (1959, William Wyler)  It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963, Stanley Kramer) Other notable films: The Hateful Eight All captures borrowed from Blu-Ray.com. And here's a diagram showing the native areas of all the main film formats: 
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Oct 20, 2015 16:24
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Is there a technical difference between 2.39:1 and 2.40:1 or are they just rounding up for simplicity? Seeing something like Ben-Hur (2.75:1) displayed in 4x3 is disturbing as more than half the picture is missing. Imagine seeing 48% of your favorite painting. Over the years I've seen some odd things. I remember getting a Bonnie and Clyde DVD from Netflix that clearly was emblazoned with "Widescreen format" on the disc but was actually 4x3. It must've been a factory error. Even worse is the deception of 2.39:1 films being cropped to something closer to 16:9. It's very commonplace on TV but I've seen it on a fair share of DVD releases as well. I'm wondering if that practice is common at any theater chains or if films are legally required to be displayed in their OAR at initial release. The open matte can sometimes be interesting. I recall seeing a Youtube video doing a theatrical vs. VHS version on a lot of films and it can be kind of a dilemma for me at least: intention vs. maximum visual information.
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Oct 21, 2015 00:30
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Zogo posted:Is there a technical difference between 2.39:1 and 2.40:1 or are they just rounding up for simplicity? It's just a rounding thing. I don't know why they use all three, because for films released after 1969, they mean the same thing. quote:The open matte can sometimes be interesting. I recall seeing a Youtube video doing a theatrical vs. VHS version on a lot of films and it can be kind of a dilemma for me at least: intention vs. maximum visual information. Well, all films include some cropping. It's not really information since it was never part of the intended image, which means things like booms can sneak into the shot. And editing is what makes the final product. After all, you wouldn't insist on seeing every second of every scene that was shot.
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Oct 21, 2015 03:08
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What's the deal with VistaVision? I don't know anything about this stuff but I love The Searchers and a few different people on the blu ray special features make a big deal out of VistaVision.
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Oct 21, 2015 03:18
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I noticed you used a screenshot from Paranorman, a computer animated film. Is there any technical reason why a computer animation studio would have to adhere to a specific aspect ratio or are they technically free to put out a film in 10:1 or some other arbitrary aspect ratio? Are such films ever still sent to theatres on film?
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Oct 21, 2015 04:22
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Zogo posted:Is there a technical difference between 2.39:1 and 2.40:1 or are they just rounding up for simplicity? Seeing something like Ben-Hur (2.75:1) displayed in 4x3 is disturbing as more than half the picture is missing. Imagine seeing 48% of your favorite painting. Technically, the difference between the three is about splices. 2.39:1/2.40:1 was recommended since it reduced the visibility of splices since 2.35:1 usually exposes them in projection. Open matte is usually never really open matte. The so-called full frame versions of On the Waterfront and Touch of Evil are cropped from 1.37:1 to 1.33:1. The unmatted masters of The Shining crop quite a bit off the sides despite showing more vertical. And on that note, the whole Kubrick aspect ratio thing was about him approving unmatted masters for laserdisc in 1991. By contrast, Richard Lester approved A Hard Day's Night at 4x3 back in 1996 for the laserdisc and TV, but specifically asked for the original 1.75:1 framing on Criterion's 4K restoration. It makes sense. Why throw out resolution when the film generally works without matting? Same reason why pan & scan was practical on tape. With today's video technology, there is no excuse to deviate from the theatrical framing if the film was shot for that. Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:I noticed you used a screenshot from Paranorman, a computer animated film. Is there any technical reason why a computer animation studio would have to adhere to a specific aspect ratio or are they technically free to put out a film in 10:1 or some other arbitrary aspect ratio? Are such films ever still sent to theatres on film? In today's theaters, it will absolutely be shown in either 1.85:1 or 2.40:1. Any other aspect ratios are either centered within that. This is why Jurassic World, shown in 2.00:1, was projected centered within 1.85:1 in regular theaters. If you caught Lawrence of Arabia, it was 2.20:1 centered within 2.40:1 with thin black bars on the sides. I included some digital films to show that aspect ratios don't always depend on the source format. Basebf555 posted:What's the deal with VistaVision? I don't know anything about this stuff but I love The Searchers and a few different people on the blu ray special features make a big deal out of VistaVision. VistaVision was 35mm shot horizontally with an area twice the size of standard full area 35mm. It was meant to be reduced to standard 35mm, but with finer film grain and deep focus. Although, it was unusual in being cropped from the top instead of centered. That's why it continues to be used for effects since it provides twice the resolution of standard 35mm. In fact, The Master was almost shot in the format instead of Super Panavision except Paul Thomas Anderson wanted the shallower focus of 65mm. Egbert Souse fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 04:33
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Just for yucks can you add 16mm to the chart? I think Black Swan was shot in that.
