# Sticky  Movie Formats: why are there so many?



## Blaser

After having upgraded my display to 106" 16:9 FP, I noticed most of my favorite movies are having black bars (well like my 29" SD TV). I couldn't imagine so many of the good movies are 2.35:1. Yet all pixar and some movies are 16:9 enhanced and will fit fine to the screen. But SD TV from the other side will have side bars.

When stretching to 16:9 with a 29" display was acceptable, it is not even thinkable with a 106" display:raped:!!

It is sad that with a 16:9 display we are still having bars, and Masking systems are not an option for me.

Why so many formats?:wits-end: How can people calculate the required screen size when the format is not fixed? Moreover the beautiful look of a flat pannel or "tableau" goes when there are bars.

Are some movies sold as differnent versions: anamorphic and 16:9 or 1.85:1? So that one can chose the most suitable format for his display?

Why doesn't the industry have a fixed standard format?


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

You have to go back to the fifties to understand why there are so many aspect ratios and
formats. Here's the timeline...

In the late forties, television gained in popularity until it usurped motion pictures as the
dominant mass media. By 1951, moviegoing attendence had been cut in half from about
90 million weekly to 45 million weekly. Theaters were closing everywhere and the film
industry needed to do something to bring back viewers. One simple option was to switch
to color since television broadcasts were black and white. Incrementally, more and more
movies were shot in color. That helped a bit but it still wasn't enough to fill the movie
palace seats.

1952 was a groundbreaking year in that two formats were introduced that were not only
smash hits but changed the industry permanently. Cinerama and 3-D.

Each process offered the polar opposite visual effect. Cinerama was an extreme widescreen
format that had an aspect ratio of 2.76 x 1 that was projected on a deeply curved screen.
It gave the illusion that the viewer was inside the picture. 3-D retained the same 1.33
aspect ratio as standard movies except it gave the illusion that the image was emerging
from the screen. "This is Cinerama" was a non-narrative infomercial that basically just
demonstrated the system in a variety of locations. It was in seven channel stereophonic
sound. Five speakers above the screen and two speakers in the rear of the theater.
"Bwana Devil", the first 3-D movie was mono sound but the picture that made the process
viable was "House of Wax" which was in four channel stereo sound. Three speakers behind
the screen and one in the back.

Audiences flocked to both formats and the industry took note and over the next decade
a new process was introduced yearly to drag people away from their television 
sets. It worked for a while and attendence went up and stabilized until the mid-sixties
when it dropped again with the switch to color television.

Both Cinerama and 3-D were cumbersome processes and difficult to project. They involved
interlocked multiple prints and a separate soundtrack. Either could go out of synch during
the presentation and often did. Cinerama was shot with three cameras so you saw the join
lines making up the wide image. Many people found 3-D an eyestrain.

Fox was the first to try to create a more compact widescreen process and introduced
"CinemaScope" in 1953 with "The Robe". It wasn't a new format. Back in the twenties
the French had developed an anamorphic lens that squeezed the image during principal
photography and then stretched it out during projection. The original CinemaScope format
didn't have an optical track so the anamorphic image took up the entire frame, like a silent
film. Inside and outside the sprockets they put tiny magnetic stripes for four channel
stereo sound. Three speakers in the front and one in the back, like the 3-D movies except
the tracks were on the print itself instead of on a separate piece of film that was interlocked.
The original aspect ratio of CinemaScope was 2.55 x 1. While theaters did not mind putting on
the anamorphic lens and getting a wider screen, many of them didn't want to rewire their
cinema for stereo sound so Fox changed the format in 1955 to have both an optical track
as well as the magnetic tracks on the CinemaScope prints (aka mag/opt.). This reduced
the aspect ratio to 2.35 x 1. Later, Panavision came up with much better anamorphic
lenses without all the distortion of the Fox lenses and CinemaScope was phased out by
1966.

Michael Todd had shot the first half of "This is Cinerama" with his son and was impressed
with the audience response but didn't like the join lines. He sold off his Cinerama stock
and created his own process called "Todd-A0". Using 65mm wide film and extremely
wide angle lenses he generated a 2. 21 x 1 image on a similar curved screen that Cinerama
used. Rather than having separate film with the sound, he also put magnetic sound stripes
inside and outside the sprockets. Five in the front of the theater and one in the back.
The extra width for the magnetic stripes made the release prints 70mm rather than 65mm.
Later, Panavision made lenses for the format and it was called "Panavision 70".

In 1957 MGM combined the 70mm format with CinemaScope. They put an anamorphic lens
on the 65mm negative to generate the same 2.76 x 1 ratio as Cinerama. They called it
"MGM Camera 65". Later it was called "Ultra-Panavision 70" and the Cinerama company 
switched to that format in 1963 with "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and abandoned
the three camera system. In 1966 they even abandoned the anamorphic 70mm process
and just used standard 70mm without the anamorphic lens (the same 2.21 x 1 ratio
as Todd AO) for the remaining Cinerama movies like "Ice Station Zebra" and "2001: A Space Odyssey".

Paramount came up with their semi-widescreen process known as "VistaVision". Standard
35mm film is four sprockets high. They turned the camera on the side and exposed an
eight sprocket image (the same as a still camera) which generated a large image that was
1.85 x 1. Later, the Technicolor company added an anamorphic lens to the horizontal
negative making it 2.35 x 1 like Panavision except much sharper and finer grain because
of the bigger negative area. It was called Technirama.

Howard Hughes was running RKO at the time and didn't want to pay Fox the licensing fee
for their CinemaScope lenses so he created the "SuperScope" format. Basically they just
shot the full frame silent ratio, then cropped off the tops and bottoms of the image to
make a standard CinemaScope frame for the release print. This process is still used but
it's called "Super 35". Because they're blowing up the image, it tends to have inferior
resolution. Early Superscope was 2 x 1 since they had black borders on the sides of the
image. Current Super 35 is the same ratio as Panavision, 2. 35 x 1.

In the sixties, the Italians came up with a variation of this and called it
Techniscope. Rather than shooting in 1.33 and masking off the tops and
bottoms to create the anamorphic image, they shot in a two sprocket
wide image but with the same results. It was basically a wide 16mm image
which would be blown up to 35mm anamorphic with the same 2.35 x 1 
ratio. Incredibly, if you used a lot of light as Sergio Leone did in the
Spaghetti Westerns, it could look good. If you didn't overlight the negative
as was the case with "American Grafitti", it tended to look grainy. The
sole advantage was that since the frame was so small, you saved on film
stock.


