Another Assinine Aspect Ratio Decision

[Leo Enticknap]

Leo, we can use the adult words here..I think you were using "Bugger(er)" to put it in UK vernacular

Actually it was "shagger," but you were on the right track. I try to exercise just a tinsy bit of self-restraint on this forum, because it is open to the public Internet, meaning that if a teen in his or her high school were trying to learn about aspect ratios and their Intranet had a bad language censorship filter imposed globally, (s)he wouldn't find this page and thus potentially be denied useful info. But since that particular ship has now sailed, I'm reminded of the urban legend to the effect that Churchill resented having to produce a poem for a school homework assignment to read out in class (the class in question being at Harrow, second only to Eton in the English private school poshness stakes), and so came up with the following:

Using rather significant force
Farmer Jones tried to bugger his horse
He stood up on a stool
and then gave it his all
But received quite a kickback, of course!

Or there is the South Park take: given the illustration, I think they must have had that urban legend in mind...

[Ryan Gallagher]

I'm sure everyone else had already decided on their least favorite. But I've decided F189 or F190 are the most cursed of ratios. We have a festival film that is F190. I get that it is a real aspect ratio these days because of IMAX etc. But it's cursed because it is exactly the native DCI Custom ratio, but due to the industry's cinema capabilities, no one actually delivers it as Custom. Instead they just leave out a bunch of pixels and voila, F190.

It probably still looks dumb on both common height and common width screens unless people take the time to make a proper F190 preset and masking. As I had to tonight ahead of our screening tomorrow.

PS it should ship with a framing chart, it did not.

End Rant.

[Martin Brooks]

And Tarentino did "Hateful Eight" in one aspect ratio...even the intimate scenes held up in Super Panavison 70. (Because he knows how to tell stories and shoot them right.)

It wasn't Super Panavision 70, it was Ultra-Panavision 70 with an AR of 2.75:1. Personally, I thought the Ultra-Pan AR was wasted on this film, especially in today's theaters which are mostly common-width. H8 played at the same width, but reduced height as a Super Pan 70 film.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

It wasn't Super Panavision 70, it was Ultra-Panavision 70 with an AR of 2.75:1. Personally, I thought the Ultra-Pan AR was wasted on this film, especially in today's theaters which are mostly common-width. H8 played at the same width, but reduced height as a Super Pan 70 film.

Thanks, I had my Ultra and Super mixed up when I wrote that.

[Armand Daiguillon]

As far as i'm concerned, all movies should be scope.
That is all.

[James Biggins]

As far as i'm concerned, all movies should be scope.
That is all.

I disagree.

That is all.

[Leo Enticknap]

Movie makers need to understand that the vast majority of theaters are only set up to play two DCI aspect ratios properly: properly meaning light levels, within the zoom range of the lens, the number of (physical) masking presets available, and lens position, screen, and light level calibration files created in the projector. I occasionally do an arthouse or college theater install in which the customer wants F-137, F-166, F-200, S-220, etc. available, nicely masked, correctly lit, and at the touch of a button. We can do that, but it comes at an extra cost, and the site staff need to be trained as to how to cope with the more esoteric ratios than 1.85 flat and 2.39 scope. When a movie director decides to make a production in something other than regular flat or scope and intended for mainstream theaters, or even worse, with multiple ratios within the same movie, (s)he will have to accept that it won't look good in a lot of them.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Movie makers need to understand that the vast majority of theaters are only set up to play two DCI aspect ratios properly: properly meaning light levels, within the zoom range of the lens, the number of (physical) masking presets available, and lens position, screen, and light level calibration files created in the projector. I occasionally do an arthouse or college theater install in which the customer wants F-137, F-166, F-200, S-220, etc. available, nicely masked, correctly lit, and at the touch of a button. We can do that, but it comes at an extra cost, and the site staff need to be trained as to how to cope with the more esoteric ratios than 1.85 flat and 2.39 scope. When a movie director decides to make a production in something other than regular flat or scope and intended for mainstream theaters, or even worse, with multiple ratios within the same movie, (s)he will have to accept that it won't look good in a lot of them.