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Oct 21, 2015 06:56
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Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:I noticed you used a screenshot from Paranorman, a computer animated film. Is there any technical reason why a computer animation studio would have to adhere to a specific aspect ratio or are they technically free to put out a film in 10:1 or some other arbitrary aspect ratio? Are such films ever still sent to theatres on film? ParaNorman is actually stop motion animation, although shot on a Canon 5D and cropped in post. Studios working in digital images adhere to aspect ratio standards for ease of workflow and projection. There's nothing really stopping them from adding black bars to any side to change the image ratio (even for films shot and printed on film this is easy, since everything goes through a DI these days), but there's no reason to since for any useful frame dimension there's a standard that is close. Steve Yun posted:Just for yucks can you add 16mm to the chart? I think Black Swan was shot in that. Super 16mm is in there, under 1.66. That covers Black Swan. He didn't list standard 16, but most standard 16mm will have a gate ratio of 1.33, and will surely be shown as such unless cropped to another standard. Bugblatter fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 07:14
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Oh I meant in the size comparison
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Oct 21, 2015 07:43
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Great thread. Could you talk about 2.10:1 in some more detail? It's the only format here that I'd never really heard of before.
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Oct 21, 2015 09:13
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This some good poo poo right here. Bookmarking for future use.
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Oct 21, 2015 11:37
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I thought about including 16mm, but the only film I could get reliable screencaps was Manos: The Hands of Fate and it wasn't shot for widescreen (or any standard ratio).Raxivace posted:Great thread. Could you talk about 2.10:1 in some more detail? It's the only format here that I'd never really heard of before. In 1929 and 1930, Fox experimented with a 65mm process and made a handful of films. Most are lost, but The Big Trail survived. In fact, the Blu-Ray has both the 2.10:1 70mm version and the 1.19:1 Movietone version on the same disc, both with excellent transfers. The only other film that survives is The Bat Whispers, which is on DVD with both versions, but a pretty old transfer. In that case, the camera negative to The Bat Whispers survived and new 70mm prints were made in the 1990s after a Hugh Hefner-funded restoration. The Big Trail was in horrific shape by the 1960s and an archivist at Museum of Modern Art spent a year copying the original negative to 35mm anamorphic. What's interesting is that the cameras were mothballed until the 1950s when they were modified to be used for the Todd-AO format, starting with Oklahoma! and Around the World in 80 Days (1955 and 1956 respectively), with the addition of new lenses. Part of the reason why it didn't catch on was the depression. The studios had just switched to sound and obviously most theaters were not jumping at having to install new screens for just a few films after buying the expensive sound equipment. The Big Trail is a really good film, plus it's the first credited (and starring) role for John Wayne. If you see the 70mm version, you'd think they had been shooting in widescreen for years because it works great. It even takes the edge off the static nature of many early talkies because there's so much going on in the frame.
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Oct 21, 2015 13:55
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So, let's talk about Selectavision. Why? Because it was the first home video format to have a feature film presented in the letterbox format. So Selectavision, or CED discs was an early 80s alternative to tapes and laserdisc. It basically was a record that stored video instead of sound. In terms of video quality, it was better than VHS and Beta, but worse than laserdisc. It could store 60 minutes per side, and supported stereo sound. However, it had some major issues. First off, every movie required switching sides. Secondly, it has all the issues vinyl records have. Video could be noisy, it would skip (online, there's a rip of the Memories of Selectavision disc, and right as the guy talks about the high quality of the performance, it starts skipping), or you could get locked grooves. Thirdly, to protect the discs, it had to come in heavy caddies. Finally, it came to market after laserdisc. Which means that it had no clear place in the market. But Amacord was released on the format, and RCA decided to present the film in a letterbox format. And it was the first release of a film in that format. There were 4 other releases in widescreen on Selectavision, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the extra 24 seconds. Selectavision also was the sole release of the syndicated TV edit of You Only Live Twice, or one of the lesser Bond films with Sean Connery. Early 80s video could be weird. As far add I know, Manhattan was the first film only issued in a letterbox format. I know Spielberg didn't want Raiders of the Lost Ark to get a pan and scan release, but he was talked out of that. It wasn't until DVD that widescreen became mainstream. I think what happened was people got used to it. A lot of TV shows, like the West Wing switched to a widescreen presentation, and if you had DVDs, there weren't always a full screen version available. And people now associate that look with movies. That's why House of Cards is presented in the 2.0:1 aspect ratio, because they wanted it to have a more cinematic presentation.
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Oct 21, 2015 15:57
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Can you talk about the different considerations that go into choosing an aspect ratio for a film? What would make a filmmaker choose 2.35:1 today over 1.85:1 or vice versa?