Some studios chose a cheap method of creating a widescreen image which was to film the movie like a standard 1.33 picture then mask off the top and bottom of the image during projection. The problem was that you increased grain and lost some sharpness because less of the available frame was being used. The studios created their own ratios with the masked frame formats. MGM used 1.66, Universal used 1.85
and Disney used 1.75. One big problem was re-issues. MGM re-issued both
"Gone with the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz" in masked off widescreen in the
fifties cropping the 1.33 image the films were designed for. (MGM has a funny
tag for the letters GWTW... "Greater With the Widescreen") The same problem
happened with Disney re-issues of his animated classics intended for 1.33 but
re-issued in 1.75. You lost the tops of heads in many compositions. Even
more rediculous, in 1967, MGM cropped the 1.33 image of "Gone with the
Wind" to 2.21 x 1 for a 70mm version. Wideshots became medium shots
and close ups looked like the kind that Sergio Leone created for his films.


Today the only formats that are used are Super 35 and Panavision which has the 2.35 x 1 ratio and 1.85 for masked frame presentations. There is still an occasional
70mm reissue in 2.21 x 1 ("Lawrence of Arabia") and of course IMAX but that
process is 1.33. It's basically 70mm VistaVision and shown horizontally.


1.85 is comparable to 16:9 widescreen television. 2.35 requires thin black borders to
get the entire image within the 16:9 area. This only applies to new movies. Pre-1970 movies will be in all of the ratios detailed above which require various amounts of black borders. There were never standardized in the fifties because the studios
were all competing with one another hoping that their format would be the one
that survived.

If you want more details and lists of movies in the different formats, I
cover them in my two McFarland books, "Technicolor Movies" and "The
Moviegoing Experience 1968-2001" which are availabe on www.mcfarlandpub.com. So if you need a general reference, it's contained in the chapters.
For example, "Mutiny on the Bounty" is listed as "Ultra-Panavision" which is
2.76 x 1. So in the 16:9 video ratio, there will be thick black borders on
top and bottom of the image. "2001: A Space Oddysey" is later Cinerama which is
2.21 x 1 so there with slight black borders on top and bottom of the 16:9
frame. "North by Northwest" is VistaVision which is 1.85 which is nearly
identical to 16:9 so the image will fill up the frame. "The Wizard of Oz"
is 1.33 so you'll have thick borders on the sides of the 16:9 frame.
A Super 35 film can be in either 2.35 or 1.33 since the negative is
full frame.


By the way, just to illustrate how there's nothing new under the sun,
'anamorphic enhanced' standard DVDs are a throwback to CinemaScope
back in the fifties. In both cases they involved squeezing and unsqueezing
the image to make it wider.


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## imbeaujp

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Wow ! This is a Great post ! Thanks Richard to exlain it with so many details, verry interesting.

Now, what can we do to optimize screen ? 

JP


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## mrstampe

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Fantastic history, Richard! We see these format wars repeating themselves across so many technologies -- most recently Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD. Technological competition drives the industry forward, but can leave a sordid trail. At least with the variety of aspect ratios, all we have to do is endure black boxes on the image edges rather than having to abandon whole format systems for another (ie. Betamax, HD-DVD, etc.).


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## Blaser

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Thank you Richard for having taken the time to write your very informative post. I have another question though: What does mean:
"The film is shown in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is *16x9 enhanced*".
Does this mean we can watch it on a 16:9 screen witout black bars (and without distortion as well)?


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## tonyvdb

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Yes, Thank you Richard. That was very informative and a great read.
And thank you Ahmed for bringing up the subject.


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

You're welcome one and all.

Blaser,

'Anamorphic enhanced' means the standard 3 x 4 TV frame has been encoded with an 
squeeze (just like CinemaScope) so that when it's unsqueezed will generate the 16:9 ratio.
This is different than HD which is already in the 16:9 ratio without any squeeze. 

Now 2.35 is something different. It's the ratio the film was shot in. That usually
means Panavision or Super 35. Since that's wider than the 16:9 ratio, they have to
put black borders on top and bottom of the frame to fit it within the 16:9 video image
area. As I detailed above, only films designed for 1.85 masked off ratio (which is most movies
today) and VistaVision from the fifties fit into the 16:9 ratio without any black borders. All
other ratios require black borders on the sides or on the top and bottom. While some people
may find this annoying, it's certainly better than cropping part of the image so it fills the
TV frame which is what they used to do in the sixties and seventies. They would take
a movie like "The Graduate" which was filmed in Panavision 2.35 x 1 and crop off the sides
and play the center of the image on the old 3 x 4 TV sets. Or, they would pan and scan
it which means they would use other portions of the wide frame to fill the 3 x 4 ratio.
You were literally missing half of the frame when you watched film like this way back when.
Sometimes you would hear someone talking but couldn't see them because they had been
cropped out of the available 3 x 4 frame. In movies like "Ben Hur" it was difficult to telll
where everyone was in the chariot race because you were only seeing a portion of the frame.
It was like watching a movie through binoculars.


Beginning with the Seletavision CED release of "Amadeus", followed by the laserdisc release
of "Manhattan" in the early eighties, they began to show movies in the ratio they were shot
in but use black borders to mask off parts of the TV frame so it fit within those borders.


Upon the introduction of DVDs in the late nineties, they added the anamorphic enhancement
to spread out the image for the new widescreen TV sets and DLP projectors.


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Here's a simpler way of understanding it for those who might be overwhelmed by all this.

TVs come in two shapes. Square (3 x 4) and Rectangle (16:9)

Movies that are shown in theaters come in a whole variety of shapes including square (1.33), rectangle (1.85, 1.66, 1.75) and in the shape of a business letter 
(2.35, 2.21, 2.55, 2.76).


The challenge is to fit all of these movie shapes into the two TV shapes. So, they can try squeezing them so everyone looks skinny then stretching it out so they look normal within a wider frame which is anamorphic enhancment.

But that may not be enough for some of these movie shapes so they still need to put black borders on the tops and bottoms or sides to fit all of them into 
standard TV (3 x 4) and High Definition TV (16:9).


