Aspect Ratio

losthorizon

Very Interesting youtube video on Aspect Ratio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CgrMsjGk7k

Sad Professor

It's an excellent introduction to the history of aspect ratios but leaves out quite a lot as well. He misrepresents 1.85:1 and seems to forget about 1.66:1. The majority of 35mm films made from the 60s onward were shot in 1.37 and matted down to 1.85/1.66. This continues to be the cause of a lot of framing issues (see the recent hullabaloo over Criterion's release of On the Waterfront) and is way too important to leave out.

Nerdkiller1991

Am I the only guy who didn't question why they used black bars in movies, as a child? I always thought of it as a movie thing, lets you know what if you're watching one. I actually questioned why on TV, the movie would shift aspect ratios from using black bars to fullscreen and then back to black bars at the end credits.

krudler

The amount of times working in a video shop that people would complain a widescreen verion was "missing half the film" made me cry.

e_e

krudler wrote: »

The amount of times working in a video shop that people would complain a widescreen verion was "missing half the film" made me cry.

The worst thing is getting an early DVD where the widescreen image is squashed to fit 4:3 televisions.

On a 16:9 screen it's like watching the film through a window within the TV. The DVD release of Barry Lyndon in particular is a crime.

jaykhunter

Thanks for posting this vid. I really thought all of this 3D hullaballoo would make more filmmakers choose 16:9 as their native AR (like AVATAR) with the added bonus that it'd fit perfectly on TVs at home. Most films are what, 2 months in the theatre, and the rest of time shown on TV? I wish films were all 16:9. No-one's mistaking Avatar for a TV show/made for TV movie. It's not like 2.35:1 TVs are ubiquitous. 2.35 looks great in cinemas but really much worse at home, sadly. And if a film is well shot, they use all of the image so zooming in to fill the screen usually looks poor.

johnny_ultimate

e_e wrote: »

On a 16:9 screen it's like watching the film through a window within the TV. The DVD release of Barry Lyndon in particular is a crime.

Satantango and its non-anamorphic transfer is maddening as well - and that was released in 2006 so there's no excuse. Certainly the source material can't be that bad for a 1990s film.

Eureaka's militant allegiance to correct aspect ratios is great. Watched one of their Blus last night and it was in the original 1.19:1, and looked great. Love the little spiel they put in all their booklets:

"The above images are a distortion and corruption of the original artwork, which travesty the integrity of both the human form and cinematographic space"

Banjaxed82

e_e wrote: »

The worst thing is getting an early DVD where the widescreen image is squashed to fit 4:3 televisions.

On a 16:9 screen it's like watching the film through a window within the TV. The DVD release of Barry Lyndon in particular is a crime.

Or worse again - I have a DVD of Kickboxer, where they've obviously "zoomed" in on a 4:3 Master of the film in order to fill a 16:9 image. Makes the DOP look beyond incompetent at times.

Banjaxed82

e_e wrote: »

The worst thing is getting an early DVD where the widescreen image is squashed to fit 4:3 televisions.

On a 16:9 screen it's like watching the film through a window within the TV. The DVD release of Barry Lyndon in particular is a crime.

Incidentally, did Kubrick not shoot for a 4:3 aspect ratio....?

johnny_ultimate

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

Incidentally, did Kubrick not shoot for a 4:3 aspect ratio....?

Yeah, he shot his films with most of the pivotal action kept within the 4:3 frame so it wouldn't be lost in later TV broadcasts.

Barry Lyndon looks ****ing appalling on DVD either way though.

Banjaxed82

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Yeah, he shot his films with most of the pivotal action kept within the 4:3 frame so it wouldn't be lost in later TV broadcasts.

Barry Lyndon looks ****ing appalling on DVD either way though.

I know that it is (was) a general rule of thumb that DOP's would shoot with TV aspect in mind for safety, but I thought Kubrick actually had an aesthetic preference for the 4:3 aspect ratio?

johnny_ultimate

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

I know that it is (was) a general rule of thumb that DOP's would shoot with TV aspect in mind for safety, but I thought Kubrick actually had an aesthetic preference for the 4:3 aspect ratio?

Fairly in-depth answers to that here: http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/barry-lyndon-aspect-ratio/ and here: http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/419899-new-kubrick-book-settles-aspect-ratio-confusion.html

jaykhunter

Here's a summary of the sizes from the video. Found it the perfect length and containing a lot of information without overloading you.

Banjaxed82

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Fairly in-depth answers to that here: http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/barry-lyndon-aspect-ratio/ and here: http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/419899-new-kubrick-book-settles-aspect-ratio-confusion.html

Kubrick's Barry Lyndon letter to projectionists is brilliant.

His letter to his daughter on how to resolve a fight between his cat and dog is better though.

Sad Professor

Banjaxed82 wrote: »

I know that it is (was) a general rule of thumb that DOP's would shoot with TV aspect in mind for safety, but I thought Kubrick actually had an aesthetic preference for the 4:3 aspect ratio?

Not really. He liked what he saw through the viewfinder (he was a photographer), but mostly his films were composed for 1.66 or 1.85. He just hated pan and scan.

However in the case of FMJ and (especially) EWS he probably was composing mainly for 4:3 since he mistakenly thought that's the aspect ratio his films would live on in. He didn't foresee widescreen televisions. When Warners released his films on DVD they just followed his previous instructions which kind of resulted in the myth that he preferred 4:3 over all other aspect ratios.

Barry Lyndon is 1.78:1 on the Blu-ray but should be 1.66 per Kubrick's wishes. No one really knows where Vitali got 1.77 from.

Technocentral

Nerdkiller1991 wrote: »

Am I the only guy who didn't question why they used black bars in movies, as a child? I always thought of it as a movie thing, lets you know what if you're watching one. I actually questioned why on TV, the movie would shift aspect ratios from using black bars to fullscreen and then back to black bars at the end credits.

Pretty much I'd say, since I was about five years old 1:85 has being my favorite aspect ratio.

3rdDegree

Nerdkiller1991 wrote: »

I actually questioned why on TV, the movie would shift aspect ratios from using black bars to fullscreen and then back to black bars at the end credits.

Or wondered why sometimes the picture got very squished at the beginning out the end. Lord, I was no naive!

Technocentral

I'd say that with a lot of younger (even big) film and TV fans that there is a lot of ignorance about aspect ratios, especially with 4:3, I'm always seeing questions on forums like (for example) why "Casablanca" or "It's a Wonderful Life" isn't in widescreen on Blu Ray or why "Star Trek TNG" and "Twin Peaks" have "black bars" at either side on Netflix (ie correct way to display 4:3 in a 16:9 space) when they don't on TV broadcasts (ie because they are squashed into 16:9.). I think a lot of people presume everything in TV and cinema was widescreen since the beginning of time but because TV's were square they didn't show them full width but now that TV's are all 16:9 why don't they now? I seen on the Paramount site recently that they had to explain to fans who were demanding that the Blu Rays of Star Trek TNG were in widescreen that they couldn't do it, as especially the effects shots had things like grip and light stands outside of the 4:3 area so couldn't be shown widescreen.