[HPFGU-Movie] PS Wide/full screen

[Monika Huebner]

----- Original Message -----
From: <hp at plum.cream.org>
To: <HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 4:08 AM
Subject: [HPFGU-Movie] Wide/full screen/ DVD players (was Re: CoS still on
in cinemas)/ "sexy" (was Oldman as Sirius)



> 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.

There's a reason for this. I guess PS was filmed in the same way
as Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day", in Super 35, which is
also referred to as "open matted". The top and the bottom of the
picture was "matted" for presentation in the theatre. It means
that you actually see more picture in full screen when the movie
is transferred to video or DVD, but this *only applies to scenes
that have actually been filmed, not to special effects*. SF/X are
created digitally, in the very format needed for the movie. So any
shot that contains a special effect will be cut at the sides for
full screen format. For ID4 that was about 40% of the movie, and
PS contains quite a lot of SF/X, too, which are forcibly cut at the
sides in the full screen version. It would be way too expensive to
create the SF/X in both 4:3 and 2.38:1 aspect ratio. If I buy a
movie for my collection, I always look for the original aspect ratio
shown in the theatre. Now that we have DVDs it's not a problem,
but on video there wasn't always a widescreen edition.

Monika