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

The other option (which I hate) is to take the various movie shapes and chop off the sides to
fit into the standard TV shape of 3 x 4. This used to be called 'pan and scan' but today is
called 'full frame'. While the image will fill the entire square frame of the TV set without any
black borders, part of the film shape that was shown in theaters is missing.


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

A friend noted that I left off one process in my above descriptions. It was Cinemascope 55
which was only used on two films, "Carousel" and "The King and I". As the name implies
it was an anamorphic lens on large 55mm film. However, it was abandoned by Fox which switched
to 70mm for their big budget productions after these two pictures. As with VistaVision, the larger
the negative, the finer grain the image is. Fox actually created a special printer to restore
these two movies on DVD in their original 55mm format a while ago and they look great.


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## Blaser

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

I have checked my collection of DVDs lately and I noticed most of the (good??) movies are 2.35:1. Propably only 25% of them is 16:9 or 1.85:1.

Is really the majority of movies 1.85 as people say? Or is it something else? What about future of movies? Are we going to see more and more 2.35:1 movies? What about 1.85:1

I noticed that Pixar changed after monsters and finding nemo to 2.35:1, even the incredibles is also 2.35:1 although on the cover I can see 1.85:1.
I had received a version of the return of the king movie from the us which was "remastered to fit your TV" if memory serves. I played it on my 4:3 CRT and it was fullscreen, but I can't remember if it was only a Pan and scan, but there was no distrotion or so.

Any thoughts?

B Rgds


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## Richard W. Haines

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

blaser,

I can't really comment on the first statement since 'good' is very subjective. I guess it
means you're not that fond of pre-1950 movies which were all 1.33.

I don't know what the future will bring in terms of ratios. Probably many producers will
opt for the Super 35 format since the camera negative is full frame and from that they can
derive all three ratios (1.33, 16:9, 2.35). It's not the best quality format but it's the most
adaptable. So readers don't get confused, the Super 35 format is different
than standard 1.33 filming. They expose the entire silent frame ratio including
the area that would contain the optical track. The photographed image is
smaller in a 1.33 film since the left side is used for the optical soundtrack area. So even
if they want a full frame version of a Super 35 feature, they have to reduction
print the image to fit into a 35mm frame with the soundtrack. 


In terms of the cropped versions of movies, (pan/scan; full frame), there wouldn't be
any distortion. Just a large percentage of the image will be missing. You won't lose
continuity but you lose whatever artistry there was in the composition. Now admitedly,
not all contemporary directors utilize widescreen as dramatically as they did in the fifties
and sixties. Very few films spread out characters across the entire width of the screen
as they did in classics like "Ben Hur", "Lawrence of Arbia" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".
In general, they tend to keep the key actors and action centered so it plays better in the
various formats. I'm not fond of this compromise but that's the way many directors frame
their films. I've seen a number of films recently which were technically widescreen 2.35 x 1
but the wide frame wasn't utilized. "Fracture" would be an example of this. In a cropped
full frame presentation, you probably wouldn't notice anything missing whereas in a movie
like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", the loss of information would undermine the
visual impact of the cinematography.


It will be obvious to anyone who reads my comments and reviews that I'm rather 
biased towards features made prior to the seventies. I felt there was a decline in
the overall quality of movies after that decade, at least in terms of color, cinematography and composition. Sound is better now but in general I'm not impressed with the
way most movies look. I don't believe there are any DPs on the level of Freddie Young
(David Lean films), Ted Moore (Connery Bond films) or Robert Burks (Hitchock films).
There are occasional exceptions but we're certainly not in a "Golden Age" of moviemaking.
We're more along the lines of a transition period where video and cinema merge into one
medium...and not necessarily a better one.


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## nova

*Re: Movies Formats: why are there so many?*

Richard,

Would you kindly provide some examples of the occasional exception. And which modern directors and cinematographers strive to produce films that contain more than just whiz bang golly gee wasn't that neat. Don't get me wrong, I love a good leave your brain at the door action romp (Transformers, Aliens, Resident Evil, The Mummy, etc.) I just get really dis-appointed that so many newer filmmakers/producers/studios take the easy way out, all action, special effects, poorly written scripts and below par made for TV cinematography/composition.

Finding Neverland, Snow Falling on Cedars, Serenity and Amadeus are a few recent films that I thought were pretty good. In general, I feel most newer films leave a lot to be desired,... then again, I prefer the '31 version of The Maltese Falcon over the '41, so maybe I'm just :coocoo:


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## Richard W. Haines

Nova,

Your question goes back to a subject I covered in my last book which is audience
demographics. Prior to 1968, movies were made for 'general audiences'. Contrary to
myth that did not mean children. It meant they wanted to encompass the largest
group of people which included educated adults and seniors. As a result
the scripts tended to be more intelligent and assumed the viewer had some basic
knowlege of history. For example, in "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Longest Day" the
producer, diredtor and writers assumed you were familiar enough with those wars that
you could follow the narrative without a lot of explanation. 


Beginning in 1968, two events happened that permanently changed the moviegoing
demographic. The first one was to completely abandon the Production Code and replace
it with the ratings system. The Production Code had been reformed by
1966 to allow virtually any subject matter providing it wasn't so graphic that any age
group was restricted from seeing it. The reason the Code was in place to begin with was to allow
general attendence. If you restricted attendence, then you couldn't fill up the seats
in the movie palaces and indeed attendence dropped in half once the Code was abandoned
and replaced with the ratings system. Because so many movies were restricted by 1970,
theaters began folding like dominoes except for those that twinned them to stay in business.
The figures are 41 million weekly in the mid sixties down to 25 million weekly from 1968-1970.


Aside from the reduction in attendence and lack of 'general audience', New Hollywood 
dominated the business from 1968-1975 which coincided with the counter culture movement.
They specifically geared their movies for the youth demographic of 16-26. The content of
films like "Woodstock" alienated most older viewers. This demographic has remained the targeted
audience ever since with an occasional adult oriented film.


The trouble with targeting films for the youth audience is that Hollywood screenwriters
seem to have a low opinion of their level of intelligence. Many screenplays are very dumbed
down now to the point where I have trouble sitting through the movies with the shabby
characterization, bad dialogue, rediculous plot twists and incidents that haven't been set
up and seem to come out of no where. And...films with no endings. They just fizzle out.
I don't think young people are as stupid as these screenwriters assume or at least the ones
I come into contact with through my nieces complain about how idiotic so many current films
are. In any event, you're not getting the quality of craftsmanship that you had in the days
when films were made for a larger demographic. It's interesting to note that
some cable shows are geared for a more adult audience which is why series
like "The Sopranos" has better writing.


