TV was cutting into the audiences that typically went to the theater to watch films. “When the television industry said ‘look, we’re going to copy your aspect ratio and lure your films onto our screens,’ the studios decided they would sell their films for smaller screens, but they needed to do something different,” says Michael Carmine, associate chair of technology at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and veteran of film and TV production. Then came TVĪt the dawn of 1950, fewer than 9 percent of homes had TVs, but that number grew to roughly 90 percent by the end of the decade. Wide formats existed during these early years, but audiences-especially those in the theater-were accustomed to the square-ish format from the start. Still, it’s an early example of changing technology causing a shift in film size. Not much changed from the original 1.33:1 (expressed as width:height) format. In 1932, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to mask the top and bottom of each frame with a border to make room for the soundtrack on the film, which resulted in a familiar 1.37:1 aspect ratio, known as the Academy Ratio. The soundtrack appeared optically on the film, which took up space on the film itself. This format endured untouched until the late 1920s when films got sound. In 1909, the Motion Picture Patent company certified it as the standard in order to help keep things uniform for theaters, viewers, and companies that made cameras and projectors. The result was an image that was 0.95 wide by 0.75 inches tall. Each individual photo was the height of four perforations that were cut into the film so sprockets in the camera could move it along as it was exposed. Photographer William Dickinson shot moving images on typical 35mm film for use in a kinetoscope, which was like a projector, but viewers had to watch moving images through a small hole in the machine itself. You can trace the original moving picture format back to Thomas Edison’s lab. This battle over screen formats has existed since the beginning of cinema, and the width of the pictures we see has a lot of determining factors, including biology and, most importantly, technology. Familiar ratios run the gamut from ultra-wide-like the sweeping 2.76:1 scenes of Ben-Hur-to the nearly-square 4:3 format used by movies, and then TV, for so many decades. But, in a way, it feels like a throwback.Īfter all, aspect ratios have changed a lot through the history of entertainment. In the case of the Snyder Cut, it seems likely it has to do with shooting for IMAX, which still embraces the taller, squared aspect ratio for its massive screens. That 4:3 orientation has people thinking back to the days of those fat, square CRT TVs that faded away as flat panels came into prominence. The four-hour movie has some quirks, perhaps the most noticeable of which is its relatively square aspect ratio. It has been updated.Īfter much delay, the Snyder Cut of Justice League has finally made its way onto the HBO Max streaming service. The sound track for the movie appeared on the film, which took up real estate on the substrate and affected the amount of picture that it could capture.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |