Are more movies 2.35:1? If so, why? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ringwald]

Election
The Fog
Halloween
Fright Night
Brokedown Palace
American Beauty
The Funhouse
Bridget Jones's Diary
I know what you did last summer
Scream
Scream 2
Scream 3
Joy Ride
Poltergeist
Urban Legend


Those who say horror films don't ever have to be 2.35:1...that's one of the best ways to build the mood of a scary movie. It's more claustrophobic...it builds tension. This argument is stupid. There are many movies that could look 10 times "better" in a wider ratio... and vise versa. However, it's not your decision. It's the director's...

This is akin to saying "Well, that scene in the middle didn't need those three characters. They should have been cut."

The director has a reason for making the movie how he wants to make it.

All of the movies listed above have a certain visual style that I think would be missing on a standard 1.85:1 screen.

 

[John Watson]

All directors are brilliant?

Or even adequate?

HTF wouldn't exist if there weren't so many of us armchair critics

 

[Craig]

I thought 1.85 was supposed to be closer to the normal field of vision? I remember there wer some comments when Saving Private Ryan came out about how it should have been 2.35, but someone quoted Spielberg as saying 1.85 was closer to the natural field of vision.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Personally I'm more worried about directors shifting to 1.85:1 strictly because it won't be letterboxed on widescreen sets. I believe that at least two movies this year were shown 2.35 in the theater and 1.85 on DVD (The Recruit definitely and I think I heard about one more).

Home viewing conditions do play a role in director's selection unfortunately. I recall reading that Speilberg stopped filming in scope after Last Crusade after being frustrated with the film's pan-and-scan video composition. I was surprised (and happy) to find him return to scope with Minority Report.

 

[Gary Seven]

I know you mentioned nothing of supporting P&S,and my post was not supposed to suggest otherwise. I apologize if that's how it came across.

I mentioned P&S with Up and Smoke to bring a point of how many of the sight gags were lost in a cropped format. There is little difference between 1.85:1 and 1.33:1. Since the composition greatly suffered in 1.33:1, it is logical to assume that the same shots taken in scope would have also suffered in composition at 1.85:1, thus affecting the telling of the story. The same shots and gags composed in a 1.85:1 frame would have been cramped or photographed from farther back, thus losing some of its effectiveness. If the director had used 1.85:1 framing, he would have had to change the way the movie was filmed, thus altering the story somewhat.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Gary, no problem. It just seems sometimes folks here, once I say I'm not a person who wants everything in 2.35, they start saying I'm a P&S fan.

 

[Gary Seven]

This is an excellent point.

The Criterion Laserdisc of this classic has an audio commentary that comments on this very thing. Often framing is used to help delineate characters. Hoffman filmed at the edge of the screen was an indication of how "unbalanced" or flawed his character was. Shots of characters are sometimes centered or off centered to help define the emotional state of that character.

As I said previously, composition helps tell the story.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Well, technically speaking, depending on how it's shot, any aspect ratio can do this. A 1.85 can, and often does, have the same amount of vertical view, just not as wide as a 2.35.

I for one love 2.35. When I was shopping for tv's that sufffer from burn in, I was wondering what would happen because half of my movies are shot in 2.35. I opted not to get a peice of hard ware that suffers from burn in so it's not a problem for me anymore, hopefully in 3-4 years technology will not suffer from this. Aside from the hardware problems, I see no problem with it at all.

 

[John_Berger]

That directly implies that somehow you think you're losing something by not being able to see above and below what the filmmakers decided to be the point of focus. That's one of the main reasons for composition - to put your focus where it belongs. And if that means that you don't get to see the ceiling fan above and the lovely Persian rug below, then so be it. Filmmaker's perogative.

 

[Richard Kim]

Actually, Hook was the last film Speilberg shot in scope before Minority Report.

Also, the films of Wes Anderson are another example of non epic scope films. The screen composition in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums is just impeccable.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Composition.
Composition.
Composition.

 

[Qui-Gon John]

:rolleyes

John Berger - nice how you completely skipped over my point in post #19 relating my comment to Patrick's. I was not talking about "missing the floor and ceiling because they're important". I was talking about how seeing the full height is more like natural vision.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Oops thanks for the correction. I also remember Always being released on video in letterbox which is another indication that he was becoming frustrated with home video.

 

[Michael Reuben]

And it could easily be gone in a shot framed at 1.85:1 or 1.33:1 -- just as easily as it could be visible in a shot framed for 2.35:1. What you see (or don't see) is never a function of the aspect ratio; it's a function of what's being included in the shot (or excluded, as the case may be).

M.

 

[Nick_Scott]

Just to add:
Vision is naturally 1-dimentional. By this, I mean we tend to scan things on a horizontal plane, NOT vertical as some have said. If your going to take a group picture of your friends, you will line them up horizontaly, not vertically.

The thing I love most about scope is that it "fills" my vision on this horizontal plane. This is where most of the usefull information is.
1:85 seems to add more clouds and dirt. This in itself is not a bad thing. The director might choose to compose his film this way, which is the important thing here:
The director is the artist, and its his choice.

Nick

 

[Robert Anthony]

I think Qui Gon John's gone rounds with a lot of us before on this subject, if I remember right. In the Software forum.

 

[John_Berger]

I would reply to this attempt to cover your butt :p) but Patrick, Michael, and Nick already said it for the most part.

 

[MarcusUdeh]

Does it matter that Minority Report was filmed in Super35?

 

[Sean Moon]

super 35 or not, the intended aspect ratio was 2.35. SO it shouldnt matter that Terminator 2, Titanic, Abyss, Lord of the Rings were all shot super 35 as well?

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

Like Gary said...........It all really comes down to the directors choice of what film stock he/she wants to shoot on......and what cameras and lenses they want to use to tell their story.