Another impact that New Hollywood had on the industry was a change in the look of
film. In the late sixties and early seventies, many of the young cinematographers (some
right out of film school) rejected the classic studio look of DPs like Freddie Young who liked
to say he 'painted with light'. They shot with very limited lighting on high speed stock.
I thought their films looked awful but that style eventually became the new standard.
They don't use the type of high key lighting as the past where the frame was artistically
lit like a portrait with composition, shadow and color all important ingrediants. In many
cases, there isn't enough light on the actor's face or the backgrounds look murky because
you don't get a good depth of field with low lighting. The compositions aren't as dramatic.
Of course you only see the difference when you watch pre-1970 films which tended to look
quite spectacular. Even a cheap Roger Corman film like "Pit and the Pendulum" has better
lighting, composition and color than many current features.


One trick that contemporary DPs use is to send out a second unit to film a few decent
looking sunsets and establishing shots to fool people into thinking the movie is well photographed.
The rest of the movie will have poor lighting and compositions but the establishing shots will
look so good it will stick in your mind longer and in some cases people will think the overall
feature looked good.


Another trend is to add backgrounds and sets digitally rather than actually build and
photograph them. This gives the movie a very artificial look (i.e. "Gladiator") but so many
movies do that now that it's become the 'new look' for many genres. As I mentioned in
a different post, I look forward to the new Indiana Jones movie with real stuntmen and 
an avoidance of digital fakery which ruins most action films for me. I'm not impressed when
I see animated stuntmen or car crashes. It's like watching a live action cartoon.


I guess my problem is my frame of reference. I consider pictures like "2001: A Space
Odyssey" and "Lawrence of Arabia" as the zenith of the motion picture art form. Most
contemporary films do not compare favorably to them on any level from craftsmanship
to screenwriting. That's because I'm a historian as well as a film buff so I observe the
trends and changes in the medium over the decades. If you just watch current films 
you get used to the way they look and the writing and I guess on some level, don't expect
as much or at least don't know what's missing.


In terms of current films, the only relatively recent one I saw that had decent photography was
"The Astronaut Farmer". However, I haven't seen every current film and usually watch them at
a later point projected on my DLP when I have the time. I usually research what the subject matter
is and read the reviews first so I don't waste my time on pictures that I know I won't be able
to sit through and will turn off after twenty minutes of bad writing, acting and camerawork (i.e.
remakes of old TV shows or anything starring Will Farrell) I did slog
through "Disturbia" the other day but I was doing some tax paperwork at the same time it was
basically background noise. It looked
horrible and was so dark I couldn't make out what was going on in the climax. It's a very mediocre
remake of "Rear Window" with some obnoxious actors playing teenagers except for the female
lead who was attractive. Otherwise a completely predictable, dumbed down screenplay...
especially if you've seen the Hitchcock classic. No motivation for the villain at all. I guess
they didn't think that was important. These screenwriters will be getting a bigger piece
of the pie since their strike has been settled.


There are no current Hollywood cinematographers that I would hire to shoot one of my
features...assuming I could afford them. If you screen some of my movies you'll notice
that they are shot in the classic studio style even though I work on very limited budgets.
Brendan Flynt shot my 3-D movie "Run for Cover" and the noir "Unsavory Characters".
We were able to simulate the film noir look in both black and white and color. Tom Agnello
shot my current horror feature, "What Really Frightens You" and we tried to similate the
look of a Hammer horror film in the fantasy sequences and I think we came pretty close.
We even rented a real castle in Milbrook for the climax (Wings Castle). In these cases,
I screen my collection of 35mm Technicolor prints (and some DVDs) for the cameramen
and then analyze how they obtained their look and dramatic compositions and try
to copy them. I specifically tell my DPs that I do not want to shoot in the contemporary
style with limited lighting. I always use a lot of light on my locations and try not to shoot
below f. 5.6 indoors because you lose your resolution and depth of field if you film at a lower
f stop. Also, grain will become more noticeable in the digital domain when it's transferred.


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## Blaser

Richard,

We can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge through your exceptional posts. :clap:
It is really great you are posting here.:T


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## Richard W. Haines

Blaser,

My pleasure. I've been thrown off or forced off of most other film related sites because
I'm so opinionated. At least I try to qualify my positions and never resort to name calling
another forum member who disagrees with me. I've been called every imaginable
name on other sites for daring to go against conventional wisdom in some areas. For example,
some people will claim that New Hollywood "saved" cinema. I have to question...saved it from
what? It certainly changed cinema and not for better in terms of exhibition. New Hollywood
freed cinema from any restraints but there were trade offs. I tend to look at everything in
terms of trade offs. Few, if any, subjects are clear cut. Every change that occurs involved
trade offs and you have consider whether the trade offs were worth it. And is often the case,
it isn't obvious what the trade offs will be until after the fact. Many exhibitors championed
the demise of the production code. What they didn't count on was the drop in attendence and
loss of general audience. In hindsight they probably would've advocated keeping some form of
a production code but allowing a small percentage of movies each year to be released without it.
That would've kept R and X rated type of content to a minimum of about 15 % and the rest of
the films mainstream within the PG and PG-13 content. That's actually the way it is now but
it's too late to get back the crowds since the quality of exhibition is so poor compared to what
you can get at home. There are still superior processes that can 'wow' people back into theaters
like curved screen projection, 70mm and dye transfer Technicolor but they've all been abandoned.
There's really no reason to go to a megaplex and put up with all the distractions (commercials,
scratchy print, trailers too loud, people talking etc.) if you have a home theater...especially if
you project high definition DVDs. They will look better than any high speed junk print shown 
today.


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## tonyvdb

blaser said:


> Richard,
> 
> We can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge through your exceptional posts. :clap:
> It is really great you are posting here.:T


I have to agree, The information you have given us on this topic is great.

@Richard, I think you have really hit the nail on the head with your last post. Going to a movie theater is sadly becoming a thing of the past. I was looking at a theater just this past week thats a few blocks from my place in a mall and as I waited 20min for my wife to pick me up not one person went into it to buy a ticket and the shows were just about to start. At $11 a ticket its no wonder why. The sound alone in my home theater is far better than I have heard recently in even the best multiplexes we have here (and they are very good) there simply is no reason to go.

