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Frank all the Magic Lantern theates are set up for Flat 185 Flat 133 F200 F220 and Scope and all preshow content is formated to fit the feature format
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Frank, just give it up. You can't have, won't have and, in my view, shouldn't have control over what aspect ratios are used.
You are right that few commercial houses have the means or even the inclination to run anything that isn't what we call flat or scope in anything besides "flat" and "scope". Read 'em and weep. Once the lights go down, nobody in the audience will be able to tell there are no masking curtains or top and bottom flats to tell you "this is where the picture stops".
Hey, when we were mostly running 35mm, if we had an old squarish ratio movie like Citizen Kane to run, we had to change lenses and aperture plates, and our non-negotiable 1.85 masking meant the left and right sides of the picture were fuzzy. Nowadays, digital pictures like The Fabelmans in the old ratio have the hard edges baked right in. So be glad for that at least! (See, I said something nice about digital. That never happens!)Comment
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That would only be true if the audience were blind. It's easy to see unmasked screen surface with the lights down and a picture playing.Once the lights go down, nobody in the audience will be able to tell there are no masking curtains or top and bottom flats to tell you "this is where the picture stops".Comment
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Right. So, what is your point?
I actually don't go to the movies to admire the masking. Anyway, good luck to anyone who has a perfect solution to this problem that doesn't involve convincing the film industry to only release films in ratios you like (because believe it or not, they don't care). Yes, a few of you have giant screens and infinitely flexible side-top-bottom flats you can move at the push of a button, combined with pre-set zoom levels, and I'm completely on board with that, but the rest of us just get by as best we can, and so far I have not noticed a mad dash of patrons to the exits, as it seems that after about two minutes you accept the presentation that's in front of you as long as it's in focus and not otherwise unwatchable. So please, simmer down!Comment
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It's truly a shame if they don't care because the current practice leads to sub-optimal presentation in almost all commercial movie theatres.
But as you say, it's not something that we are in a position to fix.Comment
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Well, I'd say that Frank does have a point and while his solution isn't the optimal solution, it is the solution that would be the most pragmatic in the world we live in. We can't expect all cinemas to be setting up new lens and masking configurations for every odd aspect ratio that comes around.Originally posted by Peter Mork View Post
Like Frank indicated, every cinema playing main-stream DCI content is equipped to play SCOPE or FLAT content. If studios would format their releases in such way that it either fills the full height or full width of those containers, all those cinemas could play the content with the maximum size on screen and at least avoid the damn floating image idiocracy we've seen way too much now...
But also as a filmmaker I'd say that you should give a damn about your potential audience and think about how your movie will be played in the majority of movie theaters. Therefore, I'd say that every filmmaker should carefully consider if it's really necessairy to shoot in some oddbal aspect ratio, before actually doing so.Comment
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Why? I gave an example above where that was not the case. Neither 1.85, nor 2.39 fill the screen. The physical shape of the room afforded more height. Should their F-133 (and F-166) presentations be smaller?Originally posted by Frank Cox
I tend to agree with your remaining points. Such sites do tend to let their preshow follow either the Flat or Scope ratio and, for instance, for a title like Whale they transitioned to F-133 for the feature, which resulted in a larger picture than the preshow.
Why not? The industry has standards and they allow all parties to present movies as well as possible. Quirky 1-off ratios don't make anyone look good. I have already started to see blowback between exhibitors and studios at a couple of conferences with respect to aspect ratios. Quirky ratios make the exhibitor look incompetent and the presentation unprofessional. The danger of having 1-off ratios is causing established ratios other than 1.85 and 2.39 also to be shunned. I could easily see a time where all movies to be required to be either 1.85 or 2.39 to avoid the free-for-all, if they want to get into distribution.Originally posted by Peter Mork
Mike has already covered the absurdity of not being able to determine the image edge vs. screen edge when the lights go down.
As to masked screens versus non-masked. You'll find no trend line showing attendance going up or even holding steady as masking falls by the wayside. Is that THE reason...no...is it A reason...presentation falls in there somewhere in the "value" department. How well cinemas present the movie go into a perceived value of the theatrical experience. You aren't going to get a patron to be able to quantify every part of a presentation anymore than they will be able to say they like once car because their screws have flat washers and the other one didn't. The ones that do better jobs, tend to do all of the jobs a bit better.
I can absolutely tell you that those theatres with 2.39:1 screens, when they run "Flat" movies do get complaints about the picture not filling the screen. It compounds when their ads are all formatted for scope so there is this little rectangle in the middle of a rectangle that is in the middle of their wide screen. People do not tolerate pillarboxed images nearly as much as letterboxed ones. F-220 (and, to a lesser extent, F-200) is even more egregious because it "floats" in the middle of a 2.39 screen.
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It looks like what it is...improperly formatted.
For those sites that don't have an F-220 lens/screen preset, I'll tell them to just use the Scope preset instead (and I get questions EVERY TIME an F-200 or F-220 title is released. It results in minimal cropping and minimal dead screen. The filmmaker doesn't quite get what they wanted and the theatre doesn't look quite as incompetent.
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As mentioned elsewhere...those sites that have 2.39 screens, when we install them, we do set up lens/screen files for F-200 and F-220 to avoid this. But, if you advocate for the wild-west on aspect ratios, then expect for your movies to not be presented that way. We're not going to set up custom color spaces either.
You may not come to look at masking (and who does?) but people do not come to look at dead screen either. It always feels like something isn't set up correctly. It is quite unprofessional looking/unfinished.Comment
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Okay, well fortunately I have a solution that should make everybody happy.
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That's how they do it on the TV news when they are forced to use phone camera videos. See - no dead screen!
No kowtowing to those bad old filmmakers who insist on being "impractical". Show 'em who's boss.Comment
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Exactly. We do our best to support the common formats, but there's no realistic way to support these nonsense one-off aspect ratios. We support 1.33/1.37, 1.66, 1.78, 1.85, 2.00, 2.20 F, 2.20 S, 2.39. Plus the 2K/4K variants, 3D, and although we've never used it 48FPS. Our automation is maxed out, as are our MDI masking control presets (although some are reserved for 35mm). There's no way in hell we can support a first-run film in a sui generis format. We just got Living and we're running it in 1.66 since its the closet format we actually have. If it were a one-off screening I would have suggesting making a temporary 1.48 masking stop for the theaters that don't run 35mm, but there's no way I'm making the manager/projectionists run upstairs to change the masking for every single screening of a first-run film that they chose to release in a format they should have known would almost always be run in 1.85. It's idiotic.Originally posted by Steve Guttag View PostComment
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