Shifting aspect ratios for IMAX, can they not?

[Geoff D]

IMAX certainly do their own stuff, using the full 2048x1080 res (which is 1.90, or near as damn it) to do their bespoke open matte/alternating aspect digital presentations, but regular theaters have to make do with either 1.85 or 2.40 DCPs, so all other ratios have to fit inside one or the other. When Tarantino gets done with Hateful Eight I should imagine we'll get the 2.76 ratio letterboxed inside a 4K scope container, so it'll have an effective resolution of 4096x1480.

[Spike M.]

Part of me thinks Tarantino might pull a Nolan and only keep the 2.76 ratio in 70mm theaters, crop to 2.40 for everyone else. He seems aware of the issue with presenting 2.76 in a conventional theater, masking and screen size and the such.

I'm not sure about the other chains, but Regal hasn't been masking at all for the last year or two. A 2.76 image on a 16:9 theater screen will look almost comical to the average viewer, I think.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I know why he liked his taller IMAX version, but do tell why he chose 2.20.

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Aw, I thought it was something more complicated (and less obvious) than “Brad wanted to honor the old 65mm format” as noted in the ASC article below.
http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/Ju...land/page1.php

Well, that’s ^ bottom line correct, but a magazine article doesn’t have the luxury of getting into the nitty-gritty sequence of events leading up to it, like a forum does. So, to tell thee whole story, originally Brad was going to do the Tomorrowland scenes in IMAX film but at the time the movie was being conceived, IMAX was transitioning from film to digital laser projection and it didn’t appear that transition would be completed by the time the motion picture was to be released… which thusly caused some production issues.

So, it looked like that if the movie was shot in IMAX film, it wouldn’t be able to be projected much of anywhere. So, that given scenario made Brad change his plans and the scenes were bordered for different aspect ratios….and then they had to be changed…..then Brad become frustrated with the whole thing and he wanted something to remain of the BIG image feeling as a lot of his favorite movies had been filmed in 70mm and he really liked the shape of 2.20:1 aspect ratio thinking that Tomorrowland should be wider than 1.85, but not as wide as Panavision.

That’s the long of it.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

Part of me thinks Tarantino might pull a Nolan and only keep the 2.76 ratio in 70mm theaters, crop to 2.40 for everyone else. He seems aware of the issue with presenting 2.76 in a conventional theater, masking and screen size and the such.

I'm not sure about the other chains, but Regal hasn't been masking at all for the last year or two. A 2.76 image on a 16:9 theater screen will look almost comical to the average viewer, I think.

Aye, there's a good chance they'll crop it down to regular scope for regular theaters.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well, that’s ^ bottom line correct, but a magazine article doesn’t have the luxury of getting into the nitty-gritty sequence of events leading up to it, like a forum does. So, to tell thee whole story, originally Brad was going to do the Tomorrowland scenes in IMAX film but at the time the movie was being conceived, IMAX was transitioning from film to digital laser projection and it didn’t appear that transition would be completed by the time the motion picture was to be released… which thusly caused some production issues.

So, it looked like that if the movie was shot in IMAX film, it wouldn’t be able to be projected much of anywhere. So, that given scenario made Brad change his plans and the scenes were bordered for different aspect ratios….and then they had to be changed…..then Brad become frustrated with the whole thing and he wanted something to remain of the BIG image feeling as a lot of his favorite movies had been filmed in 70mm and he really liked the shape of 2.20:1 aspect ratio thinking that Tomorrowland should be wider than 1.85, but not as wide as Panavision.

That’s the long of it.

It does basically say that in the second paragraph of the ASC article. Bird says they wanted to shoot on 65mm but they weren't going to be able to project it as such, and although they thought about doing different formats (as with Ghost Protocol) and did extensive tests it became too much of a logistical headache when tying it all together in 4K. So he picked the Sony cameras and chose 2.20 as a vestigial nod to the intended large format acquisition which didn't come to pass.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It does basically say that in the second paragraph of the ASC article.

Well, perhaps *basically*, but I’ll tell one thing for sure the article doesn’t reveal is how Brad sounds when imitating chat room projectionists in being unhappy about the non-standard aspect ratio of T-land and trying to school him about what's *proper*.

He sounds something like this in attempting to imitate their whining….http://www.make4fun.com/audios/Voice...Funny-chipmunk

If you enjoy free lenser articles, care of Local 600 - https://www.cameraguild.com/Home.aspx , here’s another (competing) source….http://www.icgmagazine.com/web/ which also covers some of dem movies.

[Flixster]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

There we are then; you're annoyed with the Blu-ray image because it's not tall enough, I'm annoyed with it because it's not narrow enough. It'd be nice if you could just accept that instead of lecturing me on how "dangerous" it is, like this is 1995 and I'm some mook who wants his 4:3 screen filled.

Nolan strikes me as being a bit like Kubrick with all his aspect ratios and whatnot: he exerts such a huge amount of control over how his work is presented in whatever format you see it in that I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything with the 2.40 version. I might still have to get the 2.40 DVD just to fill that gap, so to speak.

Couldn't agree more. That stupid aspect shifting is soooo annoying, especially with Interstellar. I had to get the DVD just so that I can watch it in 2.4, just as I saw it and way preferred it in the cinema.

To my way of thinking anything shot in space looks so much better using that super wide scope, as opposed to a 'supposed' IMAX 1.78, which looks more like a 1.85 on a regular wide screen TV.

