Posted by Vincent at bg-tc-ppp1244.monmouth.com on November 04, 2000 at 01:33:57:
In Reply to: Tech Question for Vincent posted by Whodini on November 03, 2000 at 16:45:52:
: Just wonderin why you chose that ratio? Is it cheaper or do you like the look of it or what?
: Thanks,
: Whodini?
Basically, 16mm has the same ratio as TV or "full frame" 35mm- 1.37:1- (actually, TV is 1.33:1, but the difference between 1.37 and 1.33 is so minute that nobody could ever tell the difference). However, the very edges of the frame are kind of blurry and rounded, and can have some smutz on them (like gate hairs and such)- for the A BETTER PLACE video transfer, we zoomed out the image as far as it could go to get the ENTIRE width of the frame on-screen, but this also revealed the smutz on top and bottom and rounded edges top/bottom of the full 16mm frame. Basically, I choose 1.5:1 because the bars were just wide enough to cover up the smutz and give me a clean edge top/bottom. We tried running the first few mins matted to 1.66:1, and while nothing important was matted off, I just found myself feeling the image was too tight, so I opted to go the full-frame route and expose as much of the exposed 16mm image as possible.
One shot in the film is matted to 1.66:1, and that was done to cover up some offending visual information at the bottom of the frame (specifically, a breathing "dead" guy).
Vincent