One interesting case in the letterboxing vs. pan-n-scan issue is John Frankenheimer's RONIN, which was released on DVD in BOTH versions--on opposite sides of the disk. RONIN was shot in Super 35 format and distributed to theaters in anamorphic, 1.35:1 prints. As usual, letterboxing preserves the look of the theatrical screening of the film, but reduces the size of the image. What's interesting to me, though, is that in the pan-n-scan version we see the ENTIRE WIDTH of the original! Very little has been cut from the sides of the original image. Instead, this version adds material to the top and bottom of the frame to fill the screen. That is, we see material above and below the 1.35 frame--material which was not visible in the theatrical release. One of my arguments against pan-n-scan has always been that it chops off significant portions of the original image, but in the case of RONIN that is not true. 'Course, the pan-n-scan version does do violence to the aspect ratio of the original, thus messing with the original compositions; but in ways I didn't expect. I've done some frame grabs from the DVD to illustrate this to my classes: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/classes/Jbutler/T112/DVDIllustrationsLetterboxing.htm P.S. A BUG'S LIFE digitally added material to the top and bottom for its "full screen" release. ---- Jeremy Butler [log in to unmask] ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite Telecommunication & Film/University of Alabama/Tuscaloosa ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html