"MASS" > Aspect Ratio Change?

[Jim Cassedy]

HAS ANYONE HERE RUN THIS TITLE? (MASS)

Last night I was at a private screening room running an 'invitation only" screening of the recently released movie
"MASS". The CPL info lists the aspect ratio as "F-190", and so I used the usual "FLAT" settings on the projector
and masking, although I did walk down front and make one very minor manual adjustment to the masking width.

I did a quick "on screen' QC check before the clients arrived and the opening credits & first few minutes confirmed
that everything looked OK then, and when I started the show. I then sat down in front of a big picture window in the
booth and started to catch up some reading material I had brought with me. I wasn't paying much attention to the
movie, although I could always see the screen in my peripheral vision, even if I wasn't looking right at it.

Then, about 10min before the end of the movie, I looked up and the picture on screen was now a wide screen type
'letterboxed' image. I thought I had maybe accidentally hit a macro button the laptop in front of me that is my link
to the NEC digitalcinemaprojectorthingy or made some other stupid mistake, But everything, still indicated that I
was still on the FLAT.1:85 setting.

> After the show, I asked several of the departing guests if they noticed that the picture had 'changed shape'. None
of them said they noticed anything. The attending studio rep had mentioned earlier in the evening that he had sat
through this movie 3 or 4 times already, and so I asked him if he was aware of any aspect ratio change, and he was,
of course, completely clueless. (as most studio reps are whenever I ask a question)

So now, I was really curious as to what was going on. After I kicked everyone out of the building, I put MASS back on screen
again, and began randomly going to different spots in the feature. It definitely starts out in 1:85 (or 1:90) but at some point
after the 1st hour, it becomes "letterboxed". I've had a very busy week and a long day, so I didn't have the patience to sit down
and try to find the exact point where the change happens, since once I determined that "it wasn't my fault", I just wanted to get
outtathere.

I assume the aspect change was done for some sort of "dramatic effect" - - but for those of you who haven't seen this movie, except
for an exterior establishing shot at the opening, and another one at the end, the entire movie is basically 4 people sitting around a
table in a room talking for 2hrs 20min. That's it. One interior set, no special effects, minimal camera angles or movement. So, from
a visual standpoint, there isn't a whole lot going on that I can see an aspect ratio switch would support. In fact, you could probably
take the sound track of this movie and run it as a radio play. The visuals, for the most part IMO seem secondary to the story.

There is no "ingestion letter" nor can I find any info online- - so I'm wondering if anyone here has run or seen MASS, and can
explain why ( and when?) the screen changes.

Wow! ~~ ACTUAL PHOTOS:
A Scene From Somewhere In The 1st Hour Of MASS
Mass_1.jpg

This Screen Grab Was From Appx 1h15min Into The Movie
Mass_2.jpg

????????

[Steve Guttag]

F-190? Might as well have use the "C" designation (Full Container) as it would be the same thing. 2048x1080 on 2K or 4096x2160 on 4K. There HAVE been aspect ratio changes during movies with Nolan being notorious for it, particularly in IMAX theatres. Others have definitely bounced around between 4:3 and wider ratios to denote a time period and still others have bounced between 1.85 and 2.39. The problem with F-190 (unless they really slightly cropped height for the "Flat" portions) is that it is unreasonable to think that all but screening rooms will create specific screen files and cues for a 1-off or a rarely-run format. At this time, we try to support F-133, F-166, F-178, F (1.85), F-200, F220 and S (2.39). All of the rest, I tell people to use the closest ratio that we support. so, if this movie came to one of our typical theatres, then "F" (the normal Flat) would have been used and, from what I can tell, it would have looked the same, though the 2.39 portions would have been slightly cropped as a 2K presentation would have been 1998x858 for the "Scope" portions.

[Jim Cassedy]

Just FY? - - - I thought I'd add this:

Mass_FTR-3_F-190_EN-XX-CCAP_US-R_51-HI-VI_2K_BSF_20210703_DTB_IOP_OV

[Carsten Kurz]

Maybe just a silly mistake. Hard to find any other good reason given the general visual composition.

