Why An Aspect Ratio?

wheatgrinder said:
To me thats the best reason to go wider then 16x9. A little wiggle room can help in the edit.
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Wheat, what did you actually crop to in the end? Although you make a good point (it's something I have considered (and tried) in the past), did you not worry that, not actually planning for a wider movie, you would risk being forced to crop certain bits that you didn't want to lose, or leaving yourself with too little headroom?

I'm thinking, for my own project, I will shoot 16:9, so everything is safe, then see if I can get away with cropping to 1.85:1, just for a bit of a wider look.


p.s. And while this is all good, I still have no explaination for my "Scream" DVD?!? Can anybody suggest why it's so wide? Does anyone else own a copy of "Scream", so they could check their version out?
 
I think no one has a reason to shoot in 4:3 nowadays. When I see footage in that ratio it now looks incredibly unprofessional.

Pretty sure widescreen generally looks better because it is closer to our field of vision. I mean what we see isn't exactly square, it's very panoramic in a sense. I just did a search and can't seem to find evidence of this.

Anyway I think OP is more concerned about 1.85:1 (or I spose 1.78:1) vs 1.40:1
 
I personally think that low-budget looking stuff works in 1.78:1 or sometimes 1.85:1. When I see stuff that's obviously been shot on a handycam or DSLR cropped to 2.40:1, I immediately think the filmmaker has done so in an attempt to increase their production values, rather than because it really supports their story or looks better.
I think 2.40:1 only works if you have the production values and story to support it.
 
On one hand, I actually agree with whomever said that if you have to ask, then 16:9 is best for you. The reason I think this is because, in my opinion, the most legit reasons to go more wide than that all involve some fairly complicated cinematography, special lenses, etc.

So, unless you're really at least a somewhat experienced cinematographer (I'm not), and you know exactly why you want the wider aspect ratio, then I think it makes more sense to shoot and edit your movie to be optimized for the screen most people will see it on, which nowadays means 16:9.

On the other hand, I also appreciate the logic that if you like something, you don't need to justify why you like it. If you like it you like it, so F' it, if you wanna go wider than 16:9, just do it. :)
 
mad_hatter said:
Wheat, what did you actually crop to in the end? Although you make a good point (it's something I have considered (and tried) in the past), did you not worry that, not actually planning for a wider movie, you would risk being forced to crop certain bits that you didn't want to lose, or leaving yourself with too little headroom?

I'm thinking, for my own project, I will shoot 16:9, so everything is safe, then see if I can get away with cropping to 1.85:1, just for a bit of a wider look.


p.s. And while this is all good, I still have no explaination for my "Scream" DVD?!? Can anybody suggest why it's so wide? Does anyone else own a copy of "Scream", so they could check their version out?
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"Plannings" not my strong suite.

Nothing really that interesting happens in the top or the bottom of the frame... except when it does :)

In my current project "The Long Road Out Of Town" I do a fake "tilt" in post to catch important detail low in the frame, then tilt up to catch the important detail high in the frame.. subtle and over a long shot it works.. at least to me, well see if anyone calls me on it. EDIT: I just noticed that in my reel below you can see this shot starting at about 2:05.. its broken up in the reel, but is one continuous in the movie itself.. Important to note that this project utilizes big wide land scape shots that rock in the wide aspect..

You can see some of those shots in my Cinematography reel. https://vimeo.com/61100769. (the shots with timecode are from two projects both in the wide aspect..
 
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I've reframed/manually pan & scanned an entire video of a community theater performance. It was destined for standard def, but shot on high def with another standard def camera off to the side of the stage for use as a cutaway camera.

While not ideal, and certainly not a good example of anything even remotely cinematic it worked out nicely and the entire cast was thrilled to get a copy. It sort of ended up looking like I shot it with a robotic camera arm with pans, tilts/etc. Not bad considering it was a locked off shot from 3/4 of the way to the back of the house, and I was part of the cast.. lol
 
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