need help on apsect ratio

[marshall78669]

I am trying to verify whether it is now common practice for cinematogrpahers to shoot everything in 4:3 aspect ratio and use matting in post production to achieve a widescreen. I am having a discussion with a gentleman who says the following and I want to know if it is true:

 

Shooting on 4:3 frames allows film makers to easily

convert their films to Widescreen and 4:3 formats

without losing anything and having both 4:3 and 16:9

frame lines in the camera view finder allows

composition to be adjusted so there are effective

images in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats at the same time -

 

Any help appreciated. Thank you.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

I am trying to verify whether it is now common practice for cinematogrpahers to shoot everything in 4:3 aspect ratio and use matting in post production to achieve a widescreen.  I am having a discussion with a gentleman who says the following and I want to know if it is true:

 

Shooting on 4:3 frames allows film makers to easily

convert their films to Widescreen and 4:3 formats

without losing anything and having both 4:3 and 16:9

frame lines in the camera view finder allows

composition to be adjusted so there are effective

images in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats at the same time -

 

Any help appreciated.  Thank you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Onlt trouble with shooting 4:3 and the cropping to 16:9 is that you will lose resolution. Or "wasting space" so to speak.

[Michael Nash]

There are several different ways to fame for multiple apect ratios, but the predominant method is to expose for 16:9 (or larger) in camera, and extract the 4:3 image from within that. There are two sets of frame lines in the camera, a larger 16:9 and a smaller 4:3 centered inside it. For TV productions, it's common to keep the major action contained to the 4:3 area and "protect" the sides of frame (keep out unwanted production elements like light stands and such).

 

This approach has the benefit of giving the largest amount of negative to the highest resolution display image for the show (HD).

 

Prior to HD broadcast it was common to use a groundglass that had 1.85:1 markings and TV safe markings that kind of overlapped each other; the 1.85 being slightly wider than TV and the TV being slightly taller (top and bottom) than 1.85. This allowed for video duplication of theatrical films, although some re-framing was involved during the film-to-video transfer.

 

The newer approach gives the benefit of common headroom and footroom between both displays, and lets producers make a single HD color-corrected master and downconvert the 4:3 SD version from that.

 

Shooting 4:3 and extracting 16:9 by matting in post would compromise the head- and foot-room and drop the resolution of the 16:9 version, especially in HD where it would be most visible.