Choosing The Right Aspect Ratio For Your Film

Thanks for the video and explanation, may I ask you you can change aspect ratio between scenes or not?

Nice

And 2:1 ratio?

Great Video!

Thank you for french subtittles !

🔥🔥🔥

great video

We need digital file containers that can handle multiple aspect ratios (I think .MKV does to an extend). And let the player/screen do the blanking - they know best.

I'll watch anything as long as it's not "shot safely" and then cropped. Decide what you want, how you want it, and why, then compose for that shape. If you want the 2x anamorphic look, but in 16:9, then either set the camera to 8:9 or compose the shot with the intent to crop the excess off. Whatever you do, if I know or suspect that there's a version that exists that is uncropped and would ADD to the experience, I will want THAT version, and will be pissed if I can't get it.

Especially if you crop something into being wider than it was when filmed, and release the cropped-wide version (chopped off top and bottom) as the physical release. Stupidest move ever to release a cropped version that's very short to a consumer market full of 16:9 screens.

would there be any point of a small aspect ratio and an ultrawide angle lens?

Very informative

Gonna shoot my next movie i 0:0 🎉

The biggest mystery of cinema in my opinion is the aspect ratio. I will never understand how it is possible that filmmakers choose to cut the image and decrease the portion of the picture. Cropped image = depowered image. I don't know how they can pass it off as an artistic choice. If I were a director I would exploit every single pixel of a camera and I would have the feeling that it is not enough.

The Enterprise D got destroyed for 2.39:1!

Thank You !
🙂🙏

I learn so much from the comments and the video. A twofer!!

How did they "desqueeze" the anamorphic shot neg back in the film days?

This was so good, thank you for this wealth of knowledge

Starting to see a lot more of 2:1

Groovy! What film is that at the first of the video where the lady with the blue hoodie slips underneath the police tape?

I watched The Blair Witch Project on HBO Max recently. They cropped it from 1.33 to 1.89, which kind of defeats the purpose of feeling like found amateur video shot on a Hi-8 camera from the '90s.

Just came by to drop a personal anecdote about what a big difference the aspect ratio makes to your perception of a film. As a project I made a fan edit of Amazon's Wheel of Time TV show into a film. I choose to crop the original footage from 1920x1080 (16:9, 1.78:1) to 1920x880 (2.2:1) to give it a more cinematic look, just about the tightest crop I could get away with without having any frame look cramped. From all the feedback I received people REALLY noticed the difference, which is surprising since it's usually such an invisible part of the film (literally!). Just made me realize what a big difference out makes.
Much love from 🇿🇦

Nothing but love for you as you know. One quick correction: all of leone’s films were shot on spherical lenses with 2-perf film. Creating 2.35:1 with technoscope processing.

I'm glad that someone understands aspect ratios, as there are some people who STILL say "16 by 9" when they are not stating the aspect ratio of "1.78:1".

1920x1080, is actually 1920 DIVIDED by 1080, which gives you 1.78:1, as is 3840x2160.

This is more for displays than for projected images, but, it is important to also know that for broadcast deliverables to Netflix and Hulu (for example) as they have VERY specific requirements for codecs and aspect ratios.

Another CRITICAL point is the use of the term "4K", as there are many different examples, yet, the actual "K" part of this is a multiple of "1,024"...so, "4K" would be 4,096 (1,024 X 4).

If someone asks you to deliver them a "4K" product, it is important to know which variation, as DCI 4K is 4,096 horizontal lines, NOT 3,840 lines, is tghis gives a "K" rating of 3.75K.

Yes, you read that right, all those so called "4K" televisions and monitors, are probably just 3.75K.

Sorry.

2:1 or 18:9 was the perfect balance of 2.39's wideness & 1.85's height.

my question is...eventhough a director chooses his stylistic choice of aspect ratio he wants to use, wont it still be projected at whatever aspect ratio the cinema (theatre) projects it in. most likley the wide aspect 2.40:1 ..... Won't it be unsual to see black bars in the theatre?
im not sure how this works... but im curious will a theatre project a 4:3 aspect ratio?

or is this gimmick only useful for platforms like netflix and amazon

I'll tell you what's NOT the best aspect ratio to shoot your next video in: Vertical.

