A Few Words About A few words about...™ Aspect Ratios (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

RAH,

What are your thoughts for home projection owners and constant image height? There is a debate about this on some projection owner forums that movies should be watched (as intended by the filmmaker) at the same height with only width varying (as Bob's image clearly shows above) where as most commercial theaters today toss this notion out the window using ~1:85 screens. I'm wondering how modern filmmakers look view this today.

I generally believe in constant height, outside of large format, for which image should be higher.

 

[KPmusmag]

>Many theatres of that era had those horrible 2:1 screens with one-size-fits-all projection.

They're doing a modern version of that today. At the Regal 24 in Chamblee, GA, the smaller theaters stay masked at 1:85 even if they're projecting a 2:35:1 film, so you get bars at the top and bottom. At the Midtown Art Cinema (art cinema!) in Atlanta they have a brand new policy of no longer masking to fit the films. Their big room stays fixed at 2:35:1 (so when I saw The Shape of Water in that auditorium, it had huge bars on the side) and all the other theaters are masked at 1:85 -- or should I say, something approximating that. Even the 1:85 movies in those rooms have slim bars on the sides.

Anyone else experiencing this in their local theaters?

Yes, and I hate it. I have discovered at my local Regal that they have two large auditoriums that are constant height with masking as needed, so I try to find out what times the movie is showing in those. All of their other auditoriums are 1.85 with no masking so it looks just like watching video at home. Awful.

 

[Mark-P]

Yes, and I hate it. I have discovered at my local Regal that they have two large auditoriums that are constant height with masking as needed, so I try to find out what times the movie is showing in those. All of their other auditoriums are 1.85 with no masking so it looks just like watching video at home. Awful.

Once upon a time there was such a thing as showmanship in theatrical presentations and one of the hard and fast rules was that no area of the screen be visable that wasn’t illuminated. That’s precisely how my home theater works with side curtains. But now that letterboxing and pillarboxing are finally accepted in the home environment, theater owners figure that people are used to black bars now so why bother.

 

[avroman]

Has anyone heard of the plan , some years ago, to standardize Theatrical Aspect Ratios by filming everything with a 5 Sprocket hole pulldown, and release Prints in 70mm, with a 2.20:1 Aspect Ratio, as is now standard, and 35mm release Prints with a 2 to 1 Anamorphic Squeeze, with also a Projected Aspect Ratio of 2.20:1. Both 70mm and 35mm prints would have had identical height frames. The main objection would have been all 35mm Projectors would have needed new Film Gates and all Sprockets replaced. Many hands would have been thrown in the air!
It sounded like a good idea, but of course, it didn't eventuate.

 

[Mike Frezon]

It was indeed! IIRC, it was the transition to digital projection that finally killed it off. They simply didn't have a large enough loyal local base of customers to finance the hundreds of thousands it would have cost to upgrade to digital, since most of their ticket buyers were summer tourists.

That is nuts! I almost didn't ask figuring the odds were so heavy against it.

It's crazy how many places we have both been in at different times of our lives! I spent all my summers on Brant Lake from 1968 up until about 5-10 years ago.

I've posted THIS article on the impact of conversion to digital projection on The Carol a couple of times on th forum over the years.

 

[OliverK]

Has anyone heard of the plan , some years ago, to standardize Theatrical Aspect Ratios by filming everything with a 5 Sprocket hole pulldown, and release Prints in 70mm, with a 2.20:1 Aspect Ratio, as is now standard, and 35mm release Prints with a 2 to 1 Anamorphic Squeeze, with also a Projected Aspect Ratio of 2.20:1. Both 70mm and 35mm prints would have had identical height frames. The main objection would have been all 35mm Projectors would have needed new Film Gates and all Sprockets replaced. Many hands would have been thrown in the air!
It sounded like a good idea, but of course, it didn't eventuate.

I think it is great that movies come in different shapes so I am not for it, but it sounds like an interesting piece of history and I like 2.2:1 more than the 2:1 of Univision. Do you have a link where this is described in more detail?

