Is 2.35:1 being overused? (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Patterson]

Ryan, so far your arguments have left me puzzled. You obviously seem to be in favor of 1.85:1 over 2.35:1. Why? Both formats have artistic merit.

Let me reiterate why I have at least some favor of 1.85:1 over 2.35:1. As I've indicated above, scope film was originally made for cinerama theaters as a form of competition with television in the 50s and 60s. However, nowadays (at least in my city) the role of scope film has been dramatically reduced to simply being a different shape of rectangle.
Now, put yourself in my shoes and try to get an idea of what that's like after watching movies this way in theaters for many, many years. From my point of view, directors may as well shoot everything in 1.85:1 so that my HDTV's screen is full (and my friends won't complain about the bars), and when I go over to my friends', I don't have to complain so much when I'm forced to watch one of their pan & scan VHS movies.
Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for 2.35:1 and I'm not totally dissing it, because there are movies that do call upon that ratio (although the 'artistic merit' reference is a little over my head). However, like my subject says, I feel it has been overused. Let's just call it personal preference. I suppose if I had the chance to sit in one of those wonderful 2.35:1-built theatres that everybody on this board is raving about, I may change my mind, but for the longest time I have seen no advantage.
Thanks for the input from all of you. I'm starting to look at this from a different point of view and I probably won't complain as much when Zoolander 2 is released in 2.35:1.
Cheers,
Ryan

 

[Josh Lowe]

i think saving private ryan nicely demonstrates that 1.85:1 can work well when telling an "epic story." the techniques used in producing that movie came across so strong that it caused many combat vets who viewed it in theaters to have strong reactions and even flashbacks.

But hey, what does that Spielberg guy know about making movies, anyway? The Fast and the Furious was in 2.35:1, after all.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Actually, I asked some of the View Askew guys why Kevin was doing 2.35:1 for his movies now, especially because he's filming *spit* Super35, and they said it's simply because he has so many #$#@$@ characters in the movies, he wants to be able to get a lot of them in there

 

[Michael Reuben]

Like you John, this is what I can't understand about why a director would choose the 2.35:1 ratio for many movies. I an in need a better explanation of what is involved in these "artistic visions".

No one's going to be able to explain it to you satisfactorily, because the uses of a particular cinematic shape are virtually limitless. What you need to do is spend more time studying the ways different directors and DPs use that space. (Try watching films with the sound off, which is what Steven Spielberg advises aspiring directors to do.)

Look at The Hustler, for example, which is hardly an epic film with wide vistas. Watch how Newman and Piper Laurie are placed in the frame in their scenes together, particularly in relation to each other. What are the visuals telling you about their characters?

Try the same thing with In the Bedroom, particularly in the scenes with Spacek and Wilkinson.

Look at Conrad Hall's Oscar-winning cinematography in American Beauty. Again, look at where people are placed in the frame in relation to each other.

One more example: The Royal Tennebaums, which has perhaps the most stylized visuals in recent memory. Compare how Anderson frames shots containing a single character with those containing multiple characters.

These examples are all off the top of my head. What ties them together is that they don't fit the definition of "epic" films on the scale of Lawrence of Arabia. And yet their creators all used the wider space of a 2.35:1 frame to tell much of the story visually. Could these films have been made in a different AR? Of course. But then they would have been different films.

M.

 

[Michael Reuben]

i think saving private ryan nicely demonstrates that 1.85:1 can work well when telling an "epic story."

And Gone with the Wind demonstrates that 1.33:1 can tell an epic story just as effectively. The notion that 2.35:1 = epic gets repeated constantly on this board, and with all due respect, it's just silly.

M.

 

[GerardoHP]

That's something I still don't understand. 1.85:1 is not supposed to be taller than 2.35:1, just narrower.

 

[Michael Reuben]

1.85:1 is not supposed to be taller than 2.35:1, just narrower.

Exactly. And if you put the dinosaur into the center of the frame at its full height, there will be more space on either side of it with 2.35:1 than 1.85:1. Spielberg has said that he wanted the dinosaurs to fill the frame, which they're less likely to do at 2.35:1.
M.

 

[Scott H]

The notion that 2.35:1 = epic gets repeated constantly on this board, and with all due respect, it's just silly.

Wiser words have not been written in this forum.

 

[Ken Seeber]

From my point of view, directors may as well shoot everything in 1.85:1 so that my HDTV's screen is full (and my friends won't complain about the bars),(snip)

I'm sorry, but this is too much. Movies are not TV shows, period. If your friends complain about the black bars, that's your problem, not the film industry's --- or ours. With a 2.35:1 film, the size of the bars on a 16:9 screen are minimal. Your friends are lucky to have a friend like you with a quality set-up. They should learn some manners and thank you for having them over to watch a movie on a nice screen instead of complaining about something they know nothing about.

 

[Colin-H]

Interesting, tangential factoid about Spider-Man's aspect ratio:
One of Sam Raimi's original ideas of how to convey spider-sense was to shoot the movie in scope, but crop the sides of the frame 99% of the time and only open it up when Spidey is experiencing an episode of spider-sense.

 

[John Watson]

The point that movies are not made for tv is belied by the amount of revenue that movies hope to gain from home viewing.
Does anyone even know what this revenue might be as a proportion of movie profitability? I imagine it is far from insignificant.
So if studios start to dumb down the director's OAR with P&S so as not to alienate a large part of the home video market, they are probably trying to maximize revenue.
"Being There" had a good line about proportion - Chauncey Gardner gets to say "Mr President, you looked much smaller on TV". And it's one of the movies I would much rather have been in the 1.85:1 world. I'll look at "The Hustler" again tho.

