Scott Hutchins writes:



>I've had a question on an online board about the 1.17:1 aspect ratio.  My 

>intro text shows _The Public Enemy_ as an example.  IMDb lists only 11 

>titles in this format, and 8 of these are video games.  Surely the format 

>was used for many films not listed for it.  Surely more films were made in 

>this format than _The Public Enemy_, _Submarine_, and _The Song of the 

>Nations_.



This was a transitional ratio which was in use for 4-5 years around the 

time of the conversion to sound, although in most cases it is nearer to 

1:1.15 and is usually expressed as such.



When De Forest Phonofilms and Fox first started using sound-on-film 

systems, the picture was shot using a conventional studio camera (usually a 

heavily blimped Bell & Howell 2709) with a full-frame aperture - i.e. the 

frame exposed covered the entire width between the perforations.  The sound 

record was exposed on a separate mechanism, and synchronisation achieved 

using a clapperboard (electronic interlocking didn't come in until a lot 

later).



Usually the optical sound record was superimposed over a strip on the left 

hand side of the film (as you look at it the right way round from the 

picture's perspective), thereby obliterating part of the image and changing 

its aspect ratio from roughly 1:1.33 to roughly a square.  This created a 

big problem for theatres, because they either had to mask off the track 

area on one side of the frame or screen (by using an aperture plate cut for 

the purpose and by altering the screen masking system, if it existed), 

and/or use a lens of a different focal distance to crop and magnify the 

square frame to fit their existing 1:1.33 screen.  Remember, apart from a 

few Magnascope installations, projectors and screen masking systems simply 

weren't equipped to deal with multiple ratios in the way they are 

today.  In the worst case scenario, over a third of the total image was 

being cropped.



As a temporary measure, cameras were fitted with apertures that masked the 

soundtrack area cinematographers began to compose their shots for the new 

'early sound special' ratio.  Even this caused no end of problems when the 

finished film had to be released both with film and disc soundtracks, and 

in most cases optical enlargement or reduction was needed for at least one 

of the release versions.



In 1933, when it was clear that Vitaphone was in its death throes and that 

optical sound was becoming the industry norm, the SMPE and AMPAS decided to 

restore and standardise the old 1:1.33 ratio by introducing a matte between 

each frame in the smaller picture area left by the optical 

soundtrack.  This became the so-called 'Academy ratio', and properly 

projected it is in reality 1:1.38.



No single, accurate source of information for which films were intended to 

be shown as 1:1.15 exists as far as I am aware.  Also, very few theatres 

are equipped with the proper lenses and plates to show it, but you can get 

an almost perfect result by using your anamorphic (CinemaScope) plate and 

prime lens (i.e. remove the anamorph from its backing prime).  This is 

because the optical sound version of 'scope uses the extra bit of frame 

which is matted out in 1:1.38, and therefore the frame area is almost the 

same as that of the early sound ratio.  Given its date, The Public Enemy 

could be a candidate, though being a Warners production, it might have been 

shot for Vitaphone and therefore reprinted from the full-frame 

sound-on-disc o-negs through 1:1.38 intermediates.  I can't remember ever 

having projected it.  It's a question of what preservation elements 

survive.  The only films I know for an absolute fact should always be 

projected and electonically presented in the 1:1.15 'early sound special' 

are 'Sunrise' (originally released with a synchronised Movietone orchestral 

soundtrack), 'M' and several of the early '30s Universal horrors.  When 

examining a print, the most obvious tell-tale sign are opening titles that 

are very tight or even slightly cropped when projected in Academy.  The 

existence of full-height frames doesn't necessarily mean that the film was 

intended to be shown in 1:1.15. My only advice for projectionists is to 

examine any print of a 1928-33 title very carefully before deciding on 

which ratio to use, and for DVD producers to check with the archive 

supplying material for TK and/or studio records wherever possible.



Incidentally, Eisenstein wrote a defence of the early sound ratio in an 

essay called 'The Dynamic Square'.  I think it's translated in one of the 

Jey Leyda anthologies.



Shameless plug - aspect ratio standardisation in the aftermath of the 

conversion to sound is covered (though admittedly, very briefly) in my book 

'Moving Image Technology - From Zoetrope to Digital', published by 

Wallflower Press in the UK and Columbia University Press in the United States.



Leo



Leo Enticknap

Curator, Northern Region Film & Television Archive

Middlesbrough, UK

www.nrfta.org.uk  



----

For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives:

http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html