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Oct 21, 2015 16:56
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Cool thread, it's interesting to see the differences side-by-side like that. The Grand Budapest Hotel had really interesting usage of aspect ratios in the frame story, the opening/closing scenes set in 1985/today use the common 1.85:1 ratio, the scenes set in 1985 use a 2.35:1 CinemaScope ratio, and the 1930s scenes use the 1.37:1 Academy ratio. There's a Slate article discussing it: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/06/grand_budapest_hotel_aspect_ratios_new_wes_anderson_movie_has_three_different.html
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Oct 21, 2015 17:25
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:Can you talk about the different considerations that go into choosing an aspect ratio for a film? What would make a filmmaker choose 2.35:1 today over 1.85:1 or vice versa? For Jurassic World, they chose 2.0 to 1 because they wanted the height of 1.85 to 1 but get some of the width of 2.35 to 1. Some directors have a preference. John Carpenter likes shooting in 2.35 to 1 because he likes widescreen cinematography. Kubrick, on the other hand, preferred taller aspect ratios, and so 2001 was the only scope film he did because he did the roadshow format for it. Then poo poo gets weird with multiple oar. For example, Galaxy Quest used all three main ratios in theaters. 1.33:1 was used for the tv scenes, 1.85:1 was used until they get to space, and then it's 2.35:1 for the rest of the film. Home video uses 2.35:1 for everything except the tv show scenes, because it made for a better presentation at home.
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Oct 21, 2015 17:43
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Cemetry Gator: excellent posts! I guess it would be a good idea to also cover video formats and how they tie in. Terrorist Fistbump posted:Can you talk about the different considerations that go into choosing an aspect ratio for a film? What would make a filmmaker choose 2.35:1 today over 1.85:1 or vice versa? Preferences and what worked at the time. Nearly all Paramount films from 1954 to 1957 were 1.85:1 with most shot in VistaVision because that's what the studio was doing. Almost all Fox movies from 1953 to 1967 were CinemaScope. There's also practicality. Hitchcock liked deep focus and all his films after the 1.66:1 Rear Window were 1.85:1. The most he tried was with five VistaVision films, though he shot The Birds in what we would call Super-35 to get a little more detail (since prints were Technicolor anyways). But you also have licensing costs. CinemaScope lenses were rented from Fox. When they developed new lenses, the old ones were sold off to be used as Tohoscope and other clones. A lot of directors took to new formats well, though. John Ford worked with CinemaScope, VistaVision, Cinerama, and Super Panavision. Orson Welles even wanted to shoot Touch of Evil in CinemaScope except it wasn't in the budget. Chaplin even shot two widescreen films despite mocking CinemaScope in A King in New York. (Also, thanks for the sticky) Egbert Souse fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 19:56
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Egbert Souse posted:Cemetry Gator: excellent posts! I guess it would be a good idea to also cover video formats and how they tie in. Anamorphic widescreen and home video. So, anamorphic refers to the process of taking a widescreen image and compressing it horizontally to fit into a more narrow image size. For example, this is how most 2.35:1 projection prints achieve that aspect ratio. The image is compressed onto the film frame of 4x3, and then using a special lens, it gets stretched out to the appropriate size. And the reverse is done, depending on the film format. So Techniscope, for example, does not anamorphically compress the image to achieve the 2.35 ratio (see the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for an example of this format). I think Die Hard shows some of the side effects that comes from shooting with anamorphic lenses. I believe the lens flare from the cop cars lights look oblong because of the lens. I could be wrong on this though. So how does this apply to home video? Well, one of the downsides of letterbox is that you lose vertical resolution. The bars for a scope film were sizable. And given that with CRT tvs, having a 60 inch tv meant that you had something that weighed hundreds of pounds, most people had smaller tvs than today. Anyway, widescreen tv is something had been in the works since the early 90s. This would be good for movies, since that means we can balance out size of the screen with the size of the bars. Watch a scope film on your widescreen tv, and you face a more reasonable set of bars. However, we have a problem. The NTSC video signal is a 4x3 signal. And HDTV standards were not established. So what's the solution? Anamorphic widescreen. You take a 16x9 image and compress it down to a 4x3 area. Everybody looks like a super model, you maintain vertical resolution, and you got a solution for widescreen TVs. The downside is you end up with an image that needs to be adjusted for everybody. For people with widescreen TVs, you got to stretch the image out. For square TVs, you got to add black bars on the bottom and the top of the screen. And if more than 5 DVDs supported it, you could pan and scan it with your player. But as I said, that functionality wasn't supported. Apparently the standard supported pixel by pixel scanning only, creating terrible pans that look like poo poo, like the late 90s Ghostbusters TV master where the pans happened step by step instead of smoothly. The first format to do anamorphic widescreen was Laserdisc. There was a series of discs called Squeeze laserdiscs that were only available when you got a widescreen TV. Only a small number of tithes were released, and are pretty rare since, well, widescreen tv in the 90s plus laserdisc equals a huge market.
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Oct 21, 2015 20:48
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Doesn't Cameron shoot everything in Super 35? I've never understood that. Star Trek VI has never had a good home video release for the same reason.
