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surrogate moon

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:20:30 -0800

Oh, geesh! Netflix is at it again. I’m going to cancel my membership (again) because they’re still not getting it.

I was trying to watch “Moon” using their on-demand service. I tried it on my TiVo, my laptop, and my iPad, and all three were in the wrong aspect ratio.

This is what theatergoers saw in 2.35:

tiger woods, the kitten

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 19:20:31 -0800

Dear Readers,

I apologize for the long delay between posts. I’ve been working 12-hour days and 6-day weeks for awhile now, but I promise to keep up the fight when I have time to come up for air.

This is totally off topic, but I’m entitled to a little self-promotion now and then, right?

I took a video of my kitten watching Tiger Woods on TV last year. We had to name him Tiger Woods. Nothing else would stick.

I put the video on YouTube for my friends and family, and someone suggested I send it to “Golf’s Amazing Videos” on the Golf Channel.

I did, last December, and, months later, forgot all about it.

I got a call yesterday that I’m one of 4 finalists for The Golf Channel’s 2010 Amazing Videos contest.

If you have it in your heart, check it out here and vote for my video.

www.thegolfchannel.com/amazingvideocontest

Tony

P.S. Yes, of course, it’s HD!

pee wee’s princess bride

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:59:22 -0700

MoviePlex showed the full screen version of “The Princess Bride” on Sunday morning. I was hoping it would be one of the original film transfers with things you’re not supposed to see at the top and bottom of the frame.

The most famous example of this is this scene, captured by John Berger at www.widescreen.org. The original full frame transfers clearly show a moving boom mike at the top of the frame:

amc status report

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:05:05 -0700

Dear Readers,

My apologies for the long lapse between posts. I’ve been battling an awful cold, but I haven’t been idle. I’ve decided that I can’t simply cite networks for aspect ratio violations, I have to be more proactive, so I wrote to AMC.

The catalyst was their recent broadcast of Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor”, promoted as the “full theatrical version” but (you guessed it) it was a 1.78 pan and scan version of a 2.35 film (2.20 in 70mm).

pan and scan on amc

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:16:53 -0700

In my last post, I featured some mini-documentaries and interviews with film directors about the perils of pan and scan. Two of them were produced by American Movie Classics as part of their annual Film Preservation Festival circa 1997. (AMC’s mini-doc can be seen here.) An interview with Martin Scorcese, the founder of The Film Foundation and ally of AMC’s Preservation Festival can be seen here (part 1) and here (part 2).

I have to give kudos to AMC for their fundraising and film preservation efforts. Many films in danger of being lost forever have been painstakingly restored, and AMC has broadcast them to help raise public awareness of the issue.

Now, you would think that a network so dedicated to the preservation of American cinema, including the presentation of widescreen movies in the aspect ratio that the director intended, would practice what it preaches.

They recently promoted the 40th anniversary broadcast of Robert Altman’s masterpiece, “M*A*S*H” as both “Uncut” and with “Limited Commercial Interruption” but they showed a PAN AND SCAN version! Yes, it was full HD, 1920x1080, but it was cropped.

Here is the above shot in the correct, original aspect ratio:

i heart widescreen.org

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:37:30 -0700

I can’t believe I didn’t discover this site until recently, but it’s awesome. (Thank you, readers!) Its tag line, “Defending the Visions and Intentions of Film Makers” is music to my ears.

This site has some terrific background information, examples (images and movies), explanations, commentaries, podcasts, and an incredible “Multimedia” video/audio page where I finally found a copy of this mini-documentary from TCM featuring Martin Scorcese, Sydney Pollack, and Michael Mann talking about why widescreen movies should be shown in widescreen.

Several of my readers had mentioned this mini-documentary. I caught the end of it on the air only once. I scoured the internet and TCM’s website, but couldn’t find a copy of it. Well, thanks to Turner Classic Movies and widescreen.org, here it is!

This is a 16 MB AVI file with DivX compression that requires an AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio codec. It was created by John L. Berger for widescreen.org and © 2007 Turner Classic Movies:

two kubrick films

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:01:54 -0700

MoviePlex’s standard definition channel showed “Paths of Glory” last week. There’s some debate about the original aspect ratio of this film, and quite a lengthy discussion on LockerGnome.com (click here to see it). The film was shot in standard 35mm (academy 1.37) but was matted to 1.66 when shown in theaters.

In the above discussion, it is mentioned that Kubrick preferred that his flat 35mm movies to be unletterboxed for video, unless hard mattes appeared (as is the case in “Barry Lyndon”, “Clockwork Orange”, and especially “Dr. Strangelove”). I actually find this hard to believe, but in this case it’s clear to me that Kubrick composed these images for either aspect ratio. The principal action is inside the 1.66 “safe” area and (IMHO) is actually better composed.

On the images (above and below) I’ve added the mattes to show you what was seen in most theaters as compared to the broadcast.

eighty boondock suspects

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:03:34 -0700

Ah, TMC. They showed 1956’s “Around the World in 80 Days” in its glorious, original 2.20 aspect ratio. This was Michael Todd’s first and only film, for which he created the special widescreen Todd-AO process (and also the “cameo” appearance).

Todd-AO films were shot with special wide-angle lenses and projected on large, curved screens, so the image below

trip to connecticut

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:52:08 -0700

I went to Connecticut last weekend for a high school and family reunion.

While waiting for my plane in Terminal 3 at SFO, the SD channel of CNN’s Headline News was being stretched to fit the 16x9 high definition displays at American Airlines:

it’s a mad world

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 20:35:22 -0700

I don’t mean to keep singing the praises of TCM HD, but here’s several examples of things they do right.

Last night, they showed 1963’s “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”. This film was shot in Ultra Panavision. The 70mm prints were shown in theaters at 2.20. The 35mm anamorphic prints were shown in theaters at 2.35. This image is actually 2.45, and if you look closely it looks like they transferred as much of the original negative as possible.

I only caught the last 10 minutes of it, but it looked as though some shots were a tad narrower (on the right of the frame in the above) compared to the shot below, as if they were transferring every possible pixel of the original negative.