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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-12-1999, 02:24 AM:
How does everyone feel about how most trailers are letterboxed these days? Although I don't like cropped pictures, I am willing to make an exception for trailers. Letterboxed trailers can make it look like the projectionist screwed up to the uninitiated. Plus, it's just tacky. This is the movies! Not home video! Ug.
Posted by Aaron Mehocic (Member # 15) on 10-12-1999, 07:36 AM:
I don't really care for letterboxed presentations for two reasons. First, horizontal letterboxed trailers (and verticals for that matter too) do look tacky. When I'm rushed and I got a film with tight framelines, I need to know it is perfectly on the screen. A letterboxed trailer at the start means I got to stay close by the projector to make sure everything is OK. This is hell when I got a film that has to start on the other side of the booth. Second, and this is really not film related, I HATE letterboxed movies on video. Here's why: When I use a video in teaching social studies, I WANT pan-and-scan. We're not there for entertainment and the TV screens in schools are only 14". It's hell trying to show "Last of the Mohicans" letterboxed to 25 kids who want to be somewhere else! "Why won't it get any bigger?" is a phrase I don't look forward to hearing in the classroom or at the theater.
Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 10-12-1999, 01:55 PM:
Letterbox trailers do get a lot of calls to the booth. People don't understand all the time. It is especially worse if it is the first one. INSIDERS is this way, in flat format I believe.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-12-1999, 02:27 PM:
That "Insider" trailer is an excellent example of why trailers should NOT be "letterboxed". The bars wander up and down throughout the trailer and framing is impossible! I really am starting to think no one bothers to screen the check prints anymore. Even the last theater policy I received had the soundtrack start during the countdown leader...followed by matted brown frames. How embarassing is that to run?
Posted by Christopher A Kerr (Member # 151) on 10-12-1999, 04:18 PM:
We don't usually show trailers, but if they are allready on the print when we get it, I don't take them off. We got the Sixth Sense with trailers for The Insider and Mumford on it so I just left them there. I think I'll take them off because they are letterboxed and the customer complaints are diving me insane!Since we don't normally show trailers, when I first started the film(which is flat) on opening night, I thought I had left the scope lense on with the flat aperature plate. I scrambled for a few seconds, trying to figure out what I had done before I realized what was going on. 