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November 1997, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
Lang Thompson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 24 Nov 1997 23:23:35 -0500
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This is a problem with the theatre or more specifically the projectionist.
Many films are shot with the intention that the upper and bottom slices of
the filmed image will be masked out when shown (roughly a square becoming a
rectangle).  Boom mikes often appear in the top because of the filmed image
because they're not supposed to be seen when the movie is actually shown
and indeed if it's projected correctly they won't.  But sometimes the
framing is off and the these "unseen" areas are shown.  I recently saw
U-Turn where it was out of frame and not only was the boom mike visible in
a few shots but even the camera shielding (keeps direct sunlight off the
lens) could be seen once.  Also, I think this practice has become less
common recently than it was during the 80s but that could be a mistaken
impression.  I do know that when we used to show 16mm prints where the
masking was different that this was a common problem.  The worst case was
Time Bandits during the scene where the dwarves are swinging over a
supposedly empty void but you could clearly see pads at the bottom of the
image!
 
This principle of selective masking has also led to Super35, a process that
allows films to be shown widescreen in theatres but easily reformated to a
more standard aspect ratio for video.  This avoids pan-and-scan problems
because the film was shot with an eye towards both ratios.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Lang Thompson
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/wlt4
PLEASE NOTE NEW URL!!
 
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