Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Isle of Dogs DCP aspect ratio

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Posted by Max M. Fuhlendorf (Member # 6342) on 07-30-2018, 05:25 PM:

Hi.

I work as a projectionist in Brazil. Yesterday I went to see the new Wes Anderson movie, Isle of Dogs and it was horrible. Almost all arthouse screens around here are 2.35:1, with no masking on the sides. The film, according to IMDb, was shot in scope, and it was shown as a scope frame inside a flat 1998x1080 container, with portuguese subtitles kept inside the lower black bar; as such, the film was horribly windowboxed, with almost 45% of the screen area left empty;

I was furious assuming a gross projection error, but upon complaining to the manager was told that it was the film's intended exhibition aspect ratio, including the black bars. I didn't believe the manager as they often know very little about projection standards, and contacted the Warner/Fox joint-venture that distributes the film here. They replied that the manager was correct, and that it was the director's decision (I'm assuming they meant Wes Anderson) that it should be shown this way, a scope frame letterboxed inside a flat container, not only in Brazil but all around the world. These are the official instructions (in portuguese, but you can clearly see the CPL name with FLAT outlined in blue:

Does anyone who has seen the film or projected it can confirm this? I find it VERY weird that Anderson would choose this; he is known for playing with multiple aspect ratios in the same film, but in this case the whole film was done in scope, I see no reason why this should be so .

Thanks in advance!
[Confused]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 07-30-2018, 05:46 PM:

Here in the US, the regular version was shown in scope and any version with subtitles/open captions was a flat container with the captions below the image.

Posted by Max M. Fuhlendorf (Member # 6342) on 07-30-2018, 06:21 PM:

quote: Adam Martin
Here in the US, the regular version was shown in scope and any version with subtitles/open captions was a flat container with the captions below the image.

Thanks for the info!

So it seems this was deliberate: no subtitles allowed on top of the actual image. I'd never seen this kind of release before, it was really weird. And a very poor choice in theaters with scope screens.

I wonder if Wes Anderson himself dictated this.. :/

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-31-2018, 07:00 AM:

I've projected both versions of this. The 'Normal' version is 2.39:1, but has subtitles on certain scenes. This means that for the HOH version the HOH subtitles cannot be within the picture area. Therefore the picture, still 2.39, but letterboxed within 1.85. this is not a normal letterbox however, but is offset vertically, with the bottom black bar being about twice as wide as the upper one. The HOH subtitles are located within this lower black area. There is nothing within the top black area, so we had to bring down our top masking to a non-standard position.

Posted by Max M. Fuhlendorf (Member # 6342) on 07-31-2018, 04:33 PM:

Yes, the letterboxed scope image was vertically offset from center, with a much smaller top bar.
Very weird solution.
Translation or HOH subtitles could be positioned outside the film's hardcoded subtitles, to the side for example, and the film could keep it's scope ratio. The way they chose to do it made it pretty much terrible to watch in some screens :/

Posted by Jonathan Jensen (Member # 5870) on 08-02-2018, 06:07 AM:

We had the exact same situation here in Denmark.
It was quite horrible to look at.
<rant>Just another one of those "what are they thinking" moments to the pile of weird aspect ratios and whatnot... grr!</rant>
I am all about creative freedom, but it feels like the filmmaker doesn't consider/care how the film is projected outside the screening room and specially in foreign countries where subs is normal.
In this case the studio did send a notice with the feature, so I guess they did consider it, but do they really care?

Sure, it gives a clear view of the picture, but at what cost?
A projected image that is much smaller than it could have been on a scope screen.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-02-2018, 07:02 AM:

The international DCP release is so seriously f*cked up that I decided to play the Blu-Ray release which eventually allowed me to have the subtitles inside the screen.

It was a brain-dead decision to burn in subtitles into the movie the first place. And even overlapping subtitles aren't as annoying as this clusterf*ck framing...

Someone should lose their sanity card for this mess-up.