I was thinking of shooting a film in a 2.20:1 format. 2.40 is a little much for the kind of shots I want, but I don't want 16:9 either, that's a little full for me. So I read that The Wild Bunch was 2.20:1. So I plugged it into the DVD player to get an idea, but the movie plays with a wider screen than 2.40:1. Is 2.20:1 wider or how does that work then?
Question about aspect ratio.
- Thread starter ironpony
- Start date
William_Robinette
Shallow Member
2.20:1 will look closer to 2.40:1 then it will to 1.78:1. 2.20:1 is "taller" then 2.40:1 or however you want to say it. Of course, you are free to shoot a project in whatever aspect ratio you like, the beauty of post matting and digital delivery.
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Ironpony, remember that an image stretched to a certain ratio is not the same as cropping the image to that ratio. While the ratio of width the height will be the same, the image will look different.
If that isn't quite clicking, look at your computer screen. If you were to squish it from top to bottom or pull the sides of it out further to 2.40:1, it would be 2.40:1, but it would look squeezed or stretched. If you were to take a matte, however, that is 2.40:1, and crop out a piece of the screen, the final image would be 2.40:1, of course, but it would not be stretched.
Your TV or the DVD itself may be displaying the film in a ratio other than 2.20:1, its native delivery format. Some TV's have different screen settings - normal, wide, zoom, crop, stretch, fullscreen, etc. - which distort the image. So, if the image actually looks wider than it should to you on your TV screen, this could be in play. You may have better luck trying the DVD on your computer.
Hopefully that made sense.
If that isn't quite clicking, look at your computer screen. If you were to squish it from top to bottom or pull the sides of it out further to 2.40:1, it would be 2.40:1, but it would look squeezed or stretched. If you were to take a matte, however, that is 2.40:1, and crop out a piece of the screen, the final image would be 2.40:1, of course, but it would not be stretched.
Your TV or the DVD itself may be displaying the film in a ratio other than 2.20:1, its native delivery format. Some TV's have different screen settings - normal, wide, zoom, crop, stretch, fullscreen, etc. - which distort the image. So, if the image actually looks wider than it should to you on your TV screen, this could be in play. You may have better luck trying the DVD on your computer.
Hopefully that made sense.
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
It will have black bars on the top and bottom. It won't fill the screen.
If it does, the DVD version has had the sides cropped or your TV is zooming in.
Also, check the back of the DVD case and make sure it says "2.20:1" for aspect ratio.
If it does, the DVD version has had the sides cropped or your TV is zooming in.
Also, check the back of the DVD case and make sure it says "2.20:1" for aspect ratio.
I did and it says 2.20:1. I played the The Dark Knight on the same DVD player. That one is said to be 2.39:1. But it's taller than a 2.20:1 movie on the same TV. I get how to the TV may have a different setting, but now the TV itself is creating it's own double standard and will decide to play a 2.40 at 2.40, but play a 2.20 at 2.60. I don't get the double standard glitch. How does one movie get effected but not another?
My plan was to put my camera on a tripod, and line up the 16:9 view screen with my 16:9 TV, exactly. Then take a still photo of a movie on the TV, then put tape on the top and bottom of my camera view screen and measure the length of the tape with the length of the black bars from a 2.20 movie, since that's the aspect ratio I want. But perhaps this is not the best plan since some movies play in their aspect ratios and some don't. Any other ideas to measure tape on my view screen? Thanks.
My plan was to put my camera on a tripod, and line up the 16:9 view screen with my 16:9 TV, exactly. Then take a still photo of a movie on the TV, then put tape on the top and bottom of my camera view screen and measure the length of the tape with the length of the black bars from a 2.20 movie, since that's the aspect ratio I want. But perhaps this is not the best plan since some movies play in their aspect ratios and some don't. Any other ideas to measure tape on my view screen? Thanks.
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Aspect ratio is pretty simple math.
A 16:9 television is 1.78:1
A 16:7.3 television (or more correctly, a 16:9 television with black bars filling the top 10% and the bottom 10%) is 2.20:1
A 16:6.6 television (the top with black bars filling top and bottom 13%) is 2.40:1
If you want to do the math yourself, start with 1, divide by the aspect ratio (1/1.78 for example) and multiply that by 16 as that is the 'fixed' width of an HD TV -- in this example you get 9 for a 16:9 image.
If you want to mock up a test of a particular look, and find Photoshop or similar intimidating, you could tape a black mask over your television screen -- in the example for 2.20:1 you'd measure the vertical height of your TV screen and make two strips of 10% of the measured value -- on my 54" (described) screen the height of the screen area is 26.75" so to mask it down to a 2.40:1 ratio I'd have to black out a strip 2.7" tall and full width (47") both top and bottom.
Cheers,
GB
A 16:9 television is 1.78:1
A 16:7.3 television (or more correctly, a 16:9 television with black bars filling the top 10% and the bottom 10%) is 2.20:1
A 16:6.6 television (the top with black bars filling top and bottom 13%) is 2.40:1
If you want to do the math yourself, start with 1, divide by the aspect ratio (1/1.78 for example) and multiply that by 16 as that is the 'fixed' width of an HD TV -- in this example you get 9 for a 16:9 image.
If you want to mock up a test of a particular look, and find Photoshop or similar intimidating, you could tape a black mask over your television screen -- in the example for 2.20:1 you'd measure the vertical height of your TV screen and make two strips of 10% of the measured value -- on my 54" (described) screen the height of the screen area is 26.75" so to mask it down to a 2.40:1 ratio I'd have to black out a strip 2.7" tall and full width (47") both top and bottom.
Cheers,
GB
David Mullen ASC
New member
If this project is just for video distribution, then you can letterbox it to whatever ratio you want. If for theatrical distribution, then current standards are 1.85 and 2.39.... (often rounded up to 2.40). To be exact, current ANSI standard for a 35mm anamorphic (scope) projector aperture is .825" x .690", which is a 1.1956521 : 1 ratio. Once doubled horizontally by the scope projector lens, that becomes 2.3913042 : 1. I assume DCI standards for digital projection have just rounded that number off to 2.40 since digital projectors don't use 2X anamorphic lenses for scope movies, just spherical lenses.
"The Wild Bunch" was shot in 35mm anamorphic (2X optical squeeze), which in the late 1960's was 2.35 : 1 once unsqueezed. In the early 1970's, it became 2.39 : 1 because projector masks were shortened to crop the top & bottom of the anamorphic image a little, to hide frameline splices better.
5-perf 65mm / 70mm spherical was 2.20 : 1, so 35mm anamorphic movies blown-up for 70mm release prints were usually cropped on the sides slightly to get 2.20 : 1. Movies shot in 5-perf 65mm spherical, like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "2001", were already 2.20 : 1.
"The Wild Bunch" was shot in 35mm anamorphic (2X optical squeeze), which in the late 1960's was 2.35 : 1 once unsqueezed. In the early 1970's, it became 2.39 : 1 because projector masks were shortened to crop the top & bottom of the anamorphic image a little, to hide frameline splices better.
5-perf 65mm / 70mm spherical was 2.20 : 1, so 35mm anamorphic movies blown-up for 70mm release prints were usually cropped on the sides slightly to get 2.20 : 1. Movies shot in 5-perf 65mm spherical, like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "2001", were already 2.20 : 1.