There seems to be some variance between movie formats even on SD and HD DVD. my screen is the standard 16x9 but some movies still do not fit perfectly there are still thin black bars on the top of bottom.


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## Richard W. Haines

tonyvdb,

Thank you.

I have a 10 foot wide pull down glass beaded screen in my set up. I just zoom up the image
so the extra black is not on screen and whatever the ratio is fills up the screen. I do have black
curtains I have to pull in for 1.33 movies for the sides. For 16:9 (1.85) films I just pull the screen
down lower. For 2.35 type of films I pull the screen up. In my projection booth porthole window,
I use black cardboard to keep the stray light from the black borders from being seen above and
below the screen. Screen masking is very important in a presentation and I'm of the opinion that
you should never see any white or silver screen extra out side of the actual image being projected.
It's too distracting. If you already have a 16:9 screen then get some black cloth to mask off
whatever area you need to so there is no black borders on the actual screen nor extra screen
that isn't being used for the image.


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## tonyvdb

Richard W. Haines said:


> In my projection booth porthole window,
> I use black cardboard to keep the stray light from the black borders from being seen above and below the screen. Screen masking is very important in a presentation and I'm of the opinion that you should never see any white or silver screen extra out side of the actual image being projected. It's too distracting.


Thats a great idea, For me that wont work as I have the projector ceiling mounted, this is my setup.
http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/home-theater-gallery/6213-my-home-theater-project.html

NOTE: for some reason none of the buttons at the top of the reply box or smilies are working. so I cant use the "link" button.


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## Richard W. Haines

Looks like a nice set up. I would suggest get some black masking for the top or bottom of the
screen then. You can use the position function of your projector to move the image up or
down to put all of the extra black on top or bottom accordingly, then mask it off with black
curtain material. Use similar curtain material (matte black) for the sides for 1.33 films. You'll
see it makes a big difference in the presentation. Extra screen that viewers see without any
picture on it undermines the 'moviegoing experience'.


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## Blaser

Very nice setup Tony, here's mine:


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## tonyvdb

The colored lights above the screen are a nice touch when its not being used.


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## nova

Yes, we used to have a nice, large, domed, curved screen, curved stadium seating, 70mm theater here that was "the place to go" to see a movie. Sadly, once the multi-plex's started moving in this theater began it's decline. They could no longer get the big films on opening night and eventually stopped showing new releases all together. Finally there was the re-release of the Star Wars, Empire and Jedi,... one last hurrah for the theater and then oblivion :crying: It's been sitting idle for many years now.

I suppose there are many similar stories about many similar theaters out there.


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## Richard W. Haines

Every Roadshow 70mm house in NYC is gone except for The Ziegfeld. All of the Repertory
cinemas are gone too except for the Film Forum which is part time revivals. Radio City
Music Hall still exists but only for live entertainment, not movies. The 70mm Roadshow
cinemas were cetainly more spectacular than any home set up and one of the main reasons
to go the movies decades ago. I still remember the Rivoli which was my favorite theater
of all time. A deeply curved Dimension 150 screen and the projection booth on ground
level so you had a straight (rather than curved) horizon. If you sat in a center 'sweet 
spot' seat, the screen wrapped around you and you were literally inside the movie. A
very spectacular experience. The problem with all curved screen houses was that standard
flat 1.85 movies didn't look good on them. Only 70mm or 35mm anamorphic prints which
limited the types of pictures they could book. Among the 70mm Roadshow
movies that played the Rivoli were "Oklahoma!" (Todd-AO 30 frames per second),
"Around the World in 80 Days" (Todd-AO 30 frames per second), "West Side
Story" (70mm), "The Sand Pebbles" (70mm blow up from 35mm Panavision negative)
"Cleopatra" (70mm) and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1976 and 1978 re-issues in
70mm). They built an Egyptian facades for "Cleopatra" and that remained the
exterior decor until it was twinned circa 1986 and then demolished.


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## Blaser

Did anybody mention "Egyptian" :innocent:? :bigsmile:


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## Richard W. Haines

I left off another process that was used for two films, "The Bible" and "Patton". It was called
"Dimension 150". It was a 70mm process similar to Todd-AO that used extremely wide angle
lenses that generated a wide depth of field. Otherwise it was a standard 70mm format with
six channel stereo sound and a 2.21 x 1 ratio. If you look at the opening shots of "Patton"
you'll see what those lenses looked like. They seem a bit distorted when shown on a flat
wide screen and play better on the curved screen they were designed for. They weren't used
for close ups and medium shots. Just the wide shots. They were very similar to the Todd AO
bug eye lens used for the travelogue shots in "Around the World in 80 Days" which also distort
the image unless they're projected on a deeply curved screen.

Both Todd AO and Dimension 150 were unique in that they were shown on combination projectors
that could play both 35mm and 70mm formats. The outer sprockets were very large and they
played 70mm prints. There were inner sprockets that were smaller that could play 35mm.
That way they only needed one type of machine in the booth. When 70mm was first introduced,
it required two new projectors and the booth became very crowded with the four machines
(2 for 35mm and 2 for 70mm). The combo machines resolved this problem. Norelco made the
Todd AO combo units and they also had the curved gate and were considered the best projectors
ever made. They are huge though.


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## Blaser

This thread definitely needs to be a sticky!!:yes:


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## Richard W. Haines

What's a sticky?


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## Blaser

A sticky is a thread that is placed on top of page and will never disappear even after long periods with no posts and newer threads.


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## Richard W. Haines

I see.

