Aspect Ratio Documentation (5 Viewers)

[Bob Furmanek]

Are Fritz Lang's 1959 German films (Indian Tomb, Tiger Of Eschnapur) supposed to be Academy or wide? They look the former on the DVDs, but that don't mean Jack!
On a similar topic, Les Diaboliques should definetly be seen wide.

I'm sorry, Jack Theakston and I don't have any original German documentation on those films.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Romero must have his reasons for NOTLD specifically to be at 1.33:1. He also shot Dawn and Day open matte and those are in widescreen on dvd and blu.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

By October of 1968, 1.85:1 had been the exhibition standard for 12 years. Romero simply continued the practice that had become common in April 1953: compose for wide and protect for academy.

 

[John Weller]

That said, Night did look like an Academy film when I saw it projected on film, and I think Don May is on record as stating it didn't matte well. I think even Romero is on record as saying he shot it in Academy, as he did Martin (which was 16mm). Dawn and The Crazies are definetly wide. Elite's 1998 DVD of Night is much more open then the Legend and Weinstein releases yet still looks best in 4:3 to my eye.
I'm not disputing the documentary evidence of how it was projected, just wondering if Romero was so gurilla he or his camera folk simply didn't think to shoot for wide - they took the b&w option out of cost saving, and then found it very hard to find a distributor! He did the same for Martin. That's definetly 4:3 but it likely would have been projected wide. So in the case of NOTLD, it's my preference for it to be Academy, but I could well be wrong.
I'm weird, I know. Plan 9 is wide to me, yet NOTLD is Academy to me. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes...
Just to show how weird all this gets, H G Lewis states all his films were wide, yet you'd never know that from the DVDs, which look heavily zoomed in.

 

[John Weller]

Not too many theaters were still running 1.37 in October, 1968.

True. Even 16mm films were sometimes shot wide to accomodate this - LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is a good example. I can't imagine the epilepsy inducing headaches caused by watching something like THE GHASTLY ONES, blown up to 35mm and matted to wide!

 

[Mark-P]

Kubrick did the same thing. He swore on a stack of Bibles that he meant for several of his movies to be shown in 1.33:1, which is why they were released full-frame on DVD until after his death. But we all know they were really composed for widescreen theatrical exhibition.

 

[John Weller]

Not too many theaters were still running 1.37 in October, 1968.

True. Even 16mm films were sometimes shot wide to accomodate this - LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is a good example. I can't imagine the epilepsy inducing headaches caused by watching something like THE GHASTLY ONES, blown up to 35mm and matted to wide!

 

[Vincent_P]

Kubrick did the same thing. He swore on a stack of Bibles that he meant for several of his movies to be shown in 1.33:1, which is why they were released full-frame on DVD until after his death. But we all know they were really composed for widescreen theatrical exhibition.

Kubrick swore on a stack of bibles? You have a picture of that?
Vincent

 

[Brandon Conway]

Originally Posted by Mark-P /t/319469/aspect-ratio-research/120#post_3931976
Kubrick did the same thing. He swore on a stack of Bibles that he meant for several of his movies to be shown in 1.33:1, which is why they were released full-frame on DVD until after his death. But we all know they were really composed for widescreen theatrical exhibition.

Kubrick specifically stated that he liked 1.33:1 for home video releases of The Shining and Full Metal Jacket for home video in the 1990s when 4x3 20" TVs were the norm. This had nothing to do with the theatrical presentation, and Kubrick died before 16x9 and large home screens became anything close to commonplace.

 

[John Weller]

I think Kubrick specified he preferred open matte for VHS rather than letterboxed. It was Leon Vitali who refused to allow the Kubricks to be anamorphic on their original Warner DVD releases, because he didn't have a clue.

 

[NY2LA]

CALAMITY JANE was photographed in 3-strip Technicolor. The Technicolor camera could only record in 1:37 format.
Dick May

How nice to have you among us, RM! Welcome! and Thanks for being here! Weren't you in charge of the MGM assets through Turner to WB and into the early 00s? I have heard they were very well taken care of during that time.
(Hoping I didn't sound too "Eddie Haskell" there.)

 

[Paul Penna]

By October of 1968, 1.85:1 had been the exhibition standard for 12 years. Romero simply continued the practice that had become common in April 1953: compose for wide and protect for academy.

That this is undoubtedly the case makes the often-expressed opinion that some film makers nevertheless "preferred" and thus intentionally composed for 1.37 incomprehensible to me. If so, who were they trying to satisfy? Who would see the films that way? Themselves, in their own private screening rooms with no widescreen matte in their projectors, sitting back and sighing, "Ah, yes, that's how I wanted it," and not caring that all the thousands of regular theatergoers were seeing it the way it wasn't intended?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

If Romero were composing for television and the 16mm rental market, he would have filmed for 1.37.
If theaters and drive-ins were his objective, he would have composed for widescreen.

 

[John Weller]

If Romero were composing for television and the 16mm rental market, he would have filmed for 1.37.
If theaters and drive-ins were his objective, he would have composed for widescreen.

To be fair, in the case of this and Martin, he doesn't seem to have done so, at least by his testimony. But I'll happily be corrected if anyone can provide a frame scan or something. Plan 9 at least has a recognised cinematographer and is very clearly open matte on the DVDs, Night looks kind of all over the place, but that could well be the fault of the dvds. The Elite is definetly better framed than the HD transfers.
Not being argumentative, just stating my confusion!

 

[Charles Smith]

I have the Elite LD from 1994 and a DVD from Genius which I've never watched. Sounds like I'd better compare.

