Title Sequences With Different Aspect Ratios

[Chance Shirley]

Since we're now blessed with home video releases that are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratio, I've noticed something odd in several older films: title sequences with a different aspect ratio than the rest of the feature. I've attached a couple of examples from Thunderball. You can see the frame from the credits is windowboxed a bit, so it isn't quite as wide as the frame representative of the non-credits scenes. Thunderball is a specifically interesting example because it has a pre-credits sequence. So the movie starts out standard Cinemascope, then the frame narrows a bit for the credits, then it goes back to Cinemascope.

Anyone know why credit sequences were formatted this way?

 

 

[David Mullen ASC]

In older video transfers there was concern about a 10% loss or so on the sides of CRT screen images due to the age of the tube so titles were sometimes slightly windowboxed to make sure every bit of the image would appear on any CRT screen. You see this more clearly on titles for 1.37 Academy movies in 4x3 video transfers. It’s why later in movie cameras there was a “title safe” area on the ground glass so that important information would be framed inside these lines.

[Justin Hayward]

18 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

In older video transfers there was concern about a 10% loss or so on the sides of CRT screen images due to the age of the tube so titles were sometimes slightly windowboxed to make sure every bit of the image would appear on any CRT screen. You see this more clearly on titles for 1.37 Academy movies in 4x3 video transfers. It’s why later in movie cameras there was a “title safe” area on the ground glass so that important information would be framed inside these lines.

Learn something every day.☝️

[Chance Shirley]

Oh! I hadn’t even thought about it being an artifact to keep things title-safe for CRT monitors, but that totally makes sense. And I have indeed noticed it on some Academy format movies, where there are black bars on all four sides of the frame.

So I guess even when we get "original aspect ratio" on our home video releases, it isn't always 100% original.

Thanks for explaining, David!