The Northman (2022)

[Tom Tomlinson]

I thought the film was ok--I guess I liked the directors prior film "The Witch" a little more. Some of the visuals/imagery were really great. Maybe a little too long. To me, like a combination of Conan/Revanant & Shakespeare.

As a side note--my dolby cinema presentation appeared 185 (black on the sides of a common height screen) --yet the online trailers were 235. Can someone confirm the dcp please?

[Geoff Jones]

According to Eggers, the aspect ratio of THE NORTHMAN is 2:1.

He discusses it here, right after the 3 minute mark.

[Jim Cassedy]

The aspect ratio is F-200 (also known as "full container" or I've also heard it called "full flat')
The ISDCF nomenclature on the actual DCP is : "Northman_FTR-8_F-200_EN_en" .... etc
We get our content by satellite, but a note on the online Deluxe ingest letter says:
(In big red letters & all caps!): "SET UP FOR A FLAT SHOW - ( 1:85 )"
"The feature content is 2.0 aspect ratio, so the two black bars at the top & bottom
of the screen are normal"


I didn't watch the video of Rober Eggers posted by Geoff, since, from experience, I'm
always extremely skeptical of any aspect ratio info coming from a film-maker. I've met
many, including some fairly well known, experienced directors & producers, who don't
have a clue about the final aspect ratio of their feature. Just last week I was engaged
in an aspect ratio disagreement with an experienced producer of a currently unreleased
movie he was screening for some future investors. An urgent call he made to his DP
confirmed that < I > was running it in the correct aspect ratio.
(He also kept insisting his content was "anamorphic", which it wasn't . . no way.)

[Jon Dent]

No offense to Deluxe but I think I'll set up a custom lens preset when we get this one in. I can stand black bars on the sides of the screen for flat presentations (we have scope screens) but black bars on the top and bottom as well makes it look like something's wrong.

Unless you're distributing exclusively to streaming there should be a rule that they can only use proper flat and scope image formats. This 2:1 bullshit is dumb.

[Frank Cox]

I don't understand why anyone would make an "action-filled epic" (as described on IMDB) and not use the whole screen in at least one dimension. An epic needs to be bigger than a postage stamp, in my opinion.

Commercial movie screens are natively either flat or scope so any resolution other than that is guaranteed to be sub-optimal in almost every venue that the movie plays in.

Would this actually look better if played as a scope movie on native scope-ratio screens or would parts of the image get lost doing that as well?

[Bobby Henderson]

Maybe the reason for the taller 2:1 aspect ratio is that the movie imagery might look a little bigger on HDTV screens at home. The movie will be in cinemas perhaps only a month before going to various TV platforms.

[Geoff Jones]

I suspect that Eggers thought a taller ratio would better showcase vertical Viking architecture. I think he also likes taller ratios because he feels that wasted space on the sides of close-ups makes the framing feel anemic. At the same time, I'd wager that he felt that the landscapes and the battle scenes demanded a wider ratio. I bet he chose 2:1 as a compromise between these conflicting needs.

That's my guess, anyway.

[Jon Dent]

Or Bobby is right and Egger's planning for Northman's future on streaming services, as 2:1 is Netflix's favorite ratio.

Looks like we're not getting this one now but if we had I'd zoom in until the image fits top to bottom. There will be black on the sides but audiences seem much more tolerant of that.

[Geoff Jones]

(The things I suggested were actually what Eggers said about The Northman's aspect ratio in the video from post #2.)