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Oct 21, 2015 20:49
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Cemetry Gator posted:I think what happened was people got used to it. A lot of TV shows, like the West Wing switched to a widescreen presentation, and if you had DVDs, there weren't always a full screen version available. And people now associate that look with movies. That's why House of Cards is presented in the 2.0:1 aspect ratio, because they wanted it to have a more cinematic presentation. Tangent: I remember over the last 10 years videogames started letterboxing cinematic scenes in order to give them a more "theatrical" feeling. Early games would be 4x3, and then you'd get black bars on the top and bottom to make the image 16x9 during storytelling scenes, and HD games would be in 16x9 and would convert to wider aspect ratios for cinematics. It's totally artificial but it's neat that they assumed the general public would instinctively understand the visual language of letterboxing = "this is more cinematic"
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Oct 21, 2015 20:49
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Steve Yun posted:Tangent: I remember over the last 10 years videogames started letterboxing cinematic scenes in order to give them a more "theatrical" feeling. Early games would be 4x3, and then you'd get black bars on the top and bottom to make the image 16x9 during storytelling scenes, and HD games would be in 16x9 and would convert to wider aspect ratios for cinematics. It's totally artificial but it's neat that they assumed the general public would instinctively understand the visual language of letterboxing = "this is more cinematic"
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Oct 21, 2015 21:06
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Timby posted:Doesn't Cameron shoot everything in Super 35? I've never understood that. Star Trek VI has never had a good home video release for the same reason. Well, now he's moved onto digital and 3D, but up through Titanic, he was huge into Super 35. There's benefits to using that format. First off, productions that have a lot of special effects work liked it because it gives you more image size to work with. For Top Gun, the cockpit scenes could not be shot without Super 35 because they couldn't fit cameras with the bigger anamorphic lenses into the planes. It gives you more flexibility. You can use different lenses. It's versatile for home video. So you could make a version for theaters, and shoot to be safe for home video, which would otherwise be impossible for 2.35:1 productions without awkward framing for the theatrical version. And if you use 3 perf instead of 4 perf, you save film! A lot of TV, back when they still used film for TV shows, used Super 35. As an aside, are any TV shows still shot on film? I can't imagine anyone who isn't super successful getting their production company to stick with film nowadays. But that's an aside. As for Star Trek VI, I'm confused. That film comes down to the wonderful world of intended ratio verses actual ratio. So I know all widescreen versions before the blu ray used a 2.0:1 ratio, but theatrically, it was displayed in a 2.35:1 ratio. I can't find any hard evidence that 2.0 was ever the intended width over 2.35. I have a hard time believing it, since all the Star Trek films are 2.35:1, 2.0:1 was not a standard ratio at the time and the theatrical prints would, by necessity, be 2.35:1. And home video would mostly be 1.33:1. And while letterbox was becoming a thing by the early 90s, it was a niche product you had to seek out. So why compose for a ratio most people would never see unless they were part of a small niche group? It's not beyond belief, because we have Sottario, who had retroactively decided that all his films should be seen in a 2.0:1 ratio even though they weren't shot that way. But I'm guessing it was a compromise made for home video to give more image without hurting the screen composition.
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Oct 21, 2015 22:04
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Moving slightly off topic but I was listening to the (very good) AV Forums podcast, and they were discussing a recent visit to various Hollywood studios as part of a Panasonic press trip to talk about the colour performance of their new TVs. As productions have transitioned to digital (particularly TV shows), there has been a shift in the emphasis of visual creativity. In the days of film the DP and lighting designer would endeavour to achieve the desired visual style "in-camera" with a colourist working afterwards to fine tune and match colour presentation across the entire finished film. Now the emphasis is on shooting as flat as possible to gather as much visual information in HD or 4K resolution. Then, using grading and other digital tools, the colourist's role is now crucial in achieving the director's vision for the end product. Bringing it back to aspect ratios, a non-auteur director will now effectively let the cameras capture a general shot, which can then be cropped/panned to the correct ratio and framing.
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Oct 21, 2015 22:30
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Heid the Ball posted:Bringing it back to aspect ratios, a non-auteur director will now effectively let the cameras capture a general shot, which can then be cropped/panned to the correct ratio and framing. I wonder how much of this is really new, with the conversion about Super 35 coming out. For example, many 1.85:1 films are shot at a ratio of 1.33:1 and then in theaters, are matted down to the correct ratio. So, even then, the director was just getting picture and then doing the final crop later. Obviously, you still have to shoot with the intended image in mind, otherwise, you'd end up with horrible looking films. It's just now we have a lot of tools that didn't exist in the sixties. Watching a film like Blow Out is fascinating from an audio side of things. Watching him spool tape, marking with a pencil where to make cuts and stuff, it blows my mind. Imagine editing film, by hand. Now, we got computers.
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Oct 21, 2015 22:53
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Cemetry Gator posted:Well, all films include some cropping. It's not really information since it was never part of the intended image, which means things like booms can sneak into the shot. And editing is what makes the final product. After all, you wouldn't insist on seeing every second of every scene that was shot. It could be bogus, superfluous or erroneous but isn't it still information in the broadest sense? It might not have been intended to be seen (and it's certainly not crucial) but there can be things going on in the cursory of the screen. I am familiar that it can undermine a film in some ways or give it new meaning. At a very young age I remember seeing the glaring mistakes in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). The infamous bicycle chain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U09RcDR-oQY and also the scene involving road signs showing them being moved on a track. You're right, in general, I'm not too interested in seeing hours and hours of negative outtakes from every film but for some of my favorite films I might. I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here because of course the theatrical aspect ratio is what I want to see. I'm just allowing for the possibility that the "partially open matte" films sometimes provide a different aesthetic. I wish I could find this one Youtube video that showed some interesting differences.
