Aspect Ratios: The Meaning of the Frame | Video Essay

[@HectorLowe]

Love this. Amazing to look at the more technical elements of cinema that get so ignored in an endless parade of breakdowns of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though obviously the most powerful film would be just a single pixel line that stretches across the breadth of the screen.

[@Greg1756]

And just like that... watching movies has a whole new meaning! Epic work Rick!! Can't wait for whats cooking next

[@Jomchen]

So glad Ben-Hur was mentioned. Great vid!

[@area51pictures]

Excellent essay. Any man who name-checks John Frankenheimer is a man of good taste.

[@lauradesommar434]

Such a great video, thank you for explaining things so clearly and thus inspiring the viewers x

[@thedogs3467]

fantastic. Shooting a short in 4:3 this weekend. Excited to play with that ratio.

[@Keytium]

We're been trained through years of watching movies and TV to expect certain aspect ratios to tell us certain types of stories. While I agree that it takes more than a wide screen to make something feel cinematic, it is hard to ignore that you can practically feel the genre shifting whenever a TV show shifts to a more 'cinematic' aspect ratio mid episode to emphasis its up coming action scene, or how a scene which is aiming for a film noir vibe can switch to 1.37 : 1 to instantly make things feel dated. It is not just about how you use the canvas, but what people expect to find inside certain types of packaging. I must admit that I didn't notice/remember the aspect ratio change when I watched the Grand Budapest Hotel, but I do remember that I felt the difference between the eras in the cinematography, obviously a lot of that is about the use of colour, but now that you've pointed it out it makes so much sense that aspect ratio would have heightened that effect. Fun video. :)

[@MrLookShiny]

This was great, thanks for taking the time to research and put together. Two quibbles. 1) VistaVision is not the origin of the 1.85:1 ratio, which was introduced by effectively letterboxing the 35mm frame (1.66:1 was another popular wide-ish 35mm ratio, but the industry ultimately standardized on 1.85:1). VistaVision delivered in several ratios, from 1.66:1 to 2.00:1). 2) Your examples are all presuming a home-vid situation in which widescreen movies are letterboxed within a flat or 1.78 image - which makes sense if we're talking about consuming content at home on TV screens, but it's worth remembering the theatrical context here. CinemaScope movies were every bit as tall as Academy ratio or 1.85 flat, they were just *wider.* Shot compositions in 'Scope often use the same sorts of wide, medium, and close-up shots with faces taking up the same amount of vertical space, they just allow more room to the sides of the image. Properly presented, a 'Scope movie should be much *larger* than a 1.85 Flat movie, contributing to the epic feel of widescreen presentation.

[@UrFavouriteGoalie]

Great Video Essay with a well thought out analysis. I'd like to be a DoP one day and this was very insightful - I appreciate you doing your research and sharing your knowledge.

[@rachelxkendra]

Thanks for watching. Best of luck to you!

[@RM-zo2nh]

Informative video.

[@mcZoehh]

great job dude! keep going

[@scott_sparks]

This is fantastic

[@NoelEmmanPader]

Why the superwide aspect ratio like 2.76:1 or the Cinerama aspect ratio are now used in Music Videos and Commercials rather than a feature film? Some Music Videos even go wider take for example "Give Me Everything" by PitBull and Ne-Yo. The music video shot in 3:55:1 aspect ratio, is there a meaning of that aspect ratio in a music video? How do you compare it to feature films? And do you expect a 3.55:1 feature film in the future?

[@damianandfilms]

This is so good

[@inesrodriguezberdier3876]

Can you please tell me what movies are?

[@killua4162]

Fantastic video

[@TheDrRelish]

Great music choices!

[@Nayson]

Awesome work fella.

[@ilyasguner2267]

10:10 how do they do this, with crop effect? Because it cant be sequence settings

[@rachelxkendra]

if i had to guess i'd say the sequence is set to the tallest ratio used in the film, and then a mask is added to the timeline that is set to slowly transform over a big portion of the runtime

[@zevo9314]

when used correctly, the bars created by the movie either shouldnt be noticed, or make you feel something the director wanted you to feel, or draw attention to something the director wanted you to see. if you notice the bars and dont know why they're there, i feel like thats a failed scene, and it annoys me. this happens to me a lot in older films when that was just the standard and its just trying to fit on my new standard screen, where it just feels like unused space, because it is, though obviously not their fault. if i feel that way in a modern film, its a pet peeve.

[@MrLookShiny]

When projected properly the audience shouldn't see any black bars at all. Scope movies are meant to be *larger* than flat movies (same height, but wider image). Black bars are an artifact of trying to display a widescreen image in a TV that isn't wide enough. But as Rick points out in his video essay, filmmakers delivering for TV have adopted that widescreen aesthetic as a sort of visual grammar, making letterbox bar more and more ubiquitous. I have very mixed feelings about this.

[@HA-oo5gs]

It’s only bla bla bla .. with no meaning .