[Matt Smith]

I have not heard of this movie but had a similar experience with True History of the Kelly Gang (2019). I was watching it as an audience member at one of our cinemas and noticed that the picture was slowly shrinking throughout. I thought I was either losing my mind or there was an issue with the lens! I asked my partner as we left but she didn’t notice it at all!

I went back the following day and found everything was correct with the equipment. The feature starts in 1.85:1 and very gradually changes to 2.35:1 as the story plays out. I understand why it was done but it certainly distracted me. I think you could classify this one as artistic intent as well.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Well, I guess we can safely call the aspect ratio of Bay's "masterpiece" Transformers - The Last Knight to be "undefined".

In this particular case, filming about half of your movie in what looks to be scope and then putting it into a flat container... it just looks like the director at work here is being an idiot. If you ask him in person on what he was thinking, he'll probably come up with some b.s. holistic reason why it HAD to be done that way.

[Leo Enticknap]

If it's a single aspect ratio change at one point during the movie (e.g. The Horse Whisperer, from 1.85 to scope about two reels in), you can put change cues in for the masking and lens, and do it properly. But if it's multiple changes (e.g. The Grand Budapest Hotel), that would be too distracting, IMHO. Wes Anderson actually said of the latter that changes of aspect ratio during the movie was something he'd long wanted to do, but felt wasn't feasible pre-digital cinema. Agreed with Steve that the correct aspect ratio tag for this one should have been C, unless F-190 is to denote that the extra real estate on the frame is "shot to protect," meaning that the movie can be projected using 1.85 lens position and screen files if needs be, without losing any crucial action.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo, you can't even cue a lens change. Some projectors, like the NEC can move the lens greatly between formats as I think that is part of it figuring out where the lens is. Depending on the vintage of Barco, you might get a similar response as it retraces its steps. Christie can do a pretty fast lens change. I'd say with film, if the theatre had 2-projectors, doing a format change mid movie would be doable, for obvious reasons.

I do not think for commercial cinemas it is even reasonable to ask that there be a format change mid movie. If you want to do such a thing, "print" it that way so a single format is picked at the show start and any mid-show format differences are baked into the movie.

[Barry Floyd]

Leo, you can't even cue a lens change. Some projectors, like the NEC can move the lens greatly between formats as I think that is part of it figuring out where the lens is.

All of my lens changes are imbedded in a cue. Many times at the drive-in, our double feature will have the first feature in Scope and the second feature in Flat. I've got automation cues built that automatically change them out. In my GDC SR-1000's I insert a "BLACKMOS10" into a point in the playlist, then add an automation cue to the BlackMos10 for either "Intermission Flat" or Intermission Scope". It closes the dowser, and changes the lens format. I thought this was a common thing that everyone did... Projectors are Barco DP-2k 23b'S if that makes a difference.

[Carsten Kurz]

That is not what Steve was referring to. Of course you can change lens settings between individual elements of an SPL - depending on the lens change behaviour, you will usually mask these with accompanying blacks/dowser cues. But, within a feature, when live action is going on, that is not feasible, at least not intentionally, as all projectors deal very different with lens cues and in many or most cases, audience will notice this as 'malfunctioning'. That said, we do use a lens cue with active image during our regular flat to scope/preshow to main feature change, while the masking opens as well. So the image (a still of our cinema logo) grows and widens with the masking. That is, of course, a gimmick used to emphasise the scope AR and main feature start. Our Sony does lens changes very fast and accurately point-to-point. We could have reached the same effect if we had animated the widening of the image within a scope container and with a few seconds of black before this to complete the scope preset cue beforehand. But we did it physically because it is more fun.

Whatever, if a film maker intends mid-feature preset changes, he needs to put in enough black in order to allow these cues to be performed invisibly, and he needs to be prepared that many/most cinemas simply will not do it the way he intends.