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Oct 21, 2015 23:22
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So what would Gance's Napoleon qualify as?
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Oct 21, 2015 23:26
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Egbert Souse posted:In 1929 and 1930, Fox experimented with a 65mm process and made a handful of films. Most are lost, but The Big Trail survived. In fact, the Blu-Ray has both the 2.10:1 70mm version and the 1.19:1 Movietone version on the same disc, both with excellent transfers. The only other film that survives is The Bat Whispers, which is on DVD with both versions, but a pretty old transfer. In that case, the camera negative to The Bat Whispers survived and new 70mm prints were made in the 1990s after a Hugh Hefner-funded restoration. The Big Trail was in horrific shape by the 1960s and an archivist at Museum of Modern Art spent a year copying the original negative to 35mm anamorphic. I don't have much to add, but thanks for sharing.  I have an interest in westerns, and didn't know John Wayne had a starring role before Stagecoach. Gonna have to track down a copy of The Big Trail for sure now. EDIT: Just snagged a copy of the Blu-Ray off of Amazon. Looking forward to giving this a watch now! Raxivace fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 03:02
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Zogo posted:It could be bogus, superfluous or erroneous but isn't it still information in the broadest sense? It might not have been intended to be seen (and it's certainly not crucial) but there can be things going on in the cursory of the screen. I am familiar that it can undermine a film in some ways or give it new meaning. At a very young age I remember seeing the glaring mistakes in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). The infamous bicycle chain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U09RcDR-oQY and also the scene involving road signs showing them being moved on a track. Unmatting causes a lot of problems, but a surprisingly many films are minimally impacted. What usually would happen for video is that they'd simply zoom in on the image to hide problems like boom mikes. Here's some comparisons I made of a few films between 4x3 and widescreen transfers from long ago:     Also, enjoy this shot of the title card from 2001: A Space Odyssey as seen on VHS circa 1983:  CountFosco posted:So what would Gance's Napoleon qualify as? Technically, the 3-panel sequence(s) simply was referred to as a tryptich. A lot of sources call it Polyvision, but that's actually what Gance called his technique of layering double/triple/quadrouple exposures in a single shot for dramatic effect. It's more of a special multi-screen presentation not unlike the multi-screen films shown at the 1964 World's Fair or later Woodstock. What's neat about Napoleon is that the inventor of the CinemaScope lens saw the film and was inspired to create the anamorphic lens. One test film was shot (and lost), then the lens went into obscurity. In 1953, Fox purchased the patent from the inventor and used the original lens to shoot The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, the first two CinemaScope features. Egbert Souse fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 03:08
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I don't like double-posting, but here's a website that is absolutely essential viewing: https://www.widescreenmuseum.com Tons of great photos, accurate tech info, and pretty much everything you wanted to know about defunct (or semi-defunct) widescreen processes. There's also sections on early color and sound.
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Oct 22, 2015 03:18
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The Oddest Widescreen Release I Know Of Being born in the mid 80s, that meant that I loved Ghostbusters, and of course, my family had the videos of the two movies because what kind of household with children would not have the Ghostbusters movies (aside from the weird family who would only watch Christian movies, of course)? Well, if you had the original release of Ghostbusters 2, you might notice something strange. It's both a letterboxed and pan and scan release! For whatever reason, Columbia Pictures decided that when they released Ghostbusters 2 on home video, they would issue it in a letterbox format. But instead of doing a 2.35:1 release, they instead did a pan and scan version in a 1.66:1 frame. It boggles the mind. My guess was that they were trying to balance out the demand to fill up the frame with an image, while also trying to maintain as much of the picture as possible, and saw this as a possible alternative. Apparently, a lot of people didn't like the look and thought something was wrong with the tape. But it actually did give you a wider picture than the 1.33:1 transfer. Also, around the late 80s, letterboxing was becoming a thing. Films like The Color Purple were only being issued in a letterboxed format, and so perhaps as an experiment to see what people would tolerate, they started playing with adding the black bars to movies. However, the Color Purple at least had the decency to tell you what they were doing, while Ghostbusters II didn't have anything on the box about it being presented in a letterbox format. Perhaps it was an experiment they tried internally and they used the wrong masters. Who knows? Nobody's talking. As I said, 80s home video is just weird. I can't find out if they did this for any other movies, or if they just tried it out for Ghostbusters II. And there's nobody explaining why they made such a bizarre decision. Zogo posted:It could be bogus, superfluous or erroneous but isn't it still information in the broadest sense? It might not have been intended to be seen (and it's certainly not crucial) but there can be things going on in the cursory of the screen. I am familiar that it can undermine a film in some ways or give it new meaning. At a very young age I remember seeing the glaring mistakes in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). The infamous bicycle chain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U09RcDR-oQY and also the scene involving road signs showing them being moved on a track. It's the same aesthetic difference as watching a color film in black and white, or down-mixing something into mono. In many cases, the examples shown basically just change how the shots are composed. You're getting extra headroom on the top, and stuff from the bottom which isn't important to be seen anyway. The director is focused on what's happening between the mattes, since that's what he knows is going to be seen (and if they're worried about home video, they probably will work prevent mistakes from sneaking in where the mattes are to try and make things easier). As far as information goes, it would fall into two categories - either just noise, or worse, information that takes us out of the picture. Like the Pee Wee thing you showed - it's information that changes the joke and reveals how the joke was achieved. It changes the joke from being a cartoon