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Topic: The Wild Thornberry's Movie

Christian Sinclair
Film Handler

Posts: 6
From: Bracknell, UK
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 02-02-2003 03:21 PM

Ok, so as projectionists we have to rehearse the odd print that we really (and I mean REALLY) are not looking forward to. The odd foreign 'art' film, an old battered millionth run print, the 'kids cartoon made into a big screen film but could have really stayed on the small screen' type film... and here it was. The Wild Thornberry's Movie. My mind turned to the awfullness that was Hey Arnold and The Powerpuff Girls! However, since it had to be run (and no other bugger would do it) I sucked in my breath and watched it.

Firstly, the film is in 'scope, which for a kids cartoon is pretty surprising and secondly, although not Shakespeare, the story is really engaging and enjoyable. I loved it. I've never seen the TV show but if it's anything as good as the film then I shall be setting my VCR to tape kids TV in the future. Really enjoyable film and even my packet of crisps and bannana I took in with me to pass the boredom were left un-eaten at the end... a truly good sign!

Just out of interest, any reason why more animation films aren't in cinemascope? I heard that it posed more problems than gains?

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John Lasher
Master Film Handler

Posts: 493
From: Newark, DE
Registered: Aug 2001

posted 02-19-2003 12:33 AM

quote: Christian Sinclair
Just out of interest, any reason why more animation films aren't in cinemascope? I heard that it posed more problems than gains?

I believe the real reason most animated movies and most kids movies for that matter are done flat is this: Flat transfers better to pan&scan ( [puke]

) video. With most Flat movies you could just transfer the middle to video and get an acceptable transfer.

[mock rant] Making the movie so that it will be in any way inferior when cropped to fill the whole screen on a DVD? Outrageous! Movies aren't supposed to look better in theaters! [/mock rant]

The best new hollywood movie will play maybe 2 months if it's REALLY GOOD (final cut director, good promotional campaign, word of mouth, people seeing it again). But once they release it do video, it'll be on the shelf until the blockbuster kids scratch it into oblivion, and if it won't fit on a TV screen, you'll have some mother complaining about the black bars "cutting off the picture" and demanding their money back.

Now what I plan to do when I make movies is to make a menu screen for video format selection that would default to widescreen showing the full widescreen picture, when the user presses the down key to select "Cropped (Fullscreen)" it would black out the sides of the picture showing exactly how much of the picture is lost in the fullscreen version. I also plan to do other things to the fullscreen version to make it inferior to the widescreen version (lower bitrate (higher compression), no commentary, etc.) [very late edit] And center scan all the way, the people who prefer fullscreen always claim they don't care what they're missing anyway. If they don't care, why should I?

[ 10-16-2008, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: John Lasher ]

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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays

Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 02-22-2003 05:21 PM

I like the way you think, John. [Smile]

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