Framing a shot for 2:35:1 masking...

M

mus

What does cropping a regular 16:9 shot into a 2:35 shot actually achieve? I've heard some people suggest changing it to this format in post-production but does it honestly make your shot feel more cinematic?
 
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It makes it look like widescreen cinema, because it has the same shape.
But when you haven't shot it with that intension, you might just destroy your compositions and lose visual information in your story.
 
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WalterB said:
You cut off pixels = no gain.
You get a 21:9ish look instead of 16:9. You must decide whether you gain something or not.
Click to expand...

The gain is that when cropping the image you can re frame your shot Vertically if needed. Besides 2:35:1 looks awesome and is a film like signature imo :D
 
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It can be effective, especially in wide panoramic shots and if you buy into Stu Maschwitz's concept of taking away information in film (or video) to give the illusion of something magical.

Keep in mind with the cameras that most of us use we go from 1920 X 1080 to:

1920 divided by 2.4 = 1920 X 800, which can work on the small screen, but is a hindrance at festivals IMO.

I'm leaning toward 1.85:1 myself which will give you a slightly more rectangular shape than the home TV to say this is a movie when viewing on the big screen. Tons of 1.85 movies out there and you're still in the ballpark of a 2K presentation.
 
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I prefer 1.85 or around there more, cause on these no budgets, you can't do much art direction with the locations given, so by shooting at 1.85 I can block out a lot of unwanted things, that I can't normally do anything about on location.
 
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