Aspect ratio is often a thorny topic among film and video buffs. It gets tricky when movies
were exhibited in more than one format. For example, "Okahoma!" was originally shown in
an interlocked set up at the Rivoli. That means the soundtrack was run on a separate piece
of film and the projector showed the complete image that was photographed which was a 
bit wider than 2.21 x 1. Later, they put the mag stripes on the film which reduced the size
to the standard 70mm ratio. However, it was simultaneously filmed in 35mm CinemaScope
and magnetic stereo prints were made in the 2.55 x 1 ratio without any optical track. Then
for other theaters they put on the optical track which reduced the ratio to 2.35 x 1. So what
was the 'definitive' ratio of that movie. Well technically all three were since that's how various
people saw the film, depending on what format that theater was exhibiting. SuperScope films
were shown in both the anamorphic 2 x 1 format (with black borders on the sides of the scope
image) as well as standard 1.33. There were two versions of films like "Underwater" with
Jane Russell shown in cinemas. Both could be considered definitive presentations of the movie.
A number of early CinemaScope films were shot twice too. Once for the anamorphic prints
and a separate negative that filmed the image in 1.33. "The Robe" and "Brigadoon" were among
those that had two camera negatives since a lot of theaters didn't have widescreens in the
early fifties. Very often even cable stations get this information wrong. I remember when they
were discussing letterbox on Turner classics and used "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" as an
example of what would happen when it was pan/scanned for television as opposed to showing
the entire frame within the letterboxed image. It was a bad example because that movie was
also shot twice and it was never cropped for television. They just broadcast the 1.33 version.


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## hyghwayman

Wow, what a great read this tread is.

blaser thank you for asking the question:clap:
Richard W. Haines thank you for sharring your wisdom:hail:


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## Richard W. Haines

You're welcome.

Regarding the ratios, in my opinion they should show as much as the image as they can for
home video presentations...but not portions that show up things you weren't supposed to
see. For example, VistaVision movies photographed a bigger image than what was used
for the actual release prints. The camera negative was about 1.5 x 1 but the prints
were masked off for 1.66 and usually shown in 1.85. For the television versions of 
these films, they printed a 1.33 version from the 1.5 x 1 negative. However, that meant
you were seeing more of the tops and bottoms of the sets than intended. Perhaps the
funniest example of this was the TV version of "North by Northwest". You could see the
bottom of the Mount Rushmore set that Grant and Saint stepped off of. When Grant was
climbing up the side of the house, you could see the movie lights on the bottom of the
frame. The 16mm prints all show this. 

To make it even more complicated, the movie "Shane" was shot and composed for 1.33 but
when it was released, many studios were switching to widescreen so they projected the
film in a cropped 1.66 or 1.85 format for exhibition. However, this was not the way it was
supposed to be shown so in the case of home video release, it's best to have the 1.33
version rather than the cropped version shown in theaters in the fifties.


As a suppliment on some future release, I would like Warners to release the 70mm widescreen
version of "Gone with the Wind" on DVD. It's pretty wild looking since they went through the
movie on a shot by shot basis to recompose it from 1.33 to 2.21 x 1. They also changed the
title design. The first time I saw the film was in the 1968 widescreen re-issue and being only
11 years old, I thought it was supposed to be that way. I didn't see it in the correct 1.33
ratio until I went to a revival cinema in the seventies.


I guess for the DVD distributors, it's a judgement call in terms of what ratio to use. In general
it's a good idea to try to replicate what people saw in cinemas upon it's release but there
are always exceptions like the above mentioned "Shane" and variations of ratios for the same
movie if it was shot in 65mm or CinemaScope.


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## Blaser

I have noticed in movies I recently watched that even 2.35:1 ratios do not appear much smaller than 16:9 movies. I am talking relatively here. I noted that zooming in of caracters' faces is aggressively used, propably more than 16:9 movies.
Indeed in "underworld" which appears to be wider than 2.35:1 uses many shots with the height of the screen showing only from right above the eyes down to the chin. While the screen itself is smaller than 1.78:1, I didn't feel the picture of this movie is smaller than say "monsters INC". Is this a general technique that is used with wider formats?

Moreover, I would like to extend our discussion not only to formats, but other aspects of movies (exposure, photography, direction...and so on). I may ask the mods to edit this thread title not to be off-topic.

I am quoting below what you said somewhere else:



> For non-technical people, animation is always shot at one exposure so the entire movie will
> look as good as the first shot. Feature films are shot at a variety of exposures (i.e. f. 22
> in sunlight, f. 5.6 indoors) and each exposure setting and lighting condition will generate
> a different depth of field and levels of apparent sharpness and grain structure


Pls tell us more...:bigsmile:


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## Blaser

hyghwayman said:


> Wow, what a great read this tread is.
> 
> blaser thank you for asking the question:clap:
> Richard W. Haines thank you for sharring your wisdom:hail:


Hi Don,

Thanks! I only asked a question, but Richard is doing a tough job here :boxer: :yes:


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## Richard W. Haines

Okay here goes...

The higher the f stop when shooting a film, the finer grain and sharper the image will be.
The lower the f stop the grainier and murkier the image will be.

F stops also affect your depth of field. Once again the higher the f stop the greater depth
of field and vice-versa. Depth of field is the sharpness between foreground and background.


The type of lens you're using also has a relationship to sharpness and depth of field.
Wide angle lenses (18mm lens, 25mm lens) have an infinate depth of field. In other words the entire frame will be sharp in foreground and background. Portrait and and Close up lenses (50mm lens, 
80mm lens) have a limited depth of field. In other words the person's face or body will be in focus but the background will be blurry. 


So these are the tools that cinematographers use and if they're any good, will maximum their
effectiveness for the movie.


So by combining these elements (lighting design, f stop and lens) you can analyze what the
they did.


Here are some examples:

In "Lawrence of Arabia", Freddie Young was filming in the desert which was had a great deal
of sunlight (it was about 120 degrees on location in Jordan) so he 
generated an f. 22 exposure. Since there was so much light and the f stop was so high,
the image was razor sharp and had an incredible depth of field in the wideshots. In other
words you could see Lawrence standing in the foreground and the sand dunes miles in the
background were also in razor sharp focus. For the indoor sets Young used a lot of high
key lighting and shot at f. 11 which also generated a razor sharp and fine grain image.
The same look was acheived in the wide shots in Allenby's office. Foreground and background
were razor sharp and the image was fine grain.


Now let's look at the polar opposite type of camerawork in "The Godfather". Gordon Willis
filmed with very limited light at a very low f 2 exposure. As a result, the image was very dark
with whole portions of the frame completely black. The depth of field was very shallow and
the backgrounds were usually blurry. It worked for this movie since it was about 
gangsters who operated in backrooms in the dark and make shady business deals or ordered
hits on fellow mobsters. The overall grainy and dark look was intentional. The movie isn't
fine grain or razor sharp but I guess the murkiness of the image reflected the amoral murkiness
of the characters.