 

[Michael Reuben]

The point that movies are not made for tv is belied by the amount of revenue that movies hope to gain from home viewing.

That's certainly true today, but it's important to remember the history. The 2.35:1 AR has been in use for about 50 years. By contrast, the reliance on mass-market home video sales and rentals for a major portion of a film's revenue is a recent phenomenon (app. 12-15 years). This entire thread proceeds from the ass-backward assumption that the shape (or shapes) of TV screens should drive the shape in which movies are filmed. But for most of their existence, movies were made for the theater, and I think that's still how most filmmakers try to make them today. The home video version is an adjustment, a compromise. A big part of HTF's philosophy and "mission statement" is that there should be as little compromise as technology permits.

M.

 

[Ray Chuang]

I think for now the vast majority of movies shown in theaters will be shot and projected in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

The reason is simple: 1.85:1 is the default hard-matted aspect ratio of Panavision and Arriflex movie cameras, the de facto standard for movie cameras used by the major movie studios. One of the reasons why HDTV (the original proposed and current final standards) chose the 16:9 aspect ratio was because it closely matched the 1.85:1 aspect ratio of the movie cameras I mentioned.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Ray,

I'm sure ScottH (HTF's resident cinematographer) can come in here and get the facts out, but I don't believe that the cameras have any hard-matting in them unless the cinematographer asks for it. Most 1.85 films are only soft-matted in theaters while the full negative area is exposed in-camera. I've run hundreds of 1.85 35mm prints through my hands as a projectionist and there were probably fewer than two dozen that were actually hard-matted.

 

[DeeF]

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but I might as well be the goat here.

What would be so wrong with showing a movie in the theaters scope, and then opening up the mattes for the television version?

Everyone has suggested that these are different mediums, and should be treated differently.

I'm not advocating pan and scan, I'm suggesting that HBO got "Gladiator" right -- they opened up the mattes.

The problem with the scope ratio on television, is that it has less impact than other ratios, and its original purpose (in the theater) was to have more impact.

By the way, it is true that theaters do not always project movies at a consistent height. Some do, some don't, and it was always this way. For Todd-AO movies in the 50s, Mike Todd worried about his narrower (2.1) width, but was reassured that the impact would be fine, because he would get greater height for the width.

I wish my home theater would project consistent height (and variable width), with consistent resolution. So I could watch all movies with similar impact they would have had in the theater.

 

[Michael Reuben]

What would be so wrong with showing a movie in the theaters scope, and then opening up the mattes for the television version?

My apologies if I've misunderstood your suggestion, but it seems to me that there are several things wrong:

1. If the film was shot with anamorphic lenses, there are no mattes to open up. The only choice is to crop off image at the sides.

2. If the film was shot in the Super35 format (as Gladiator was), you can't simply "open up the mattes". Each shot has to be reframed. See the demonstration on the Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition disc.

3. If the film contains any effects shots -- and these days most films do -- they have most likely been rendered in the theatrical aspect ratio, with no extra room above and below. So at least in those shots, there are no mattes to open up (see item 1).

Again, it's worth stressing that HTF has an official policy supporting the preservation of a film's OAR. Opening up mattes is simply inconsistent with such preservation.

M.

 

[Patrick McCart]

2. If the film was shot in the Super35 format (as Gladiator was), you can't simply "open up the mattes". Each shot has to be reframed. See the demonstration on the Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition disc.

That was done to a higher degree for T-2. Most Super-35 films (sans CGI shots) simply have the entire height of the frame exposed, with slight cropping on the sides.

O Brother Where Art Thou? is like this. I'm pretty sure, however, that the handful of CGI shots in the film were done at 1.78:1 and cropped a little more on the sides.

 

[DeeF]

So, Patrick, are you saying that Gladiator did merely open up the mattes (except for CGI shots) for the HBO showing?

Just to be clear, I wouldn't advocate changing any movie already made.

I just think it's not a bad idea, overall, to consider where your movie is going to be shown, both in the theaters, and on television. Theaters is just one venue -- but movies have a much longer life in the home now.

Widescreen wouldn't have existed at all without the studios demanding it. Filmmakers seem to have been happy with the original Academy AR. In fact, we wouldn't even have the term "original aspect ratio" without the fact that these things have been altered for other mediums.

I think the main objection to altering the AR is when information is lost. But if no information is lost...

"Spiderman" was certainly effective in 1.85:1, as tall and wide as the front wall of the theater I saw it in. I can't imagine it cropped down to 2.35:1.

By the way, I don't mean to make waves. I know this site is set up for advancing OAR of widescreen movies for television. I'm certainly happy when I get OAR -- because I find panned and scanned movies to be a little incoherent, and I can't figure 'em out.

 

[Michael Reuben]

O Brother Where Art Thou? is like this. I'm pretty sure, however, that the handful of CGI shots in the film were done at 1.78:1 and cropped a little more on the sides.

"Handful"? As I recall, all or most of the footage was scanned into the digital realm for various manipulations and then rendered back to film. O Brother is a perfect example of a film that doesn't appear to have FX at first glance, but is actually loaded with them.

M.

 

[Nick_Scott]

That was done to a higher degree for T-2. Most Super-35 films (sans CGI shots) simply have the entire height of the frame exposed, with slight cropping on the sides.

A few directors have admitted (including one here) that they specifically use Super35 so the picture will look good later on with the 4x3 video market. So the film was framed both for 1:33 and 1:78 at the same time.
Perhaps that means both ratios are OAR since that it what the director intended.

-Nick