16:9 to 4:3 retaining quality

J

JPschmidt

Active member
Hello,

I have a short filming I plan on shooting with my Canon 5D mark ii that I want to be in the 4:3 aspect ratio but still retain full image QUALITY (minus the cut off sides of course)

I own FCP Studio 2, Avid Media Composer, and Premiere

what is the best way for me to do this in your opinion?

a crop or matte or a costume export?

For either can anyone tell me the dimensions for the crop, matte, etc I would need to be proper 4:3

I don't just want to export in SD or shoot in it because of the quality that would be lost in the rest of the image

Thanks!

(if I wasn't clear on anything please let me know.
 
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Why? Is there a particular reason to deliver SD? Pretty much 16:9 HD is the 'standard' in 2011. and if it has to be SD do you want full frame or letterbox?

-Noah
 
It's an art film I'm doing and I want the full quality of the middle of the image to remain.
I want full frame
aspect ratio 1.33

I'm doing it to remind people of the classic era of film, more so life during that time and for other artistic reasons.

Think of it like when watching a bluray of a 1920s silent film or 1940s classic

i want the image quality but with a full frame view.
 
Right so you need to simply shoot and frame for a 4:3 crop. Best way to get your head around this is to shoot some picture frames and work with them in post. You'll be shrinking the 1080p frame down by a certain percentage and cropping off the sides to fit into a 4:3 frame. This is actually a liberating thing because you'll be able to scale down selectively and re-frame in post.

-Noah
 
Right, but I'm asking if anyone has the dimensions i need for the crop to do it accurately

how far in to make each crop roughly and such
 
Well do you want to present as 1080p with a pillarbox- i.e. a matte to make the image look square with the edges cropped off but still work on an HD tv. Or do you want it to be 4:3 standard definition resolution. I'd go with the former- much better quality. In that case you just make a matte for the edges.

Noah
 
Yea probably the former, the film will be digitally projected at a few locations so i'll need to retain the image as its blown up during projection.

How big/far should the mattes come in?
 
This is a simple math question -- you are asking how much to crop if you have a 16:9 screen and a 12:9 source. The numbers are self explanatory. The value in pixels will change depending on whether you are 1080 or 720 -- but again, your grade school instruction in fractions will do the trick.

Cheers,
GB
 
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