 

[bgart13]

I breezed through the original Elite disc last night using VLC and cropped to 1.85. It actually looked... cinematic. Some bits were a little off, but not by much. I'd like to see an interview with Romero discussing the technical side of his movies -- does he go into this much on commentaries? I can't remember whether he does or not. And it's been years since I read ZOMBIES THAT ATE PITTSBURGH.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

I know that some of this information has been posted before but these widescreen statistics bear repeating.

Please note that none of this information is taken from books our other contemporary sources. This data has been compiled by Jack Theakston and I from documented, primary source materials including studio production files and industry trade journals.
THIS IS CINERAMA had opened to great success and critical acclaim on September 30, 1952. BWANA DEVIL was also a tremendous success when it premiered in 3-D on November 26, 1952. Over the next several months, every major studio was experimenting with some form of widescreen presentation.
RCA demonstrated a new widescreen to exhibitors specifically designed for 3-D on March 24.

The "New Era of Screen Dimensions" had begun.

On February 4, 20th Century Fox announced that all future studio productions would be in CinemaScope. Paramount was the next to announce their 100% widescreen policy on March 24 with Paravision 1.66:1 as their house ratio. Universal-International went with Wide-Vision 1.85:1 on March 28; MGM with 1.75:1 on April 3; Columbia announced 1.85:1 Vitascope on April 6 and Warner Bros. went 1.85:1 on May 7.
The last holdout, Republic, finally went widescreen on August 15. By that time, every studio had abandoned 1.37:1 and widescreen, ranging from 1.66:1 to 2.00:1 had become the new industry standard. However, due to concern among exhibitors that had not yet made plans to install new screens, the studios continued to protect for the standard 1.37:1 Academy ratio.
Paramount explains their reasons for 1.66:1 and Universal-International demonstrates their new curved Wide-Vision 1.85:1 screen.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/863533/width/600/height/507

In May, American Cinematographer devoted their entire issue to widescreen and 3-D production. The following illustrations were included to demonstrate how to compose wide while protecting for standard ratio.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/868991/width/600/height/538
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/863505/width/600/height/501

These are the first five movies to begin production specifically composed for widescreen presentation. In addition, all five were released with high fidelity stereophonic sound.
February 24 - THE ROBE - 20th Century Fox - 2.66:1 CinemaScope - premiered September 16, 1953
March 9 - HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE - 20th Century Fox - 2.66:1 CinemaScope - premiered November 4, 1953
March 16 - THOSE REDHEADS FROM SEATTLE - Paramount - 1.66:1, Paravision 3-D - premiered September 23, 1953
March 28 - WINGS OF THE HAWK - Universal-International - 1.85:1, 3-D - premiered August 26, 1953
March 31 - MISS SADIE THOMPSON - Columbia - 1.85:1, Vitascope 3-D - premiered December 23, 1953
Two trade ads emphasizing the panoramic, full stage screen.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/870878/width/538/height/700
Major theaters throughout the country began installing new screens in the summer of 1953. A 12/5/53 survey of 16,753 operating indoor domestic theaters showed that 80% of downtown theaters and 69% of neighborhood theaters had installed widescreens. In total, 58% of all U.S. theaters had gone widescreen by the end of 1953. The conversion was slow in the Southern and North central parts of the country.
It was a time of excitement but also great stress and turbulence for exhibitors throughout the country.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/image/id/868134/width/504/height/700

This article from Boxoffice shows how a typical 600 seat neighborhood theater installed their new screen.

By September 1956, the dust on the various ratios had finally settled and 1.85:1 became the accepted, non-anamorphic industry standard for widescreen presentation. This policy of shooting open matte while composing for widescreen continued in the industry for the next 50 years.
UPDATE: For information on the widescreen shorts, cartoons, serials and newsreels of 1953, see this post: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/319469/aspect-ratio-research/720#post_3974959

 

[John Weller]

With all this evidence, it's astonishing so many 1950s classics are MAR on dvd.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Bob - I'm curious to know your thoughts about the Looney Tunes and other shorts for the mid/late 1950s. The Golden Collections of Looney Tunes were all 1.33:1. Then the first wave of "Super Star" releases came out with the shorts 1.78:1 and many complaints followed, even though these were all post-1954 films. Then on the following "Super Star" releases they had both 1.33:1 and 1.78:1 for post-1954 shorts. Then again on the Platinum Collection Blu-ray the post-1954 films were 1.33:1.

I guess the confusion of these would have been what the animators would have been composing for. The argument against 1.78:1 presentation is that they look VERY cramped and that this indicates the animators did not bother to switch to widescreen. But the theaters, especially by the late 50s, would be showing them matted widescreen, no?

 

[Bob Furmanek]

We don't have any concrete documentation on the WB cartoons. I can tell you that on June 16, 1953 (the same month they resumed feature production with their all-widescreen policy) a New York Times article stated that Warners ordered a halt to all cartoons. It's quite possible when they finally resumed work in the animation department, they were going for widescreen but I can't confirm at this time.
Paramount went widescreen with their cartoons in mid-1953. The announcement for their first 3-D release, POPEYE-THE ACE OF SPACE, mentions 1.66 as the ratio. It looks very good in that format.
So far as other shorts, Columbia went 1.85 in April. However, the bulk of their shorts from that point forward contained mostly older 1.37 footage so the widescreen only looked good in the few minutes of newly shot material.
Universal-International went 1.85 with their shorts as well. The 3-D HAWAIIAN NIGHTS looks great in widescreen.