Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 'Man on a Train' trailer compressed. How/Why

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Posted by Bill Langfield (Member # 818) on 07-26-2003, 01:37 PM:

Hey,

Following on from Jeff Joseph's thread "Weird trailer for 'Secondhand Lions'".

<q>I saw "Pirates of the Caribbean" today, a scope film. Attached was a trailer for "Secondhand Lions". The image for the trailer filled the scope screen. But: Everything looked too skinny. I don't see how this is possible. If they accidently showed a flat trailer with the scope lens, then everybody would look too fat. I don't see what circumstance would make everybody look too skinny. Has anyone else noticed anything odd about this trailer? I should add that it only looks slightly skinny.... not like, for example, running a scope trailer with a flat lens.</q>

I too have a similar question but in reverse for 'Man on a Train'

I'll try to explain (Like Jeff tried above) The trailer when you first look at it kinda of looks like it should be in scope, everything looked compressed, however the subtitle text looked ok. But I thought, No way. Shut the dowser and rotated to scope on opening back up it was clear to me that is was a matte 1.85:1 when I saw the tiny 'letterbox' picture, so I changed it back to W/S.

It really looks compressed. Has anyone else ran this trailer or film?

According to IMDB the film was shot was shot in scope.

Bill.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-27-2003, 10:13 AM:

Bill,

Never underestimate the perversity of film-makers. I ran a Chinese import that sometime into the first reel, the image became compressed as if it were an anamorphic picture, rendering everyone compressed horizontally. These scenes went on so long that I was convinced that somehow I was supposed to project this thing in scope but the instructions that would have warned me about this did not follow the print. Just as I made the decision that at the next change-over I was going to go to scope, the picture returned to normal (flat and no distortion). Good thing for me before I made a big mistake.

Then there's the section in HEAD, an 80 title, where the film looks like it is burning in the gate. By the time the prints made it to the second and under belly runs, the warning notes that explained what was going to happen on the screen invariably got lost and the unsuspecting projectionist would slam the dowser down to protect the print, much to his embarassment.

Frank