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Author Topic: Custom Aspect Ratios Sascha F. Roll Expert Film Handler Posts: 140 From: Berlin, Berlin / Germany Registered: Sep 2015 posted 10-12-2016 06:34 PM                     quote: Matt Smith Cafe Society is indeed marked as F-200 in the UK, as is The Girl With All The Gifts. I believe American Honey is marked F-137, at least the trailer is... German DCP name for American Honey: AmericanHoney_FTR-2_F-133_EN-DE_DE_51_2K_UP_20160920_MPS_IOP_VF  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 11-13-2016 11:57 AM                     Storaro's vision for Univisium is that 2-1 is the best balance between the 2.2-1 and 1.78-1 aspect ratios—not sure that I quite agree with it, but his original outline for the process comes from the 35mm release days, in which he was a main proponent of 3-perf shooting and prints. The 2-1 aspect ratio, incidentally, is not anything new, and was one of the four flat widescreen formats rolled out in 1953 by Hollywood. Universal used it in their viewfinders for all of their films up to at least 1960, and Paramount suggested it as the maximum ratio for VistaVision productions. The idea, I believe, was to get maximum real estate on fixed ratio screens that were mostly being installed at 2-1. Many theaters were cropping 'scope titles on the sides and 1.85 titles on the top and bottom.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-03-2017 10:10 PM                        20th Century Women is marked Flat, but also has the letter boxing, although it is somewhat sloppy, the top "frameline" coming and going throughout the feature.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 02-03-2017 11:21 PM                        La La Land is 2.55:1, but letter boxed for Scope. I wonder if any common height theatres are able to open their masking wider than Scope so they could play this without letter boxing.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 02-05-2017 11:21 AM                    They included a note saying not to blow it up to fill screen height but naturally they are assuming doing so would lose the sides and defeat the 2.55 : 1 effect. At some old movie palace with a 2.55 screen that could do so without cropping it would be great. It's unfortunate that no chart was included. Even "Jackie" (1.66 : 1) had a chart. There was nothing I could do about my first screening for press but for subsequent guild screenings I added masking to the bottom of the screen (we are common height) and moved the image to the top for a perfect 2.55 : 1.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 02-07-2017 06:46 AM                     quote: Jack Theakston The 2-1 aspect ratio, incidentally, is not anything new It's certainly not new. It was used in 1929-30 for the few Fox Grandeur titles, and possibly some of the other wide film formats of the same era. It was also used for the original Superscope format in the '50s.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-09-2017 10:28 AM                        Jackie is 1:66 and marked F-166, so, Yay, someone is doing it right. It also contains a 1:66 test pattern, which is helpful as the feature is locked so we can't test it.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-10-2017 07:34 AM                        It certainly sounds like directors and cinematographers these days are no longer terribly concerned about screen masking in the theatres -- if they are so cavalier about using nonstandard ARs, they must be award that masking stops are not configurable to any random, odd positions. Bottom line, with so many theatres not bothering to use mask at all (just saw HACKSAW RIDGE with a big swath of black at least a foot above the bottom mask and ONLY at the bottom of the screen -- what was THAT about?), and when the public sees images that are letterboxed on their TV screens all the time, they have become conditioned to see it as not being "wrong" at all when they see it in theatres. Why worry about your nonstandard AR not fitting within a masked frame, when standard films with standard ARs don't fit either? Just let those pillar bars and letterboxed images sit were wherever they may....I guess as long as the all the image lands on SOME part of the screen, it's all good. Admittedly, this negative trend was born directly out of digital presentation; you never saw this kind of sheet with digital -- visible missing picture was anathema in exhibition. I guess the industry tried, but for all the effort to correctly identify ARs with those long, unnecessarily human-unfriendly ID code strings (really, they couldn't add a file with unambiguous, human language to alert the end-user as to any and all unusual oddities about the attached feature? It's not like we didn't do it with film...remember those frames in the leader: "Play this feature X amount above average sound level for this theatre"?. End result is, way too many questions still seem to be posted on these pages relating to "why the hell doesn't this picture fit on my screen properly." And there is no reason for it -- and given there IS a DCI spec for screen masking, why isn't one of them, "The image perimeter shall meet black masking on all four sides" and be done with it. BTW, I guess no one was worrying about a little thing like bottom-only letterbox on the screen at the HACKSAW RIDGE screening, since they also weren't worrying about the 1/3rd of the image being washed out with red light hitting it from a needlessly super-intense EXIT sign a few feet way. That sign, if anyone took a moment to care about it, could easily have been dimmed down to about 1/5th of its intensity and still been effective. It also could have been aimed AWAY from the screen; there's no reg that says the exit signs have to be flush with the wall they are on. I guess management was busy making sure everything was 100% perfect at the block long concession bar -- whatever is going in those ugly, tortured "cinemas" rooms is just an insignificant, second thought.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2017 08:07 AM                        Frank, I think you are making great assumptions about what filmmakers know or care about. They tend to see their films in screening rooms that are set up to meet their exact specs, or at exclusive premieres, also tech checked to death (if they even watch their films at premieres where they are probably working the press). Granted a few know what it is like in the real world, but they are a small minority.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Dvoskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1869 From: West Milford, NJ, USA Registered: Jan 2001 posted 02-10-2017 08:31 AM                     Perhaps Cafe Society 2.0:1 was Woody Allen's choice. I ran Woody Allen's Manhattan back in 1979, and this scope/anamorphic film came with a letter in the film cans asking theatres to adjust their masking to 2.0:1. I remember this because I saved the letter, and came across it a few years ago while cleaning the basement. Like most venues, we did not have aperture plates for 2.0 Anamorphic, so we just ran it at 2.35. I don't remember any SuperScope like black bars on the sides, but that was almost 40 years ago, so my memory on this may be suspect.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-10-2017 09:03 AM                     The cinematographer of Café Society is Vittorio Storaro. Now, concerning aspect ratios, read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Univisium - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-10-2017 02:06 PM                        Manhattan is getting a 4k re-release right now. I'm curious to see what the actual aspect ratio will be.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 02-10-2017 05:41 PM                     quote: Martin McCaffery It also contains a 1:66 test pattern, which is helpful I've been offloading & saving all these "off" aspect ratio framing charts to a USB thumb drive whenever I encounter one. Never know when it might come in handy. As for "Univision"- - I guess I'd better hold on to that spare 3-perf Simplex intermittent movement I've got. I might need that again too. I used it quite a bit some years back to run super-35 dailies that were later up-printed to full frame anamorphic.  |  IP: Logged Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 06-21-2017 11:54 AM                     What the actual hell has Michael Bay done with Transformers 5? It has a mix of about 12 different aspect ratio's in one film. As well as not being in scope (like the last 4 were). Watching the aspect ratio changes in the trailer gave me a headache, a 2 hour film is going to be a nightmare.  |  IP: Logged Philip Jones Film Handler Posts: 90 From: England Registered: Dec 2011 posted 06-21-2017 12:09 PM                     Yes we got an email about it stating: "The aspect ratio setting on your projector should be set to a standard 1.85 FLAT Much of Transformers: The Last Knight was filmed with IMAX cameras. During playback the picture will occasionally change from letterbox to non letterbox. This was intentional by the filmmaker."  |  IP: Logged

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