Format Isn’t Just Display Size

Format Isn’t Just Display Size

As the world transitions from standard-defi nition to highdefi
nition broadcast television, formats are undergoing the
same transition that they made in fi lm half a century ago.
The nearly square 4:3 aspect is being replaced as standard
by the wider 16:9 format, but 1.85 Academy aperture and
2.35 Cinemascope also appear as common “widescreen”
formats.
A lot of artists (students, particularly) fall in love with the
widescreen look for how it conjures Star Wars and Lawrence
of Arabia, but if these formats aren’t shown at 24 fps and
don’t obey other cinematic conventions outlined here,
the result tends to appear a bit cheesy. So remember, it’s a
convention we associate with fi lm, whether or not we know
the following history.
In response to the growing popularity of television in
the 1950s, Hollywood conjured up a number of different
widescreen formats through experiments with anamorphic
lenses and fi lm stocks as wide as 70 mm. These systems—
CinemaScope, VistaVision, Panavision, and so on—haven’t
completely faded away, but their presence in the modern
era is mostly felt in the way that fi lms are displayed, not
how they are shot. 35 mm is once again the most popular
shooting format, specifi cally the full-aperture version
known as Super 35 mm.
Standard 35 mm fi lm has an aspect ratio of 4:3, which
is not coincidentally the same as a television. Almost all
current movies are fi lmed in this format as if originally
intended for the small screen. When shown in a theater
using a widescreen aspect of 1.85:1 (also known as 16:9,

the HDTV standard) or 2.35:1 (CinemaScope/Panavision),
the full 4:3 negative is cropped . Theater
patrons actually pay $10 to see less than if they waited for
the movie to get broadcast full screen on cable!