Let's examine the lenses used in these two movies and their relationship to the lighting and
depth of focus. "Lawrence" was shot in Panavision 70 so the image in the camera was already
wide and Young composed the shots so that there were long rows of extras on camels making
you feel like you were part of the raids and battles. They used long focal length lenses to
increase the depth of field and sharpness.


"The Godfather" was shot for 1.85 since most of the movie is in close up and the long shots
are usually dark with little detail. There would've been no reason to use long focal length lenses
or widescreen (2.35 or 2.21 70mm) since it was an intimate drama with small groups of people
in the frame rather than an epic narrative with hundreds of extras. This movie used a lot
of portrait and close up lenses rather than the wide angle/wide frame lenses utilized in Lawrence.


In both cases, the lenses, lighting design and f stop and ratio were used stylishly which suited
the genres and narratives.


Now lets examine the film "Fracture" that I discussed in another post. The film was shot in
2.35 widescreen but with very little light. That meant they were shooting with low f stops
of f4 or f2 which meant a shallow depth of field. This really doesn't work for widescreen
films since only the foreground will be in focus and the background blurry. That means a lot
of blurry side image in the wide frame which is distracting. The compositions were mostly
center framed so there was no point in using the 2.35 ratio. This film would've worked a lot
better as a 1.85 film considering the low key lighting, low f stops, center framed 
image and shallow depth of field. There wasn't enough going on in the frame to justify it's
width and the compositions weren't artisitically designed. The director and cinematography simply made some bad choices for the format they were utilizing. 


Now when you watch any movie, you can guess what type of lens they were using and
how much light was on set or location.

Razor sharp wideshots will be 18, 20 or 25mm lenses.

Portrait shots with a slightly soft background will be 40 or 50mm lenses.

Close ups will be 80mm lenses.

The sharper the backgrounds are in the 40, 50 and 80mm lenses, the more light they
had on set and the higher the f stop. The blurrier they are, the less light and lower
the f stop they shot it with.


The more light they had overall in the film, the finer grain the image will be. The less light
they had overall, the grainier the film will be. 


When films are transferred to the digital medium, all of these attributes or liabilities will be exagerated. The sharper movies will look ultra-sharp, the grainy movies will look extremelly grainy. Film prints tend to blend the differences more than DVDs.


I could go into color but that's a separate category (warm colors make the image seem closer,
cold colors make the image seem more distant etc.)


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## Richard W. Haines

While we're on this subject, I thought I'd mention some visual 'pet peeves' I have. These are
things that some cinematographers and directors do that I hate.

1) Rack focus shots. I can't stand it when the cinematographer changes focus within a shot
from foreground to background. It calls attention to itself and reminds you you're watching
a photographed movie. In other words, someone will be talking in the foreground in focus
and there's a person listening in the background out of focus. Then the camera changes the
focus in the same shot to the person in the background putting the person in the foreground
out of focus. Very distracting.

2) Rear screen projection. Hitchcock used it in his movies as did most of the studios through
the fifties. That's when they photograph the road and project it on a screen and put a
real car in the foreground and the actor pretends he's driving. It always looks phony and
the background is obviously just a screen and is grainy and doesn't match the lighting or
depth of field of the foreground. 

3) Dollying past the edge of a set. This really gets me angry. A character starts walking from
one room to the other and the cameraman follows him going past the edge of the wall set
to the next set. It's makes it blatantly obvious that they're filming on a set and takes away
the illusion that the set is a real location. Even Kubrick did it in "Spartacus".


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## Blaser

Richard W. Haines said:


> While we're on this subject, I thought I'd mention some visual 'pet peeves' I have. These are
> things that some cinematographers and directors do that I hate.
> 
> 1) Rack focus shots. I can't stand it when the cinematographer changes focus within a shot
> from foreground to background. It calls attention to itself and reminds you you're watching
> a photographed movie. In other words, someone will be talking in the foreground in focus
> and there's a person listening in the background out of focus. Then the camera changes the
> focus in the same shot to the person in the background putting the person in the foreground
> out of focus. Very distracting.


True, and I am sometimes surprized I am watching all of a sudden the wrong part of the screen. But I only noticed that when I switched from 29" to 106" though.



> 2) Rear screen projection. Hitchcock used it in his movies as did most of the studios through
> the fifties. That's when they photograph the road and project it on a screen and put a
> real car in the foreground and the actor pretends he's driving. It always looks phony and
> the background is obviously just a screen and is grainy and doesn't match the lighting or
> depth of field of the foreground.


I guess that is only related to very old movies. It looks funny, but isn't it related to the lack of techniques/budget/capabilities that are now available? I mean could they do otherwise?



> 3) Dollying past the edge of a set. This really gets me angry. A character starts walking from
> one room to the other and the cameraman follows him going past the edge of the wall set
> to the next set. It's makes it blatantly obvious that they're filming on a set and takes away
> the illusion that the set is a real location. Even Kubrick did it in "Spartacus".


Yes, I second that, but I don't see it often with movies. But it gives the impression of being made by computer ad far from real life.
What do you thing of "multi-windows/shots" in the same frame? I don't know if I am clear, but you can find it in "Hulk"


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## Blaser

blaser said:


> I have noticed in movies I recently watched that even 2.35:1 ratios do not appear much smaller than 16:9 movies. I am talking relatively here. I noted that zooming in of caracters' faces is aggressively used, propably more than 16:9 movies.
> Indeed "underworld" which appears to be wider than 2.35:1 uses many shots with the height of the screen showing only from right above the eyes down to the chin. While the screen itself is smaller than 1.78:1, I didn't feel the picture of this movie is smaller than say "monsters INC". Is this a general technique that is used with wider formats?


Richard,

Could you pls comment about that as well?


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## Richard W. Haines

blaser,

I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Are you referring to the way the close
ups crop parts of the face? That's just a filmmaking technique or decision. Close ups in
wide screen movies are always a problem. Do you show the full head as in a standard 1.33
or 1.85 film with a lot of extra space on either side of the face or do you crop some of the
face to get in closer? Depends on the director. Sergio Leone filled the entire
face within his wide frame which meant the top of the head and the bottom of the chin
were cropped out of the image area. Others show the entire face but try to have an 
interesting background so the extra space on either side of the image has a better
composition.