gag to being a meta-joke or something different. It's just that when Tim Burton composed the shot, he focused on what would be seen in theaters, and I guess they didn't think about that when they made the video masters. In the pictures presented be Egbert, most of the shots is just extra headroom on the top, and stuff on the bottom that isn't the focus of the scene. We're not supposed to look at the books on the desk instead of James Stewart. I think the open matte is the proverbial look behind the curtain. We think we're going to be seeing something new or special because we're getting to see more, and really, what ends up happening is that we're seeing different compositions. And the worst part is that people fall in love with that composition and they think that's what's right and correct, and anything else is inferior because it's different. And that's how we get Jeffrey Wells, who thinks there are 1.85:1 fascists out there decrying the release of any film on blu-ray in an aspect ratio of less than 1.85:1, for some reason or another. It's rather sad. Cemetry Gator fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Oct 22, 2015 |
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Oct 22, 2015 04:52
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Some topical videos. Sydney Pollack doesn't like pan and scan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPAgNrvZaw A View to a Kill Widescreen vs Fullscreen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK3QtO1alYo Widescreen vs Fullscreen stills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ts7tHURow
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Oct 22, 2015 23:44
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My local video store used to have a bunch of displays up just to explain why letterboxed was better.
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Oct 23, 2015 01:31
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Hat Thoughts posted:My local video store used to have a bunch of displays up just to explain why letterboxed was better. Weirdly a lot fewer people have problems with old TV shows like Seinfeld being cropped to fill widescreen TVs
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Oct 23, 2015 01:37
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All of the images in the opening post are so great, it makes me think, why don't we just have a thread for gorgeous images from movies? Like how there are futurama and seinfeld quote threads in the tv iv section.
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Oct 23, 2015 03:26
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Corek posted:Weirdly a lot fewer people have problems with old TV shows like Seinfeld being cropped to fill widescreen TVs I prefer for things to be seen in the OAR, but with TV shows, there's a few reasons why people don't get as up in arms. First off, there are many shows that live in a wonderfully ambiguous state where they were shot safe for widescreen. Of course, sometimes that meant the directors were composing for 4x3, and if something looked bad in widescreen, well, who cares. Nobody is going to see it. You can't count on a show being seen in syndication. Here's a blog post that goes into that written by Ken Levine, a guy who's worked on M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier, the Simpsons, and Everybody Loves Ray: http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2012/03/adventures-in-bad-directing.html Many multi-camera sitcoms, like Seinfeld, didn't really have a lot of scenes with particularly tight framing. Just the nature of how these shows were performed and shot, there just wasn't room or time for too many tightly composed shots. So, you end up with shots with a lot of head-room and they can usually be cropped without losing anything too meaningful. Just look at these clips from Cheers. Fortunately, the HD masters exist in both 4:3 and 16:9 versions, but when you see the 4:3 version, you don't see a ton of interesting and well-placed shots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBaIeSdUbjU It's not a dig against the work on these shows. It's just a reality. The way these shows are being shot, you're goal is to try and capture everything, and you're working to make sure that all 4 cameras are in the right place, that the right people are being picked up, and that you'll have the angles you'll need for editing, and meanwhile, the cameras are all moving around and getting into position. Also, many of these shows don't require your full attention. Leslie Nielsen was talking about the cancellation of Police Squad In Color, and it turned out that one of the reasons given was that the show actually required you to watch it closely to really get the humor. You couldn't have it playing in the background. If you had it on as something you drift in and out of as it grabbed your attention, you'd miss a lot of the humor, and you'd just see a bunch of people acting stupid on screen. I mean, when I'm watching Seinfeld, I usually have it on as background noise in the hotel or in the hospital. It's not something I'm usually actively following. In fact, I can follow most of the plots without closely watching the show. Another thing is that many of these shows are dialog driven. Ken Levine mentioned how Cheers for the most part was written so that you didn't actually have to watch the show to follow the plot. You could just listen to what was being said and be able to follow along pretty easily. Even shows like Seinfeld, which had a fair amount of visual humor, were still very dialog driven. A lot of Seinfeld's humor came from the lines, like "double dip," "yada yada yada," and "George is getting upset!" And if you watch the widescreen masters, most of the visual jokes aren't ruined by the cropping. In a sense, we're talking about shows where the visual component isn't as important as the dialog. There are going to be examples where you do lose information, and there's stuff that should be seen that is hidden. I watched an episode of Friends on Nick at Nite, and it was more distracting to hear Chandler sounding like a chipmunk than to see that it was in widescreen instead of 4:3 (this was one of the earlier episodes, I assume later seasons would have been shot at least widescreen safe). For whatever reason, Nick at Nite sped up the show and didn't adjust the audio. Also, since these shows were shot on 35mm film, it gets even stranger because it's never just a straight crop. Depending on how it was shot, the aspect ratio of the film could be closer to 1.77:1 than 1.33:1, meaning they can open up the edges a bit with a little bit of cropping on top. So that eases it a bit, although it opens up the door for equipment and poo poo to sneak into the frame (that's why they didn't make TNG wider when they did the HD remasters). Now, I'm talking a lot about sitcoms, because that's where I've seen the most cropping happen. It looks like a similar thing with the X-Files. You're losing some information on the top and bottom while opening up the sides. I would prefer to see things in the original OAR. It prevents a lot of issues from popping up.
