![]() By putting an animal thick elements in front of the cameras taking lens, they could squeeze a wider image onto a regular 1.33 frame. They repurposed French technology invented to give tank drivers a wider field of view. But before it could go mainstream, a better solution was required.Ģ0th Century Fox developed the answer, the system they called CinemaScope. In the cinema, three synchronized projectors seamlessly stitched the triptych back together on a huge 90 foot wide screen. On set, three 35 millimeter cameras was sandwiched together in an arc. To solve this problem, in 1952, Cinerama was devised. Using larger film stock or cropping the standard academy ratio, all incurred different challenges. It’s a format they had experimented with, but never with any lasting success. In the 1950s with theater revenues dropping, Hollywood looked to widescreen to pull audiences back to the cinema. It’s just not comfortable.įor over 60 years, 1.33, or 1.375 which allowed room for an optical soundtrack, reigned supreme. Look at the difficulty that the filmmaker encounters in this example below when trying to fit two points of interest into one frame. It doesn’t tend to handle two things very well. In fact, the 1.33 frames seems most effective when it only has a single point of interest or focus. Because at the frames lack of width, important compositional elements are often positioned vertically within the frame. As 1.33 is more square, you can see why it excels with depth staging. Depth or recessive staging works much better.ġ.33 gives more room to compose vertically than wider aspect ratios. Horizontal arrangements often called “clothes line staging” can make the frame look cramped. Larger groups of people can present a challenge. Groups of two can produce a very intimate frame. ![]() It is difficult for the background to cause a distraction because we do not see much. The face can fill the frame, yet it doesn’t feel confined. We’re going to consider how composition and staging have changed, focusing on three types of shots, singles, groups, and environmental. Let’s see how aspect ratio shaped cinema. As is often the case, circumstance and technological limitations played a significant role in cinemas development, a pattern that we will see repeated. Instead of working from the size of the frame outwards, they worked from the size of the film inwards. And so the first movie aspect ratio is created.ġ.33 is less deliberate than you might think. For reasons unknown, Dickson settles on the image being four perforations high. The only decision that remains is the height of the frame. As the film is run through the camera vertically, the width of the frame is decided. Dickson takes the film, cuts in half, punches 64 perforations every foot, and 35 millimeter film is born. Kodak was already manufacturing roll film for use in their popular box cameras. In Edison’s employment was an engineer named William Dickson. But before his team could build their first motion picture camera, they needed to establish the size of the film they would use. SOURCE footage width (640) DIVIDED BY 1.In 1888, Thomas Edison filed a document with the US Patent Office in which he conceived of a device that would do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear. ☞ 4:3 to 16:9 Regular Widescreen Aspect Ratio: SOURCE footage width (1920) DIVIDED BY 1.85 = 1038px tallĪs a ‘bonus’, here is the method for converting your 4:3 aspect ratio video to regular 16:9 widescreen (assuming 640×480 footage): ☞ 16:9 to 1.85:1 / Academy Flat / “Flat” Aspect Ratio: SOURCE footage width (1920) DIVIDED BY 2.35 = 817px tall ☞ 16:9 to 2.35:1 / Cinemascope / Anamorphic / Panavision Aspect Ratio: If your SOURCE footage is 1280×720, your width would be 1280 if your SOURCE footage is 720×480, your width would be 720 and so on. These are all assuming 1920×1080 footage. ![]() ✏ Here are some examples of aspect ratio conversion methods. – crop 132px from top, 131px from bottom). If it is a decimal number (such as 131.5), even it out to whole pixels (i.e. ✏ To find the amount to crop off the top and bottom, subtract your pixel number (817px here) from your source footage height (1080px) and divide it by two. To convert from any aspect ratio to a wider format (such as 2.35:1 or 1.85:1), all you have to do isĭIVIDE the WIDTH of your SOURCE footage (1920 in this example) by the final aspect ratio desired (2.35 in this example).
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