I am clueless

[MikeQ]

my movies have black bars across the top and bottom of them.

are they supposed to?

[mattepntr]

my movies have black bars across the top and bottom of them.

are they supposed to?

Hi Mike,
Here's a somewhat simplified explanation...

In the movie theater, movies come in two varieties: widescreen and Panavision.

A widescreen image is 1.85:1, meaning if the screen is 10' high, it's 18 1/2 ' wide.
A Panavision frame is 2.35:1, meaning if the screen is 10' high, it's 23 1/2' wide.
Movie theaters vary somewhat in how they present these, but these are the actual
dimensions of the film image.

These different frame sizes are called aspect ratios.

Televisions come in two varieties: standard and widescreen.

A standard TV image is 4:3. A widescreen TV image is 16:9.

You can see that these two types of presentation (film and video)
don't match each other in terms
of image size. So in order to present a complete film frame on one of these 2 types
of displays, a certain amount of each screen will be left unused, hence the black bars
you see at the top and bottom of the TV screen.
On a standard TV, a 1.85:1 movie will have small black bars visible, and a 2.35:1
movie will have thicker black bars visible. More of the top and bottom of your TV
screen will be unused to display the wider image.
On a 16:9 TV, a 1.85:1 movie will more or less fill the screen. You may see very very
small black bars on the top and bottom. A 2.35:1 movie will show somewhat thicker
bars, but not nearly as much as a standard TV will.

Movies on DVD are usually available in two varieties: Full Screen (also called pan
and scan) and widescreen. Full screen crops the sides of the film image off in order
to make it fill the screen vertically. This annoys some film purists, so DVD's also
come in Widescreen, which leaves the dimensions of the film image intact, but
shows a certain amount of black at the top and bottom.

Does that help?;)
Rick

[sensibull]

Great explanation, Rick! Now, if only someone could explain to me why they continue to make films in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Don't they realize how much it annoys owners of 16:9 televisions? ;)

[mattepntr]

Great explanation, Rick! Now, if only someone could explain to me why they continue to make films in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Don't they realize how much it annoys owners of 16:9 televisions? ;)

Not as much as it annoys owners of 4:3 televisions...:D

[mattepntr]

The history of how all this came about is pretty fascinating, but if
you're not in the mood for a history lesson, just skip this post....

Back in the dim dark days when motion pictures were invented, they
settled on 35mm film shot and projected at 24 frames per second.
35mm film is 35mm's wide. It has perforations running down each
side, called sprocket holes. These sprocket holes fit in gear teeth
inside the camera or projector. The gears spin, pulling the film through
the camera from the feeder magazine to the takeup magazine. Each single
exposed frame is 4 perforations high. The dimensions of this frame (ironically)
are 4:3, also called Academy ratio.
So all the old classics like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With The Wind" will
fit perfectly on your standard TV: no cropping and no letterboxing required.
It's a perfect 1-to-1 fit. The Academy ratio is one of the reasons why standard
TV's are 4:3 to begin with.
Along comes the 1950's, and movie exhibitor's start to see audience attendance
fall as more and more people buy TV's. Why go out when you can enjoy entertainment
in your very own living room? They get scared and begin to scheme. "How can we
get audiences back? We'll have to give them something they can't get at home!"
And WHAM! Cinemascope is born. A Cinemascope film frame is 2.35:1. Interestingly,
it is created using a standard Academy ratio film frame. What's different is the lens
used to shoot and project it. During photography, a lens (called an anamorphic lens)
is put on the camera. This lens puts a 2:1 horizontal squeeze on the image. If you
examined a piece of film shot this way, everything looks tall and skinny. When you
project it, you use an anamorphic lens that does the exact opposite: it expands the
the image in a 2:1 ratio. This gives you a pleasantly wide image to watch in the
movie theater. This format has persisted to the present day, now just called Scope
or Panavision. A non-anamorphic movie is sometimes just called "flat".
(Side note: one way to tell which kind of movie you're watching is to look at light
flares in the picture, like headlights and flashlight beams. In a flat format film, lights
will be surrounded by a circular flare (like the flashlights in "E.T.") and in a Scope
picture light flares will be oval shaped. This is because the aberration that creates
light flares is behind the anamorphic element in a lens. So even in a scope film,
lens flares are circular. But when expanded during projection, they are stretched
out to ovals. The flashlight flares in "Alien" are oval-shaped.)
Now, Cinemascope movies are more expensive to make. You have to rent special
lenses, and you have to build more set, since the camera sees more of it. So somewhere
along the way, somebody came up with a compromise. This format displays a 1.85:1
image, and it's created much more simply. You simply crop the top and bottom of
the Academy ratio off, blow up the image a little bit and you have 1.85:1. That's
what they still do today.

Over the years, there have been a lot of variations on this theme. There's Cinerama
(three cameras each shooting Academy ratio images), 70mm (a larger film frame
with higher definition), Todd-AO (using a 30 frames-per-second frame rate), Showscan
(70mm film using a 60 frames-per-second frame rate), Vistavision (35mm film
running horizontally through the camera exactly the same way that 35mm still cameras work),
Imax (70mm film running horizontally) and on and on. 3D comes in and out of
fashion every couple of decades.
But for the present, we have 35mm 1.85:1 and 2.35:1.

Rick

[MikeQ]

wow!!

I guess that means that there is nothing I can do. Which makes me feel better cause I tried everything.

Thanks a lot for your insight!