 

[avroman]

Sorry, I don't have a link. It was just something I recalled from my long career in Theatres. (1953-2012).
The system would have had two big advantages. The substantial increase picture area on 35mm, would have given a widely improved picture resolution and quality over standard 35mm frames, and secondly, the combining of standard 35 and 70 frame height and ratios would have reduced film production costs.

 

[Robert Harris]

Best idea I recall, was anamorphic 1.85, using the entire frame, as opposed to the heavy loss of projected real estate.

 

[gadgtfreek]

While I share your taste for presentation I think that it is very important to allow people to manage picture size as easily as possible. People who can fill their screen at the click of a button are less likely to demand that content gets cropped in order to conform to their preferred aspect ratio.

True.

 

[Doug Otte]

I realize this conversation is primarily about theatrical and disc presentation, but one of my pet peeves is cable channel and pay-per-view practices. They routinely lop off the sides of 2.35:1 films to make them "fit the screen". It really takes me out of the viewing when I see actors crowded to the sides of the screen, or even missing entirely.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Cropping I can understand, but seeing 4x3 stretched to 16x9 almost makes me break out into hives.

 

[RolandL]

The big aspect ratio problem now is TV channels showing 'scope films zoomed in to 16:9, I don't know about America, but it happens a lot in the UK.

Yes it happens here also. I was watching a bit of Resident Evil: The Final Chapter on the Fuse channel and it was 1.78 instead of 2.35. Funny that the commercials were letterboxed at 2.66. OK for large black bars in a commercial but not for the movie?

 

[Brent Reid]

...A Roth theatre in Tysons Corner Mall, Virginia had a showing of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, and I was thrilled to be able to see it in a theatre. Imagine my surprise to see Gene Kelly's thighs moving in and out and weird tapping noises coming from the speaker. Rumor has it he was dancing at the time.

That sir, is a hilarious turn of phrase and I doff my cap to you!

 

[John Dirk]

Place me in the category of those who thank you for sharing. Very informative!

 

[Stan]

"Perfection was the last thing on a projectionists’ mind. For no matter how hard he or she might try, they were still dealing with that same old trapezoid."

That's a terrible thing to say. I was a projectionist for about six years and always did my best with the equipment provided. I tried as hard a possible for "perfection". Proper focus, good sound, adjusting the screen if was a flat or scope presentation. Some of us did care.

Even worked with 70mm films for a while, always shown perfectly.

 

[Robert Harris]

"Perfection was the last thing on a projectionists’ mind. For no matter how hard he or she might try, they were still dealing with that same old trapezoid."

That's a terrible thing to say. I was a projectionist for about six years and always did my best with the equipment provided. I tried as hard a possible for "perfection". Proper focus, good sound, adjusting the screen if was a flat or scope presentation. Some of us did care.

Even worked with 70mm films for a while, always shown perfectly.

When dealing with major projection angles, perfection is impossible.

This has Nothing to do with the desires of projectionists, who fight the good fight.

 

[Stan]

When dealing with major projection angles, perfection is impossible.

This has Nothing to do with the desires of projectionists, who fight the good fight.

Very true, perfection is impossible. Kind of why I don't go to theatres any longer, nobody seems to care. Lights will be on, film out of focus, equipment isn't maintained, people with cell phones. I gave up and enjoy movies at home now.

Maybe just getting older and grumpier, but not worth the hassle or expense to go out to see something. I can wait six months until it's on DVD, Pay per View, etc. Or a little longer when it shows up on HBO or Showtime.

Not the right thread, but "people" really annoy me. Manners don't seem to exist any longer.

 

[zoetmb]

Yes, how many 1:66, 1:75, 1;77 films were in fact projected at 1:85 (or thereabouts), a great many I'd think, & did anyone notice? No.

Whether the audience notices or not is not the issue. Audiences usually just accept what they're given. I was in a theater the other day in which the left channel was missing. I've seen 2D presentations when they leave the 3D filter on the Sony 4K projectors and the image is ridiculously dim. Back around the time that "Hugo" was released, I was in two different theaters in which the left and center channels were reversed. But I'm always told that I'm the only one who complained. Back in the film days and before everyone used platters, I even remember a reel being projected in the wrong order, although it took me a while to realize it and I didn't sense that anyone else did.