I did a 4:3 to scope switch mid feature for a local documentary where an hour of historic footage was followed by a drone flight over the city. However, that was not an actual lens/preset switch, but the 4:3 footage was pillarboxed in a scope container, and all I did in the cue was opening the masking with the AR switch from 4:3 to scope, so the full screen width was used for the drone flight imagery.

[Jim Cassedy]

Well, whatever "dramatic effect" the director intended was completely lost on the 5 or 6 people I spoke to after the screening,
who hadn't even noticed the change. - - and, as I said in my first post- the film's rep, who said he had seen it multiple times,
had no idea what I was talking about.

Leo sez: "you can put change cues in for the masking and lens, and do it properly"
Just for the record, I DON'T USE CUES! 99% of the type of shows I work are completely manually run. Lights, curtains, sound
formats, projector, maskings, etc are all manually triggered by myself- - I'm not even sure the automation works at some of my
screening venues. I've never used it.

FYI: I ran into some similar aspect ratio insanity when I ran a pre-release screening of "The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain (with
the director & cast present) back in August. The aspect ratio on the hard drive simply identified it as "FLAT", and as this was
several months before it was going to be in theaters, I had no ingest letter or other info. But, on doing an on-screen QC check a
couple of hours before the event, I discovered that with the exception of the "Amazon Studios" and 3 other logos on the head of
the film (which were also in assorted aspect ratios!!!! ) The rest of the movie was 1:33.
I HAD to do something, since I wasn't going to run a little square picture in the center of a 40ft screen with the maskings at 1:85.
I had a static "Festival Slide" (1:85) on screen during the walk-in welcome remarks and live film intro. I kept it at 1:85 through
the logo assortment, and then, fortunately, there was about a 20sec section of black before the 1st image came up, which gave
me a chance to (manually) set the masking to 1:33. When timed right, it was a nice smooth transition, as the maskings hit their
mark right as the 1st image came up.

Fortunately, the end title scroll, which for some reason went back to 1:85, was composed (probably by accident) in a way that it 'fit'
within the 1:33 window, and so I didn't have to open the maskings again at the end fo the movie. Luckily, the AMAZON STUDIOS
logo also 'just fit' within the 1:33 window, as you can see in this picture I took during my QC' check.

AmazonLogoScrn.jpg

[Carsten Kurz]

Amazon. That is no surprise. These Amazon and Netflix guys have no idea at all about cinema presentation. They watch everything on a computer display and believe letter and pillar boxes are a God-given necessity.

[Fraser Falconer]

Hi Everyone,
We are playing Mass as part of a Festival and Jim says it indeed changes from Flat to Scope at an hour and twelve mins. The version we have has 7 seconds of black at the transition. I just built a manual SPL with the format change at the correct time. As it was faster than trying to work how to do it within TCC to make it look like a professional transition. Yes, I had the artistic transformation with the Kelly Gang, I noticed it when doing a print check (again part of a Festival) As I skipped towards the end, and thought hang on this feature was flat not scope, so went back to the start and was surely Flat. No doing anything with this one, as it slowly transitioned to scope as it played out.

Cheers Fraser

[Jim Cassedy]

Thanks Fraser, for pinpointing the exact point of the aspect ratio change. I didn't have time to go back & find it the other night. But I still don't understand whatever point the director was trying to make. OK, I'll admit I didn't actually watch much of the movie, but I was monitoring the audio during the show, and, as I said in my original post, the entire movie is staged in a one-room set, and is just 4 people sitting around a table talking. (except for a few establishing shots at the beginning and a couple of closing shots at the end) So, given the nature of the production, I just fail to see what the director had in mind. I have a feeling that it's going to be pushed as potential Oscar fodder, so I will probably be running it at a few Academy screenings in the future, and I guess next time I'll have to actually sit and watch it.

[Fraser Falconer]

Hi Jim,
I agree totally. It must be way above my pay grade to understand why you'd want a format change mid feature. I just can't see what is to be gained.

Cheers Fraser