[metalaaron]

rick always has some really cool info about the movie industry. always a fun read.

rick i think we're seeing the 50s all over again. what do you think the theatres can do to compete with the ever increasing quality of the home theatre experience?

[mattepntr]

Thanks for the comment!
I don't know that the problem really is the increase in quality of
home theater so much as it's the decreasing quality of the movie
theater experience.
Like a lot of you, I have some fancy schmancy HT gear. But how
many times have I roamed the new releases rack at my local video
store and just sighed? Too many to count....

1) Content. Everybody's chimed in on this. MAKE BETTER MOVIES.
Hollywood's reasons for greenlighting movies have changed so drastically
in the last 30 years. But the problem has finally reached critical mass.
Today's bottom line- The Opening Weekend. The vast majority of Hollywood
product reaches production because they know they can sell it well enough
that regardless of quality, it'll have a cool poster and a kickass trailer.
Everything is aimed at the almighty opening weekend. A film is labeled
a success or disappointment based on that first weekend's take.
"Terminator 3" was greenlit based on 3 things: the title, Arnold, and the
July release date. No script. No director. They greenlit it because they knew
that with those 3 things, the rest didn't really matter. (Luckily, T-3 had a talented
director who cared about the story, so it came out to be a pretty good film.)
Early last year, I got a chance to read the script for the upcoming remake
of "When a Stranger Calls" and was totally amazed and appalled at how truly
Godawful and incompetent it was. This script wasn't just sold, it got made.
Because they had a title and could make a good trailer. So here it is.
How many hundreds if not thousands of worthy, interesting stories get passed
over because they don't fit the formula for a hot opening weekend? Who knows?

2) The moviegoing experience. Who likes going to the movies anymore? It's expensive,
crowded with annoying teenagers on cell phones, and you have to sit through
a half hour of commercials before the film ever hits the screen. It's mind-numbing.
And while the technical quality of the home theater has risen, the technical quality
of movie theaters has fallen. Screens have gotten smaller. Sound is hit and miss.
The death of 70mm presentation in the early 90's pointed to this state of affairs.
Dolby Digital, DTS and SDDS have brought multichannel sound to every movie
and every movie theater, but quality of it's presentation is spotty. For me, going
to the movies is like going to Wal-Mart. I always get home feeling like I need a
shower.
Customer service. Do they care if I ever come back? Make me want to, and I will.

The problems with the system are deep-seated and complex. They didn't spring up
overnight (although it seems like it because of media attention) and they won't be
cured overnight. We'll see.

Rick

[bikeman]

2) The moviegoing experience. Who likes going to the movies anymore? It's expensive,
crowded with annoying teenagers on cell phones, and you have to sit through
a half hour of commercials before the film ever hits the screen. It's mind-numbing.
And while the technical quality of the home theater has risen, the technical quality
of movie theaters has fallen. Screens have gotten smaller. Sound is hit and miss.
The death of 70mm presentation in the early 90's pointed to this state of affairs.
Dolby Digital, DTS and SDDS have brought multichannel sound to every movie
and every movie theater, but quality of it's presentation is spotty. For me, going
to the movies is like going to Wal-Mart. I always get home feeling like I need a
shower.
Customer service. Do they care if I ever come back? Make me want to, and I will.
The problems with the system are deep-seated and complex. They didn't spring up
overnight (although it seems like it because of media attention) and they won't be
cured overnight. We'll see.
Rick
You've nailed it Rick. I can hear the dialog at home. That hasn't happened in a theatre in at least a decade. It's partially my hearing that's to blame but who cares. There's an alternative that works.
Finally got around to watching "Ray" last night. That was some tremendous acting with a good story line. And I heard every word.

David

[metalaaron]

i agree.

it's fine with me though because it's an excellent excuse to bring your date home instead of going to the movies. :cool::p

[mattepntr]

Here's a pretty good Frontline report about modern Hollywood
and why the business acts in the dysfuctional way it does, and
why it may not be able to do so much longer...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hollywood/


Rick

[metalaaron]

this is a very good program. it tells someone like me who missed a lot of those years quite a bit about the industry and how it changed. thanks again Rick.

so are you a spielberg and lucas fan? :p

[mattepntr]

so are you a spielberg and lucas fan? :p

If you're talking about raw talent, then yeah, I'm a Spielberg fan.
Even though I don't think he's made a completely satisfying movie
since "Raiders", no other American director understands (and can
control) the emotional power of pictures and sound the way he does.
He's not an intellectual, or the hippest kid on the block. And I wish he
cared more about the importance of writing.
But when it comes to putting shot A before shot B before shot C, combined
with a precise, specific sound design, all orchestrated to elicit a series of
precise emotional reactions in the viewer from moment to moment, he's
a genius. When he "turns it on", he makes everybody else look like 2nd
year film students. His best stuff are long sequences, usually with little
or no dialogue, where you find yourself so pulled into the movie, you lose
the experience of sitting in a theater. You're just "in the movie". It's Cinema
101. And when he does it, it's exhilarating.

Lucas.......not so much.:rolleyes:

[sensibull]

Even though I don't think he's made a completely satisfying movie since "Raiders"

I've been a huge fan of Raiders since I saw it in the theater at the ripe age of 8, but for my money Empire of the Sun & the Color Purple are infinitely more accomplished films, and I quite enjoyed Minority Report as well...

[linecircle]

This is a very insightful thread. Thanks, Rick :)