Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: High Life (2019) *ASPECT RATIO SWITCH*

This is topic High Life (2019) *ASPECT RATIO SWITCH* in forum Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Julian Antos (Member # 5497) on 04-15-2019, 10:27 AM:

TECHNICOLOR
DCP
1.66* / 5.1 / 2K
TRT is 1:52:53

Credit Slate at 1:44:12
Crawl at 1:48:47

*At 1:41:55, the film switches from 1.66 to 1.85, although the CPL is very clearly 1.66. No note from the studio on how they want this presented, so we mask for 1.66 and open up to 1.85 at the switch.

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 04-15-2019, 02:05 PM:

I saw this film over the weekend. Aspect ratio 1.66. I never saw any switch to 1:85. But maybe I missed it. IMDB shows the film as 1.66

Posted by Julian Antos (Member # 5497) on 04-15-2019, 03:19 PM:

It's possible the venue made a 1.66 screen file for it. We're just opening the masking up when it switches.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 04-15-2019, 11:24 PM:

I was going to go on a rant about this several weeks ago when I did a
couple of press screenings of this flick, but never got around to it.

This is one of the things that really irks me about the Bozos at Netflix,
Amazon Studios, A24, & a couple of other half-assed movie distributors.

It seems that whenever these guys release a title in anything other than
standard FLAT or SCOPE, very often the "body" of the film is in one aspect
ratio, but their opening & closing logos, and sometimes their complete
credit sequences, are in an entirely different ratio. I mentioned this to a
couple of Netflix reps at a major film festival and they were totally clueless
as to what I was trying to explain to them, & when I actually showed them
on screen what I was talking about, I got the impression they didn't care.

As for "HIGH LIFE" - (which I ran in a totally manual booth)
> The opening logo ("A-24") I was able to 'cheat" by careful timing
of the curtain opening so you never realized it was wider than 1:66

> After the last scene in the movie, the first screen of credit text is
for some reason dark letters against a full WHITE 1:85 background.
It's only on screen for about 10sec, so I just let the white spill onto
the masking. As this screening room has manual maskings,
which require running down to the screen to change, I wasn't about to
run the entire 1:66 movie at 1:85 just because these jerks don't know
their aspects from their elbows.

> The rest of the end credits, although also rendered in 1:85, are
composed so that you can run them with the masking at 1:66 with
no problem, although they will be very close to the to the inner
edges of the masking.

(And, curiously there are two columns of credits on screen, one scrolling up,
and the other scrolling down. Not sure why. I didn't care as long as they fit.)

By an interesting coincidence, on same day I did the last press screening
of HIGH LIFE, it was followed 30min later by a press screening of another
movie, in 35mm, which was also 1:66. Whod'a thought that could happen?

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 04-16-2019, 01:05 PM:

I echo Jim's comments. At the Embarcadero Cinema (Aud 1), this creates a problem.

So I arrive and get to my seat. I notice that the masking is set to 1:66. Then the movie starts and their digital projector picks up the 1:85 logo and automatically moves the masking out to 1:85. Thus the audience then watched the entire feature pillarboxed.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-26-2019, 06:48 PM:

I would love to know what server does automatic aspect ratio switching, based on the content inside of a DCP. [Wink]

But we live in a time where both director, distributor and audience are incompetent. Movable masking? Dude, that's so old-school... nowadays we project everything wide open, on an unmasked screen. We could as well just paint a concrete wall white and be done with it...

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 04-29-2019, 07:32 PM:

Marcel, It seems strange to me but the Manager of the Embarcadero insisted (with another movie) that this was the case with their digital set up.