Aspect Ratios, Widescreen Mattes and DVDs

C

Calvin3

Member
Hi all,

Filling out an application form for a film festival and its asking my aspect ratio. I shot on 35mm, but am outputing to DVD for exhibition in this particular festival. I had the 35mm transferred to DV to edit on FCP. The transfer was to full frame 4x3, but that's not what we shot. To remove the keyframe numbers (and to get back to our shooting ratio) I dropped a widescreen matte on my complete sequence in FCP and then burned the DVD. From the purposes of viewing, it looks like widescreen, but as far as the actual aspect ratio on the DVD, isn't this going to be 4x3?

Any clarification would be a great help. Thanks,

L.
 
What was the aspect ratio of your widescreen matte?

Why did you shoot 35mm and then transfer to miniDV? Seems like you would at least transfer to HD to preserve the dynamic range a little better.
 
When I open up the matte filter on the sequence in FCP, it shows Widescreen and 1.66:1 under type. I'll give it a look in the manual, but if there's an easy translation as to what this means, I'd appreciate.

As to the 35mm transfer, it was actually telecined to Digibeta and DVCam. I'm working from the DVCam footage, which has the keyframe numbers. The res is pretty high and the 35mm looks beautiful. The initial plan was to edit the DVCam, online the digibeta and then go back out to the 35mm. Of course that was when i was living in LA. Now I'm in the middle of nowhere with no post vendors to make deck procurement /neg cutting/etc easy. Thus the output on DVD for the time being. At least for these festival entries and for exhibitions that accept DVD.
 
Well, your aspect ratio is going to be 1.66:1. You don't want them to blow up the actual black bars on the matte. If they did that your matte would show up on the screen, and of course you wouldn't want that. Your best bet is to get with the people that will blow it up and get the required specs from them. Each facility has different requirements.
 
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