The issue, is that projecting at the wrong aspect ratio (or any other major projection error) does not represent the original intent which is a violation of the art. I'm not talking about projection errors resulting from parallax distortion from the booth, although that's far less of an issue today since few theaters have balconies today. And I'm not talking about cropping of the frame due to the distance of the booth from the screen and the width of the image not exactly matching an even lens focal length. I'm referring to what you stated: projecting films at the wrong AR or the theaters that back in the film days, projected everything at 2:1, as others have stated.

And in the case of a 1.66 film projected at 1.85? That would sometimes result in heads being cut off or since many of those were foreign films, subtitles being cut off.

There are many novels in which you might not notice if a chapter was missing. But would you accept reading the book that way? When you watch films on TV, they might be edited for time and scenes might be missing and you might not notice, but do you find that acceptable?

Proper presentation means everything. Before 2005, I worked for a company that evaluated the quality of prints and presentation in theaters. If a film was playing in a multiplex, we'd have to watch it on every screen. What I found as I moved from screen-to-screen was that each audience reacted completely differently to the film, seemingly dependent upon the quality of presentation and the ambiance and/or size and seating capacity of the theater. This may be one of the reasons why people have such diverse reactions to a film. People may not realize it, but they react to the quality of presentation. And it seems to me that because of improper presentation, if we're seeing a heavily cropped image, something is going to feel "off", even if it's on a subconscious level.

Luckily, on Blu, most films today are presented properly in their original ARs. And in the theatre, with few exceptions, films today are 1.85 or 2.4 and presented if not properly (since most digitally projected films are projected common width instead of common height) at least at the proper AR. Where I do agree with RAH is that a few pixels in either direction doesn't make much difference.

 

[Dave H]

I generally believe in constant height, outside of large format, for which image should be higher.

Large format being something like IMAX where the composition is intended to be engulfing?

 

[zoetmb]

>Many theatres of that era had those horrible 2:1 screens with one-size-fits-all projection.

They're doing a modern version of that today. At the Regal 24 in Chamblee, GA, the smaller theaters stay masked at 1:85 even if they're projecting a 2:35:1 film, so you get bars at the top and bottom. At the Midtown Art Cinema (art cinema!) in Atlanta they have a brand new policy of no longer masking to fit the films. Their big room stays fixed at 2:35:1 (so when I saw The Shape of Water in that auditorium, it had huge bars on the side) and all the other theaters are masked at 1:85 -- or should I say, something approximating that. Even the 1:85 movies in those rooms have slim bars on the sides.

Anyone else experiencing this in their local theaters?

Most theaters today are common width. 1.85 is projected full screen and 2.4 is projected with reduced height, whether masked or not. That's a function of the digital standard in which a 1.85 film uses 1998 x 1080 pixels (or 3996 x 2160 if 4K) and a widescreen film uses 2048 x 858 (or 4096 x 1716 if 4K). This results in a 1.85 image using 19% more pixels than a widescreen film. IMO, it was unfortunate that in digital projection, widescreen films became "smaller" than 1.85 films.

However at my local Dolby Cinema, 2.4:1 fills the screen and 1.85 films have bars left and right (common height). Although there's still no masking, I find that far better. Of course, it would have been even better with masking which would have been easy to do: they could have just had some automated masking come down from the ceiling or the top of the screen. The reality is that far more films are made at 2.4 than 1.85, so 2.4 filling the screen makes more sense.

However, neither of those violates the original AR, but projecting everything at 2:1 did. It cropped height for 1.85 films and it cropped width for 2.35 films. Film done wrong!

Now there is an option in the Sony 4K projectors to expand the 1716 height in the projector to 2160 and then using a 1.25x anamorphic lens, resulting in a 2.37:1 AR and a larger widescreen image as compared to the 1.85 image, but almost no one does this because that lens costs a fortune and it take about an hour to switch lenses on the projector.