I am still looking for a 2.35/2.40 version of this movie on BD. The French steelbook release seems to indicate that it is only 2.40, hopefully this is the case.

Nolan is an annoying muppet, he should allow consumers the choice.

[slimdude]

It's very irritating to me when the aspect ratios switches, and it's a stupid idea.

[antennahead]

Not that my opinion matters, but I too hate switching aspect ratios in a film.

[AmishParadise]

I own a 150" 1.78:1 projector screen and use black velvet masking, horizontal masking for aspect ratios north of 1.78:1 and vertical masking for aspect ratios south of 1.78:1. The end result, a black hole surrounding the visible image area.

Not interested in leaving large portions of my projector screen unmasked, because for a few minutes during a scene or two in a scope film the aspect ratio opens up and is taller. It's not worth the trade-off for me.

My solution, using BD Rebuilder I re-author the given Blu-ray creating a version with a fixed aspect ratio, i.e. enabling the "Use AVS Filters during encoding" option adding the command to crop each frame down to the widest of aspect ratios used followed by the command to add the black bars back to the given frame.

[SillyG]

Originally Posted by slimdude

It's very irritating to me when the aspect ratios switches, and it's a stupid idea.

It strikes me as rather pompous device unless the shift is to accommodate a necessary change in aspect ratio, such as through the use of archive footage.

I occasionally film events, and there was one that I had done for a relative, and at one point in the video, I narrowed the 16:9 aspect ratio to 4:3, threw in a brief clip of VHS static, followed by a montage of archive footage of their family that I had in my possession (dating back up to 25 years) as a little surprise.

Likewise, I hate when archive 4:3 footage is cropped to a wider aspect ratio, be it in the news, (especially) long-running television series, or documentaries as it diminishes the quality of the production in my eyes, and a lot of the time, the editor has neglected to reframe the footage to accommodate the shift in aspect ratio.

[SillyG]

Originally Posted by slimdude

It's very irritating to me when the aspect ratios switches, and it's a stupid idea.

It strikes me as rather pompous device unless the shift is to accommodate a necessary change in aspect ratio, such as through the use of archive footage.

I occasionally film events, and there was one that I had done for a relative, and at one point in the video, I narrowed the 16:9 aspect ratio to 4:3 and threw in a brief clip of VHS static to serve as a transition, followed by a montage of archive footage of their family that I had in my possession (dating back up to 25 years) as a little surprise. To my eyes, the footage would have been unwatchable if I had cropped the 4:3 footage to 16:9 instead.

Furthermore, I hate when archive 4:3 footage is cropped to a wider aspect ratio, be it in the news, (especially) long-running television series, or documentaries as it diminishes the quality of the production in my eyes, and a lot of the time, the editor has neglected to reframe the footage to accommodate the shift in aspect ratio.

[truelies]

It's better just film every movie at 1.78:1 like avitar. 2.35:1 not using all part of the screen both in theaters and TV.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by truelies

It's better just film every movie at 1.78:1 like avitar. 2.35:1 not using all part of the screen both in theaters and TV.

Better for whom?

[JohnCN]

Shifting aspect ratios may be OK on a projection screen or very large screen TV viewed from a close distance. However, those of us with 2.35:1 screens like me are frustrated because we have to view the movie with bars at the top AND sides except during IMAX segments when the image reaches the top and bottom of the screen. It seems the disc production companies care somewhat about us because captions are within the picture frame. So why not offer two versions of the movie on the disc or separate discs. Christopher Nolan films and my latest acquisition, Top Gun Maverick I just found out today, shifts from 2.39:1 to 1.85:1 (approximately).

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by JohnCN

Top Gun Maverick I just found out today, shifts from 2.39:1 to 1.85:1 (approximately).

I just watched the Blu-ray the other day. Well, I re-authored the Blu-ray first using multiAVCHD. Re-encoded the video cropping each frame down to 2.39:1, then adding the black bars back in the process. No more shifting aspect ratios.

[crutzulee]

Thankfully my latest JVC projector gave me back a cropping feature that I had on my old 3 gun SONY CRT 5 upgrades ago.

Back then, it was useful to crop out Japanese subtitles in the black bars of Laserdiscs (The Phantom Menace). Today, it allows me to completely eliminate the abomination that is shifting aspect ratios. As a guy that individually and perfectly mattes each presentation ( Lens memory and side panels ), this feature is invaluable to me.

[AmishParadise]

I created a short video last night of my physical projector screen masking in action for those interested in checking it out. I started playback of my custom 2.39:1 presentation of "Top Gun: Maverick" advancing to Chapter 3 and pausing the video, then moving the masking into position. I left a few lights on when taking the video so it was easier to tell what was going on.

Screen masking. (1.78:1 to 2.39:1)
https://rumble.com/v2p39ys-screen-ma...-to-2.391.html

(Hit up the link in my forum signature to learn more about my DIY projector screen masking. Nothing beats a true black hole surrounding a given presentation, black bars projected on a white screen need not apply.)

[filmbuffTX]

I don't mind shifting aspect ratios. I'd even say I like them. It's recreating the experience of seeing the film in the theater. It adds a certain "wow factor" to those special sequences that are opened up. Especially for 3D. Last week I watched the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films on 3D Blu-ray and I had forgotten about the shifting ratios. It looked awesome! Both films also have frame breaking effects when in the scope ratio. Later Marvel 3D Blu-rays like Infinity War and Endgame do not have the IMAX scenes unfortunately.