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Hi Roger:
I’d be really interested in your thoughts on how filling a screen (in theaters or on a TV) often seems to take precedence over preserving a film’s original aspect ratio.
For example, The Odyssey was of course shot entirely on IMAX 70mm. But the only theaters that will screen the film with a 1.43:1 aspect ratio are the ones with IMAX 70mm projectors or dual-laser digital projectors. All other formats — the vast majority of screens — will (according to the film’s own marketing) involve some amount of image cropping.
I really don’t understand this. It’s actually kind of insane to me that they would go to all that trouble and spend all that money, only to crop out almost half of the total visual information (at least in the case of 2.39:1) for the vast majority of theaters that can’t project a 1.43 image that fills the screen.
The message this sends (to me, anyway) is: “Meh, the stuff that gets cropped out — including all of that expensive production design — wasn’t that important, anyway.” But then why even shoot in that ultra-large-format aspect ratio in the first place? Doesn’t pervasive cropping kind of undermine the whole IMAX argument?
I can’t help but wonder: Why not keep the 1:43 aspect ratio for all screens and formats? Would that really be so bad? I’d much rather have less total square footage of imagery on the screen if it means I’m not getting an implicit “the following film has been modified from its original version.”
What’s more important for you when having one of your films screened — keeping the original aspect ratio, or using the whole width of the screen?
(Greig Fraser got asked this question in an interview about Project Hail Mary, and he said that, for him, the more of the screen that gets used, the better, even if it means the 1.43:1 IMAX sequences that he shot have to get cropped so they can fill a 16:9 TV screen. I was kind of surprised by this answer!)
Thanks,
Stephen
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Normally I’d agree that there should just be one aspect ratio for a movie — I don’t recommend, for example, showing an old 1.37 Academy movie in any other aspect ratio.
This is a bit different for a couple of reasons — first is that IMAX traditionally (I’m talking about the original 15-perf 65mm format projected in special theaters) was always designed to be composed with an excess 1/3 space at the top, extra headroom, because the theater is designed for your eye to go to the middle of the very large and tall 1.43 screen. To some degree, the area at the top of the screen is like the sky above your head, extending to the edges of your vision unless you sit way back in the theater. Not that Nolan seems to compose his IMAX photography with that much headroom but on the other hand he composes with enough headroom that the blu-ray versions of “Oppenheimer”, “Dunkirk”, etc. show the IMAX scenes in full 1.78 : 1 HD cropped from 1.43 and the headroom looks fine.
Second, the Digital IMAX screens are 1.90 : 1, not 1.43 : 1 and more people are going to see that version rather than the 15P 70mm prints.
Third, Nolan likes to release also in 5-perf 70mm 2.20 : 1 and 4-perf 35mm 2.39 : 1 prints.
Clearly he is fine with shifting aspect ratios in the past although this movie was only shot in IMAX, not a mix, so he could have simplified things a bit and picked 1.85 for his non-1.43 IMAX showings as a second aspect ratio rather than 1.43, 1.90, 2.20, and 2.39 in this case. 1.85 is very close to 1.78 which is what the HD blu-ray versions would be anyway. The 5-perf 70mm could have been side-masked to 1.85. But I think he’s being a bit of a showman wanting to make each version special in the theaters and he seems fine with the reframing.
Hi David – appreciate your response!
That’s a good point about how the biggest IMAX screens always contain stuff that’s outside any one person’s field of vision. In that sense, the viewers themselves do the cropping just by deciding where to look.
I suppose if you’re in favor of large-format projection of one kind or another, that means you want the image to be immersive and all-encompassing, which sort of makes the whole idea of a precise shot composition — something with clear, intentional boundaries — less relevant or important.
If someone uses a lot of center compositions, that’s not an issue. But I do wonder if it sort of limits the filmmaker’s ability to direct audiences’ attention to certain parts of the screen — in other words, limiting the filmmaker’s ability to have some kind of careful, deliberate framing be part of how the story gets told.
I once heard Spielberg talk about using an extended master shot of Hanks & Streep in The Post. Even though he also shot singles for both of them, he decided not to use any of the singles and to just let the scene play out as a wide oner — thus, as Spielberg described it, inviting the audience into the process of “cutting” the scene just by choosing who to look at at any given moment.
Given the huge range of different formats, venues, and devices on which to watch movies these days, maybe it’s unavoidable (and not necessarily a bad thing) that filmmakers have to relinquish some control over certain things and become okay with viewers having more control over the viewing experience. (Like with the new Spider-Noir TV show, where you can choose to watch in color or B&W.)
It also potentially makes things way harder for filmmakers though, too, because you have to anticipate how what you’re shooting is going to look in all kinds of different formats and aspect ratios — the whole idea of a “definitive” version is no longer possible (if it ever was).
There isn’t a uniform aspect ratio of 1.43:1 for every version because then IMAX would have nothing to sell, since the brand is all about the idea of a special, uniquely high quality theatrical experience that justifies a surcharge on ticket prices. A lot of people who saw Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning in IMAX expressed disappointment that it was letterboxed 2.39, for instance.
Weren’t all the technical innovations in widescreen in the 1950s spurred on by economic competition from television? Since commercial films started shooting IMAX in 2008 it’s basically been the modern-day equivalent of exhibition formats like Cinerama and CinemaScope. If there hadn’t been a studio mandate to deliver IMAX and 3D versions of Blade Runner 2049 would you have still embraced them as creative choices? It doesn’t seem like they can all be equally valid to the intended 2.39/2D version, rather their effects can only be mitigated by protecting the sensor’s lookaround so the extra headroom doesn’t create awkward compositions, the stereoscopic effects can be dialed in to not clash with the intended planar image, etc., which speaks directly to the questions raised in the original post.
Here’s a short interview clip where Nolan answers a question about protecting for different aspect ratios.
He says that “it’s more of a 3D idea of camera blocking . . . Rather than thinking in terms of a geometric 2D compositional frame, we tend to think in terms of a 3D relationship between where the camera is and where we want the audience to be in relation to that.”
Now, I’m a big Nolan fan, but I’m not sure how this approach really differs from what everyone else does (it’s not like they’re projecting in 3D, after all). Just confirms what’s already been said here previously, I think, about how ultimately they end up centering everything as much as possible (with camera angle & proximity taking precedence over precise framing).
Personally I’m not sold on the idea of “the image is so immersive that it extends beyond your peripheral vision.”
I’m like, hello? There’s a reason most people don’t like sitting in the front row of the theater! (when watching non-IMAX movies)
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