| You won't find much video or film material shot today which is not letterboxed. It is the new aesthetic. You are not cool if you don't letterbox or widescreen your shows today; whether they be drama, educational, or public affairs, you cannot have a full frame picture ratio. Case in point: I sat down to watch the CBC's The Nature of Things Magazine one night last week. On it was a segment which this child of the space race would more than be interested in... the little known Soviet remote controlled moon vehicle, Lunokhod. This story showcased the problem you have when 'old' archival footage is inter-cut with new widescreen material. The historic footage was more or less shot or composed in the full frame. And instead of the producers of Nature losing the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, they, in all their clueless glory (and this is not endemic to just these particular producers, as the problem afflicts many other so-called 'producers') elected to keep the bars in. We as viewers are treated to cut off heads, eyes, mouths, chins, and other non-important details of the image. Don't ask the average television producer to understand such a basic concept. |
Saturday, December 8, 2007
LETTERBOXED!
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4 comments:
it's Monday night....where is Sunday's post?
what is wrong with 4x3 when you have
a 14" Tube TV with rabbit ear reception.
Sunday's post is still in the memory bank.
There is nothing wrong with 4x3. Eisenstein thought it the perfect ratio... as did Fritz Lang.
Letterboxing is just way to bestow prestige on average TV shows, like ER. There's no reason ER needs to be letterboxed. It's created for TV, ferchrissakes.
I remember, working at TVO years ago. Whenever Saturday Night at the Movies would show a letterboxed film, the complaints would pour in that we were cutting off the top and bottom of the picture. Uh, no. We were "adding" the sides, at shot.
And the fact that you can get widescreen and letterbox editions of films on DVD strikes me as a ridiculous cashgrab, and a waste of resources to do the pan-and-scan versions.
N.
"Letterboxing is just way to bestow prestige on average TV shows, like ER. There's no reason ER needs to be letterboxed. It's created for TV, ferchrissakes."
I cannot improve on this. Some would think that letterboxing gives a show class. I see too many average tv shows treated this way. A script is more important than sticking black bars on the top and bottom of the screen (or shooting 16x9 ratio).
Don't expect the average television producer to understand such a simple concept.
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