Wide/full screen/ DVD players (was Re: CoS still on in cinemas)/ "sexy" (was Oldman as Sirius)

[GulPlum <hp@plum.cream.org>]

Richelle Votaw wrote:
> Lisa writes:
> 
> > which is better, full screen or wide screen?
> 
> Full screen.  Some movies wide screen is better, but with HP (at 
> least SS/PS) you lose more with the wide screen than you do with 
> the full screen.  Make sense?  There's a site somewhere that has 
> some pictures comparing the shots, and to me the wide screen cuts 
> off so much it takes away from the movie.  Like part of Harry's 
> letter, things like that are important to me!

It's a page, not a site, and it's mine, actually. :-) 

http://plum.cream.org/HP/dvd.htm

As I say on the page, which is "better" is really difficult to 
decide. As to "losing", the widescreen version is the one you saw in 
the cinema, so you're losing *something* from that experience. If one 
didn't know that the full screen picture occasionally included better 
shots than the widescreen, would you be talking about "loss"? 

The process used for filming PS/SS (and CoS), Super 35, is used by 
some directors and cinematographers to better effect than others. 
Some are able to frame their shots so that they work well in either 
one or the other format, and very rarely, in both (James Cameron is a 
case in point). IMO, in the case of PS/SS, Columbus has fallen 
between two stools, and there is *huge* disparity from shot to shot. 
Harry's letter probably makes the best case for the full screen 
version, whilst Fluffy works much, much better in widescreen. 

As I say on the page, it's all down to personal preference. Speaking 
for myself, I own the widescreen version and wouldn't have it any 
other way. 

BTW, Yes, I fully intend to make a similar comparison for CoS as soon 
as the DVD comes out, but it'll probably take me some time before I 
publish it. :-) The way I did it with PS/SS was to have both versions 
playing side-by-side at 1/4 speed (which means just running the movie 
took about 10 hours in short segments over a couple of days as I had 
to remain highly concentrated throught!) and then I had to take the 
screenshots, and then play around with them. Then came the tricky 
part of limiting myself to only 20 pictures!

Having seen CoS so many times at the cinema, I probably won't need to 
watch both versions side-by-side - I already have a mental note of at 
least a dozen shots whose appearance in full screen will probably 
look dreadful. The trick will be to find those sequences which look 
better in full screen (and I fully expect there to be some!).