In terms of my pet peeves, rear screen projection was used as a standardized technique
for showing moving shots in a car until the mid-sixties when films like "Grand Prix" and
"Bullitt" had the camera mounted on the vehicle so the actor could be driving. Car mounts
became standard after that. The other method is to tow the car that supposed to be driving
and film the actor from the back of the tow truck. The reason they used rear screen was not
because they were unable to do driving shots with a mounted camera but because they tried
to avoid leaving the studio if possible. The studio moguls liked to keep an eye on all filmmaking
activities to keep directors from going over budget. As soon as you go outside and have to
block off traffic on the street you up the insurance costs and there's the possibility of an accident
or time delays as you deal with the weather, position of the sun and so forth. For example in
the movie "Grand Prix" they circumvented the insurance restrictions and had the actors really
drive those racing cars. Much riskier than having them pretend to drive them in front of 
a screen projecting the background but of course much more realistic and spectacular.
The last time I recall seeing the rear screen shots were in the Connery Bond movies. 
After "Bullitt" it would be difficult for audiences to accept that type of driving effect.
When you project the road on a movie screen in back of the live actor in the car,
the grain structure doesn't match which gives it away. The background is always
much grainier than the actor. Stanley Kramer corrected this a bit with "It's a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World" by having the background projected footage in 70mm which
was much sharper but it still looked artificial.


I've used car mount shots in some of my movies. In the case of "Space Avenger",
I had the camera mounted on the front of the car at a fixed focal length filming through
the windshield. I was crouched down in the back seat along with the soundman when
we filmed. Pretty crowded but we got the shot. I had to turn on the camera, jump
into the back seat and crouch and then the actor started to drive the car and once
he reached about 35 miles per hour we'd start the shot. Unfortunately we had a lot
of wasted footage while he started to drive and then slowed down and stopped but it
was the only way to do it since I didn't want a cameraman hanging onto the front of 
the vehicle. It was better than shooting from the back of a tow truck since they usually
give too much vibration. By mounting it on the hood, you got better steadiness and
you could also get a close up from that angle.


----------



## Richard W. Haines

blaser,

The other technique you brought up was split screen images. The first time I recall seeing
them were in a dance number in "It's Always Fair Weather" in 1955 at the end of "Charade" in 1963. They were used in "Grand Prix", "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "Carrie" too. I used it for the bank robbery scene in my film "Soft Money".
There are different ways of using the technique. One is to show different angles of the
same action which was the bank robbery in "The Thomas Crown Affair". In "Carrie" they showed
different portions of the gym where Carrie was wrecking havoc on her tormentors. In "Grand
Prix" they showed different details of the racing cars being prepared. I tried something different
in my bank robbery scene in "Soft Money". One panel showed the thieves blowing the vault
while in the other panel I showed a police car patrolling the area to add some suspense.
It's a technique that is usually associated with the sixties but is still occasionally used today.


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## Blaser

I am waiting to see your next movie :T


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## Richard W. Haines

Thanks. I'll let you know when we're ready for release. Almost finished with the fine cut. I'm shooting some extra footage this coming Wednesday in NYC to fill in some gaps and have some extra establishing shots. Then we'll fine cut it, screen it for some more college students to get their input and off to the negative matcher. I can't do the track work until it's matched and transferred to video.


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## Blaser

For 2.35:1 movies, I found that setting the overscan of the projector to 92% is a good compromize between minimizing the black bars and not losing so much of the picture width.

Any thoughts?


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## Richard W. Haines

blaser,

Well my thoughts is if you're really bothered by the black bars, go ahead. In my case I have
the image fill the screen and keep the black borders off of it. I have side screen masking for
1.33 and 1.85 but otherwide 2.35 fills the 10 foot wide screen. The extra black is masked off
in my projection porthole window but as I mentioned I have a screening room that was designed
to show 35mm on a projector which is the format of my features. I adapted it to include the
DLP below the 35mm lens. So the projected image of both 35mm and DLP is shown through
a window that can be maske off to remove unwanted black borders.


The other concern for me is seeing exactly what the filmmaker intended. I wouldn't want
to crop any of the image.


----------



## phat03

Blaser said:


> I have noticed in movies I recently watched that even 2.35:1 ratios do not appear much smaller than 16:9 movies. I am talking relatively here. I noted that zooming in of caracters' faces is aggressively used, propably more than 16:9 movies.
> *Indeed in "underworld" which appears to be wider than 2.35:1* uses many shots with the height of the screen showing only from right above the eyes down to the chin. While the screen itself is smaller than 1.78:1, I didn't feel the picture of this movie is smaller than say "monsters INC". Is this a general technique that is used with wider formats?
> 
> Moreover, I would like to extend our discussion not only to formats, but other aspects of movies (exposure, photography, direction...and so on). I may ask the mods to edit this thread title not to be off-topic.
> 
> I am quoting below what you said somewhere else:
> 
> 
> Pls tell us more...:bigsmile:


Blaser,

You are correct, in that Underworld was shot in 2.40:1 aspect ratio resulting in a wider format than 2.35:1. 

Joe D


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## Sonnie

This thread has been stuck... :T


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## Richard W. Haines

phat03,

Actually 2.40 is the same format as 2.35. The reason for the slight difference is because
technically 2.40 is the correct ratio in many cases for a film shot in 2.35 for theaters. For
Panavision and CinemaScope films, you would see the very thin cement splice on the bottom
of the frame of the negative on each cut if you actually played them in 2.35 so they crop
it slightly to 2.40. However, this extra cropping is not necessary in Technirama or Super
35 widescreen films. In the case of Technirama, the film is shot horizontally so the negative
splice is on the side of the film which is masked off by the optical track. Super 35 films are
shot full frame (1.33) and then cropped to 2.35 so you wouldn't see the negative splice and
you could play it 2.35. Some distributors just crop all scope films to 2.40 so they are consistent.
In general, people still refer to scope films as 2.35 which is the ratio they were composed for
from 1955 to the present even though they weren't projected that way in many theaters.


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## tenzip

Just read this thread for the first time, and wanted to say thank you to Richard. Lots of great info. And to all who asked questions.

One exception to your dislike of rear screen projection, I hope, is "Airplane!" I loved the effect in that movie, as it was so obviously intentional, just like showing the jet and having the prop sound.


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## Richard W. Haines

You're welcome.

Naturally if they're spoofing rear screen projection I have no problem
with it. But it was certainly one of those techniques used in the past
that took you out of the 'illusion' of reality a movie is supposed to 
generate and made it obvious it was artificial.


----------

