I'm an ignorant DVD shopper. Convert me to Widescreen. (1 Viewer)

[Casey Trowbridg]

Mark, I think this post of yours is dead on, and I really think that this is what most people are confused over, and I really like the book example you gave here. Anyway, I really enjoyed this thread, I like some of the examples listed, I do use the dollar bill 1 from time to time, but when I buy from a place they know I want the WS version, and they never bother to enquire why, well 1 gal at Sam Goody made a comment about the black bars, but as I was with my mom and someone else I didn't feel like taking some time and explaining it because the schedules were tight.

 

[ThomasC]

Modified Aspect Ratio.

 

[EricSchulz]

Thanks ThomasC!!! The only "m" word that came to mind was "mangled", and although it's appropriate, it didn't seem right.

 

[Matt Rexer]

And, most of the time, the bars are covering up picture. Most MARed widescreen movies are actually shown open matte (or, at least, the non-special effects parts of them). It's a bit harder to explain to people why they should trade "more picture on top and bottom" for "annoying black bars." Which is why I love the A Fish Called Wanda example to show people...

 

[MarkHastings]

Thanks Casey.

I was thinking about why people hate the black bars and the answer always seems to be "because they are covering up part of the picture", so it dawned on me that we need to be empahsizing why a smaller picture means MORE. It sounds like a bizzare statement that smaller can mean more and is probably why most people object to the black bars.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Rather than "more" or "less" picture, it's more about the picture and the screen having different shapes. Think of a "widescreen" family picture that for some reason must be fitted into a frame of a different shape. I can't imagine why this concept should be hard to grasp - except that some people are too "set in their ways"...

 

[MarkHastings]

Before I got into widescreen movies, I never even noticed (I guess it was a bit of ignorance on my part) that movie screens were that much wider than tv screens. Although, as a teen, it was probably hard to notice the difference between a 19" (1.33:1) tv and a gigantic (1.85.1) movie image because the theater screens are so large that you really don't get a good perecption on aspect ratio. In fact, the whole reason movies are filmed so wide is because it works best for our peripheral vision, so this would make even more sense as to why someone may not notice that a 2.35:1 movie is that much wider than a 4x3 tv. It's almost like an optical illusion at that scale.

And even when I did learn about widescreen videos, I never even noticed that there were different widths (i.e. 1.66, 1.78, 1.85, 2.35, 2.40, etc.) - I don't see how I could have not seen the difference between a 1.66:1 Disney movie and a 2.35:1 Sci-Fi movie. You'd think it'd jump right out at ya, but it never crossed my mind until I learned the technicalities.

Now that I know the technology, it seems bizzare that I never noticed it before, but it happens. I bet most consumers don't even know that movie theater screens are wider than their 4x3 tvs.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Image Entertainment used to do this sort of thing when they issued widescreen laserdiscs ("Image Update" flyers). Some good examples of cropped 2.35:1 movies were 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark' and 'Ghostbusters'. A matte example was a frame shot comparison from the Super-35 film 'Aliens'

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Aliens wasn't Super-35. It was 1.85:1, but you would still get approximately the same result from an open matte transfer.

 

[Keith Paynter]

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Pick up your DVD of Aliens.

What ratio is it in?

1.85:1 - it's the only non-2.35:1 film in the Alien series, and is not Super 35.

In fact, I believe he chose to make it in this ratio because he believed it was easier to film without anamorphic lenses, and didn't yet trust S35 to offer an adequate picture.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Just because a film is 1.85:1 does not mean it was not filmed in Super 35. That being said, the IMDB (not the greatest source) states Aliens was filmed spherical.

 

[Keith Paynter]

This is true - for example, Mel Brooks Spaceballs was filmed in Super35, and is matted to 1.85:1 (albeit very poorly - witness Princess Vespas' 'old nose', if you can on the 1.85:1 version vs. the full-screen version).