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Oct 23, 2015 04:25
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For those interested, here's a big 'ol list of large format/classic special process films. Films available on US or region-free Blu-Ray are bolded. * for exceptionally high quality restorations. Click on the process for a link to the Widescreen Museum section. Cinerama (~2.59:1 curved): This is Cinerama Cinerama Holiday Seven Wonders of the World Search for Paradise South Seas Adventure Windjammer How the West Was Won* The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm Note: All but the last two films survive with faded, incomplete camera negatives and faded prints. While they're not perfect, the Blu-Rays look pretty awesome despite having unavoidable anemic color. They're all exclusively on Flicker Alley. CinemaScope (2.55:1/2.35:1): Way too many films to post here, but a filmography is in the link. VistaVision (1.66:1 to 2.00:1): Three Ring Circus White Christmas* Artists and Models Doctor at Sea Hell's Island Lucy Gallant Richard III* [4K restoration of uncut version] Run for Cover Simon and Laura Strategic Air Command The Desperate Hours The Far Horizons The Girl Rush The Rose Tattoo The Seven Little Foys The Trouble With Harry* To Catch A Thief* Value For Money We're No Angels You're Never Too Young Anything Goes Away All Boats Battle of the River Plate (Pursuit of the Graf Spee) High Society Hollywood or Bust Pardners That Certain Feeling The Big Money The Birds and the Bees The Black Tent The Court Jester The Iron Petticoat* The Leather Saint The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) The Mountain The Proud and Profane The Rainmaker The Scarlet Hour The Search for Bridey Murphy The Searchers* The Spanish Gardener The Ten Commandments* The Vagabond King Three Violent People Triple Deception War and Peace An Alligator Named Daisy Beau James Doctor at Large Fear Strikes Out Funny Face Gunfight at the O.K. Corral* Hear Me Good Loving You Night Ambush Omar Khayyam Short Cut to Hell The Admirable Chrichton The Buster Keaton Story The Delicate Delinquent The Devil's Hairpin The Joker Is Wild The Lonely Man The Pride and the Passion The Sad Sack The Tin Star Wild Is The Wind Another Time - Another Place Dangerous Exile Desire under the Elms Hell Drivers Hot Spell Houseboat King Creole Maracaibo Rock-a-bye Baby Spanish Affair St. Louis Blues Teacher's Pet The Buccaneer (1958) The Geisha Boy The Matchmaker Vertigo* But Not For Me Last Train from Gun Hill Li'l Abner North by Northwest* [4K restoration] The Black Orchid The Five Pennies The Jayhawkers It Started in Naples One-Eyed Jacks [New restoration pending from Universal] My Six Loves Todd-AO (2.20:1): Oklahoma!* [Blu-Ray includes both 4K restorations of the 35mm CinemaScope and 30fps 65mm Todd-AO versions from the camera negatives] Around the World In Eighty Days (Netflix has very good HD version) South Pacific Porgy and Bess Can-Can Holiday in Spain (aka Scent of Mystery) The Alamo Cleopatra The Agony and the Ecstasy The Sound of Music* [Blu-Ray is an 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from newly made 65mm interpositive] Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines The Bible...In the Beginning* [Blu-Ray is an 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative] Doctor Dolittle Star! Hello Dolly!* [Blu-Ray is an 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative] Krakatoa - East of Java Patton* (Remastered edition only - first edition is terrible) Airport The Last Valley Baraka* [Blu-Ray is an 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative] Technirama (2.20:1): Escapade In Japan Legend of the Lost Les Miserables (1958) Night Passage Sayonara The Monte Carlo Story It Happened in Rome Auntie Mame Davy Fast and Sexy Paris Holiday The Big Country The Seven Hills of Rome The Vikings This Angry Age Sleeping Beauty* [Masked to and shot for 2.55:1] Solomon and Sheba For the First Time Honeymoon John Paul Jones Tempest The Miracle The Naked Maja Spartacus* [New 2015 Blu-Ray only - From new 4K restoration] The Man with the Green Carnation Blood and Roses The Grass Is Greener The Savage Innocents The Best of Enemies Carthage in Flames El Cid King of Kings* The Queen's Guards Barabbas Black Tights The Golden Arrow Gypsy* My Geisha The Hellions The Music Man* 55 Days at Peking Hercules and the Captive Women Imperial Venus Lafayette Madame The Leopard [Criterion edition sub-par, but international 4K restoration is excellent] The Pink Panther The Long Ships Zulu Circus World Buddha Le corsaire The Great Wall The Golden Head Custer of the West The Black Cauldron Ultra Panavision/MGM Camera-65 (2.75:1): Raintree County Ben-Hur* Innocents Abroad Mutiny on the Bounty