For sure on the training. We are no where close to "push button" convenience. If we are lucky we have a DCI/ALT preset, a top mask stored, a mark on the lens (if it is something other than F/S), and a spike mark on the manual side masking ropes. Next convenience tier down we resort to a custom DCI/ALT channel and we swap out already existing alternate config files. Worst case we've not seen the ratio before, and time to spin off some new ILS and screen files, mark everything for future re-use.

But having a projectionist per screen per screening is a luxury we still enjoy. Would require a lot of automation and programming and training to get that array of options without that.

That is not even touching on what it takes to land digital backups within our 35mm/70mm masking positions in a somewhat repeatable fashion, (film lenses not exact match to DCI sizing at this time). Is the backup a Blu-Ray? A DCP? hah.

[Jim Cassedy]

Here comes another one:
I've got a special (digital) screening of an upcoming movie later this week, that
will probably be coming your way soon, plus a live intro and Q&A with the director
and main cast member. The aspect ratio is F-189.
Agggggggahhhh!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Here comes another one:
I've got a special (digital) screening of an upcoming movie later this week, that
will probably be coming your way soon, plus a live intro and Q&A with the director
and main cast member. The aspect ratio is F-189.
Agggggggahhhh!

For when you like the ratio of the custom/IMAX container, but the standards discourage you from delivering films to cinemas in a custom container. LOL

Or your camera format is 1.89 and you say yup, that's the one!

[Carsten Kurz]

'The Phoenician Scheme' comes as an F-147 CPL - is this constant, can I leave the masking at our 1.5:1 setting throughout the movie?

[Ryan Gallagher]

'The Phoenician Scheme' comes as an F-147 CPL - is this constant, can I leave the masking at our 1.5:1 setting throughout the movie?

If built and labeled correctly the content will never be beyond 1.47 in that CPL.

If you have no keystone cropping I say go for it, although the instructions were pretty clear about the pillar boxing being intentional. If you do have keystone cropping I would show it masked to F185 but with your cropping removed. It makes heavy use of the frame in an aligned way compositionally, and without regard for image safe crop areas. But that is just how I would show it. ;-)

[Carsten Kurz]

I just returned from a film festival where I watched 'Dust Bunny', featuring Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver. I sat far on the left and believed it was 2.76:1. I looked it up now, and IMDB says it actually is 3:1 !

https://theplaylist.net/dust-bunny-r...tiff-20250911/

[Stefan Scholz]

I just returned from a film festival where I watched 'Dust Bunny', featuring Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver. I sat far on the left and believed it was 2.76:1. I looked it up now, and IMDB says it actually is 3:1 !

https://theplaylist.net/dust-bunny-r...tiff-20250911/

In the past we used to say "Anything that offers a competitive advantage will be done". Now shortened to "If it can be done, we do it."
That is far beyond the capabilities of my vertical masking system, which has a mechanical maximum of 2.76:1 for Ultra pan. It might be an AR of for me unknown smartphone, but it's useless.
The film itself looks interesting, though.

[Ryan Gallagher]

In the past we used to say "Anything that offers a competitive advantage will be done". Now shortened to "If it can be done, we do it."
That is far beyond the capabilities of my vertical masking system, which has a mechanical maximum of 2.76:1 for Ultra pan. It might be an AR of for me unknown smartphone, but it's useless.
The film itself looks interesting, though.

Even that youtube preview looks to be way out there in the widescreen territory. I'd watch the movie though, looks good.

Shame about the non-standard ratio (even beyond the extreme end of things that could loosely be considered standards). Makes me want to check what the widest ratio our top mask motor supports too. It's pretty wide, but maybe not that wide. Bet that one will cause a bunch of confusion when it hits theatres, expect scope container, hopefully labeled S-300?