2.40:1 or 1.85:1 for music video

Grug

Grug

Veteran
Hi guys,

Shooting my first music video this week and I'm wondering about common frame/aspect-ratio choices for music videos these days. Our location is particularly nice, and well suited to widescreen framing, so I definitely want something wider than 16:9 - but I don't know if 2.40 scope is considered overkill for music videos, so I'm wondering if 1.85 would be a smarter choice? And whether people have a particular preference for one or the other?

Cheers
 
I agree with David on that, I was also recently contracted to direct a music vid. (My first as well) We shot with the gh2+FD'S, After playing around with aspect ratios, I kept it stock. Which i guess would be 16x9. For what I was doing it worked (rap vid)
 
In general, people hate to see any sort of black bars so try do go the 16x9 route.
If your goal is to avoid this format, then go to the closest.
You (and me) as Filmmaker's love the wide CinemaScope formats, but people want to use all their tv or computer screen to watch the video
 
Agree. For a music video only go widescreen if the content warrants it. If it is just the band playing in the wilderness or an effects gimmick then stick with 16:9. The difference between 1.85 and 16:9 (1.77) is negligible and won't make any real difference to the presentation of the location. If the video is a mini-movie with a plot and high production values then widescreen could be considered. Music videos that use widescreen successfully always have a high production value.
 
16x9 is roughly the same as 1:85:1 - so a bit confused as to any major framing differences you'd experience?

If you frame for 2:40/2:39 you're then getting the wider look.

Are you shooting 1080? If so, there's a more definite framing choice than if you're shooting 4K (Red et al), as you have the ability to extract 1080 or pan/scan and reframe within it. But, if you're shooting HD, you have to be more careful with framing (and it can sometime look odd if you end up not posting with the black bars, as your framing can feel strange & isolated).

The other factor is to consider wider lenses if looking at going for a true widescreen look (as anamorphic gives wider horizontals - so a 35mm ana is 35mm Vfov and 17.5mm Hfov), so you might want to use a recitilinear wide angle to help give the widescreen feel.

A current vogue (very popular amongst promos) is the super wide format that is a by product of shooting X2 anamorphics on a 16:9 sensor. When correctly A/R converted, you get the pillarbox slit (approx a third of the screen is image and the rest is black). Personally, I don't like this much - but it's popular amongst the hip-hop crowds and is becoming very mainstream now (artists ranging from Pitbull to the Saturdays have used it... granted, these were shot with anamorphics, but there's no reason you couldn't crop that far, if you pre-compose fro it - and your clients or the Record company might like the added 'production value'... even though we all know it's simply masking and cropping!) ;)

BTW - did you post a similar question on Reduser? I only ask as, if you did, it means you're planning 4K, so you'll get that wiggle room :)
 
What David said. Interestingly though, we in the film and electronics visual arts have an unlimited canvas with which to work. Infinitely wide and infinitely tall . . . except (primarily for technical reasons) we have established practical "standards" for capture and presentation. Among those standards are convenient formats, 4:3, 16x9, etc.; however, as Phenixone said: "people want to use all their tv or computer screen to watch the video". Non-standard aspect ratios create distraction to most people. Subsiquently we are restricted to working within those standards in order to transparently support and convey our thoughts.
Art would seem to be the only visual discipline in which the artist can chose the presentation format (and size), wide, tall, short, long, diagonal, etc. In our case, we are stuck with format standards and must make the best of it.
Since we work within standards it would be most prudent to accept those standards and develop projects with the fewest distractions to our communications as possible.
 
look at Rihannas Diamonds video.... works really well. If it works it works. But Id say it mostly only works narrative or artistic videos.
 
Thanks for your thoughts guys, getting a reasonable look on a standard 16:9 screen is important to me. But, as you guys say, it's down to whether the content warrants it, and in this case I'm pretty certain our location and the framing I had in mind does.

Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers
 
Derek Chingwell said:
16x9 is roughly the same as 1:85:1 - so a bit confused as to any major framing differences you'd experience?
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It doesn't make any difference to framing the shot but does make a difference to the framing the presentation. If it's appropriate the black bars serve to class it up. If it's inappropriate it looks like the cheap trick it is.
 
Egg Born Son said:
If it's appropriate the black bars serve to class it up. If it's inappropriate it looks like the cheap trick it is.
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That's not how you should look at aspect ratio; you should ignore the black bars altogether. They aren't part of the picture. They're just a necessary evil. It's not the bars which make a good picture; it's the shape of the picture. Having black bars because they "look cool" is the same as having shallow depth of field just because it "looks cool." You choose the aspect ratio because it's appropriate for what's between the bars, not because it gives you the bars.

(Not that there are much in the way of bars if you crop 16:9 to 1.85:1.)
 
I don't disagree at all. I'm talking specifically about music videos here and perceptions of the target audience. Films might be displayed on the big screen, tvs, home projectors, with ads, without ads, after the news, before the game etc. While music videos are renowned for having creative licence, they are played back in an unusually fixed presentation format: on the tv and back to back to back with other music videos (EDIT: okay and youtube now, slipped my increasingly middle-aged mind). Viewers key in on the features/gimmicks that differentiate each video in a way that they may be oblivious to in tv/film. A video that doesn't have a gimmick is boring.

My point was that the two aspect ratios are so close that the approach during shooting will be completely unaffected by the choice. The only noticeable difference between the two output formats will be the black bars. A music video viewer will notice them as it is not the expected presentation. Whether they will react positively (hey that's like a film, they put a lot of effort into that one) or negatively (what a pretentious bunch of wankers, pretending they are making a movie) will depend on the content. Music videos that I've seen that uses a 'black-bar' aspect ratio are almost always a high production value mini-movie (often with extended intros and outros) and used as a point of differentiation to make the video an 'event' and denote a 'top-tier' entertainer.

I'm not at all suggesting that in the wider scope of filmmaking (or even in music videos for that matter) that it should be an aesthetic choice devoid of consideration of content.
 
Either way you really need to frame each take for the aimed aspect. I doesn't work to well to just crop in post. Compose the picture when shooting and it will look good regardless of format and then you'll know instantly if it looks right.
 
Editman Sweden said:
Either way you really need to frame each take for the aimed aspect. I doesn't work to well to just crop in post. Compose the picture when shooting and it will look good regardless of format and then you'll know instantly if it looks right.
Click to expand...
You are right about that! I just started learning to do that when I film.
 
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