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Widescreen
Presentations 2 |
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1.85 to 1
Here's where things start to get tricky. Because some directors object to the distortion caused by the anamorphic lenses, or in some cases the very costly cameras and lenses, filmmakers began searching for a different way to make "widescreen" movies. Various methods were developed and tested, but the most popular (and simple) way of shooting a film in widescreen without special equipment the same system used today. The cinematographer uses pre-determined framing marks, located across the upper and lower sections of the camera's 1.33 viewfinder, composing his shots at an aspect ratio of 1.85 to 1 (Figure 3A).While not as wide as CinemaScope or Panavision, 1.85 was deemed the best compromise between shooting in "old-fashioned" 1.33 and shelling out big money for true scope equipment. Now comes the strange part. While films of this sort are composed for rectangular 1.85 projection (Figure 3B) and are indeed seen this way in theaters, the upper and lower portions of the frame, basically dead space, do contain picture information that isn't seen (nor intended to be) theatrically (Figure 3C). When shown on television though, the shape of the video screen mirrors that which exists on the original film frame, creating a perfect match, with no missing information on the sides of the image. Rather, this method gives the viewer more picture at the top and bottom than was seen in theaters (Figure 3D). The original composition is thrown off, however (i.e. close-ups are no longer close, also with all the additional picture information above and below there can be some other problems (see working on the chain gang side-bar), which brings up the subject of "matting." Many films that were shot in 1.33 but composed for 1.85 projection are now frequently "matted" for DVD. That is, black bands are being stripped in electronically across the top and bottom of the video image so that the same rectangular picture that was seen in theaters is duplicated in the home, effectively retaining the original look of the film as intended by the cinematographer and the director (Figure 3E).
1.85 to 1 "Hard Matte" If that isn't enough, a growing number of directors choose to actually matte the film in the camera as it is being shot, the black bands becoming forever a part of the original negative and all subsequent prints (Figure 4A). Known as a "hard matte", this is done for a number of reasons, most notably to ensure that the film is always framed correctly (Figure 4B). However, hard-matting creates a whole new set of problems when it comes time to transfer the film to video. Since the matte is actually part of the film, the only way to have the image fill the entire video viewing area is to enlarge it until the black bands disappear off the top and bottom of the screen, resulting in soft, grainy pictures with a good amount of information lopped off the sides, creating the unpleasant side effect of now having to pan and scan the image (Figure 4C). fortunately, most hard matte films are now presented on laser and DVD with their matte bands intact (Figure 4D). |
1.85 to 1
1.85 to 1 "Hard Matte"
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