It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World* [Both MGM and Criterion editions from 8K scan, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative. Criterion includes reconstruction of roadshow cut] The Fall of the Roman Empire The Greatest Story Ever Told [Current Blu-Ray is terrible quality] The Hallelujah Trail Battle of the Bulge Khartoum* The Hateful Eight* Super Panavision (2.20:1): The Big Fisherman Exodus West Side Story Lawrence of Arabia* [Blu-Ray is from 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative] Cheyenne Autumn My Fair Lady* [New Blu-Ray released Oct. 2015 is from 8K-scanned, 4K restoration from 65mm camera negative and other elements] Lord Jim Play Time* [Masked to 1.75:1, Criterion's current Blu-Ray is from 6.5K scan of 65mm camera negative, interpositive] Grand Prix Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 2001: A Space Odyssey Ice Station Zebra Ryan's Daughter Song of Norway Tron* [Blu-Ray is from 8K scans of 65mm camera negative and 6K scans of 35mm camera negative] Brainstorm (Half of film is 1.66:1 centered within 2.20:1) Far And Away Hamlet The Master* [Masked to 1.85:1, 15% is from standard 35mm] Samsara* [Masked to 2.40:1] And just for fun, the opposite of large format... Techniscope (2.35:1) Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Death Drums Along the River Law of the Lawless Coast of Skeletons Curse of the Mummy's Tomb A Fistful of Dollars* Robinson Crusoe on Mars* Guerillas in Pink Lace Arizona Raiders Deadwood '76 Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Dr. Who and the Daleks For a Few Dollars More* Pierrot le fou* Pop Gear The Ipcress File The Appaloosa Arizona Colt Beau Geste Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. Deadlier Than the Male The Ghost and Mr. Chicken A Bullet for the General The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* [New 4K remaster is excellent] Nashville Rebel Kiss Kiss...Bang Bang Thunderbirds Are GO Gunfight in Abilene Tobruk Arizona Bushwhackers Counterpoint Once Upon a Time in the West* The Secret War of Harry Frigg Charly Thunderbird 6* The Bird with the Crystal Plumage* Five Bloody Graves Blue Water, White Death The Brotherhood of Satan THX 1138 Two-Lane Blacktop Blood of Ghastly Horror The Holy Mountain* American Graffiti Messiah of Evil Also, some films from the last few years were shot in Techniscope instead of Super-35 such as Hunger, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Shame, and The Place Beyond the Pines. edit 6-4-16 - A few films updated/added to lists. Egbert Souse fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jun 5, 2016 |
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Oct 23, 2015 05:06
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Cemetry Gator posted:So Selectavision, or CED discs was an early 80s alternative to tapes and laserdisc. It basically was a record that stored video instead of sound.
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Oct 23, 2015 07:32
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Casimir Radon posted:James Rolfe did a video about CED a few years ago. I vastly prefer watching him talk about movies than video games. Have you ever watched James and Mike Mondays? It's him and Mike Matei just playing video games, talking about them, and shooting the poo poo. Sometimes he's even revisited games he's already done on AVGN so he can give his out-of-character opinions on them. On the whole, it's way more similar to his movie videos than his AVGN stuff, and it kinda owns (because James Rolfe is a cool dude).
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Oct 23, 2015 07:42
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Cemetry Gator posted:And if you use 3 perf instead of 4 perf, you save film! A lot of TV, back when they still used film for TV shows, used Super 35. As an aside, are any TV shows still shot on film? I can't imagine anyone who isn't super successful getting their production company to stick with film nowadays. But that's an aside. I was interested in whether any TV actually still used film so I did some googling and apparently yes. The Walking Dead is shot on Super 16 and American Horror Story is shot on 35mm and has used 16mm and even Super 8 on some shots. Apparently Elementary might also be shot on film, but I couldn't find any good sources for that. I guess nobody really cares how CBS procedurals are shot enough to write about it.
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Oct 23, 2015 08:05
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So basically the only shows shot on film are flaming garbage, except for possibly Elementary (which is decent enough)
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Oct 23, 2015 08:14
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