Marty Fairbairn raises an interesting point - the policy of 'shoot and
protect' which is used by most major studios.  Basically this is a way of
having one film which is showable in any ratio from 1:1.33 (most tellies)
to 1:1.85 (US widescreen cinema projection).  A film is shot with a
full-height spherical gate in the camera throughout, but the cameramen is
instructed to keep any crucial action within a 1:1.85-shaped hole in the
middle.  On most standard studio cameras, the matte line is shown in the
viewfinder, although this does not affect the exposure.

Therefore, by putting a 1:1.66, 1:1.75 (mainly for super-16 negs) or 1:1.85
hard matte on the release prints (though it has to be said most labs don't
bother, to the eternal confusion of the world's projectionists), you end up
with a widescreen film, but by telecining the o-neg or a fine grain in
Academy, your film can be shown on TV without any letterboxing.  The
question then becomes, what is the 'original' ratio, if a film is designed
to look acceptable in a variety of different formats?  OK, showing it in
1:1.85 involves cropping a lot of the picture, but if the film-makers fully
expect you to do this anyway then what's the problem?

My own approach in cases where the ratio is not indicated on the cans or
head leaders and there is no 1:1.85 hard matte is to run a rehearsal
screening in 1:1.66 with the racking set quite low and observe (i) how much
dead space there is at the top of the frame, and (ii) whether any boom
mikes are visible.  From this information I then decide whether to show the
film in 1:1.66, 1:1.75 or 1:1.85 on the basis of what appears to look like
the most consistent framing.  I know this sounds hit and miss but if the
studios aren't willing to tell you what ratio they want their films shown
in (as is the case in at least 80% of new releases), then the only option
left is guesswork.

L
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Leo Enticknap
Technical Manager
City Screen Cinemas (York) Ltd..
13-17 Coney St., York YO1 9QL.
United Kingdom
Telephone: 01904 612940 (work); 01904 625823 (home); 07710 417383 (mobile)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
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