Theatrical Justice League release was 1.85:1. Small correction.

I remember going to see 'Brainstorm', the film about VR recording of experiences directly to and from the brain, by Douglas Trumbull, which was intended to show off his Showscan process (which was shot on horizontally exposed 65mm film at 60 fps for optimal fidelity) but unfortunately had to opt for simply switching between "flat" widescreen and anamorphic cinemascope for the 'Brainstorm' sequences in cinema releases, but it was still quite effective with the screen "opening up" for the VR shots!

Showscan was never adopted but some earlier processes tried simillar innovations; like the original Cinemascope which used 3 cameras/projectors and a curved screen, and Todd AO which was a 65mm process shot at 30 fps.

Great video.

More recently Blonde had 4 different aspect ratios, ranging from a 1.00:1 to 2.39:1. Dont think I've seen a film with that many changes in size.

It's interesting how the names of aspect ratios change between film and photography. Like you say 2x3 or 3x4 in photography not 1.5 or 1.334.
The obvious advantage is that it's easier to tell how square a ratio is.
Or is there another reason?

I think best choice is whatever ratio most TVs these days are made with. 16:9 probably but don't quote me on that. I just don't like when some of the pixels are slacking off not being used. I paid for the whole TV I'm gonna use the whole TV dangit

Sergio Leone's movies were shot on Techniscope, this means a 2 perforation used per frame.

Outstanding work, as always. Thank you for sharing your knowledge - I have nothing to do with the film industry, but I watch every one of your videos as soon as they're posted - very informative and well-presented

A little correction since you show the good, the bad and the ugly as examples of anamorphic when they weren’t shot on anamorphic, they were shot on spherical 2 perf 35mm, granted all the prints for cinemas were anamorphicided to 4 perf so they can be projected like any other movie, but it was recorded on 2 perf. This was called techniscope since it was technicolor who created this method

informative 12mins.

My nitpicks aside. I am very much convinced that you can use pretty much any aspect ratio for any film. Especially in todays movie world where DCP's can be cropped to whatever is needed inside the 1.90:1 DCI spec form factor. All you need to do is know what crop you are framing the image for and use that to compose the elements in the image according to the needs of the story.

You can make any ratio feel cramped or expansive if you are sensible in your approach to framing.

There are some nitpicks to be done here. Firstly, the chronology. Yes, there was 1.37:1 until the mid 50's but... a lot of shenanigans went on. And 1.85:1 came after Cinemascope and other formats duked things out.

Also, using Sergio Leones films for Scope is a bit of a mistake, I think. Sure, the prints were scope-compatible by design. But the cameras used 2 perf pulldown and non-anamorphic lenses to save on production costs. Only during printing were they stretched vertically to fit the Scope projectors. And as they usually could use faster and more sharp lenses, they usually had a clearer image compared with real scope features despite using only half the film. And as others have pointed out. The wider scenes in Dunkirk, like Tenet after it, uses 65mm 2.2:1 film as Nolan has practically abandoned the 35mm format completely for the foreseeable future.

And... DCP's do have those two ratios standardized yes. Scope and flat, that is. But essentially. There's nothing stopping distributors from using the full 1.90:1 DCI max resolutions in most theaters. But as far as I know. Only digital IMAX uses that ratio.

It especially annoys me when filmmakers use 2.20:1 and the distributors put that in a 1.85:1 frame and then theaters see the notation on the harddrive to use FLAT on the Scope shaped screen. So you end up with a windowboxed final image on screen that is almost half the available size.

Dude shows 35mm 2-perf (Techniscope) spherical footage for anamorphic.

Wasn’t 1.85:1 first introduced with 35mm 8-perf VistaVision?

Great video as always. However, I wouldn't consider IMAX to be a niche ratio considering it has a proprietary film stock, and Dunkirk certainly wasn't cropped from 1.85 to achieve 1.43. IMAX film is a native 1.43 as it is 15perf horizontal. If anything, most 1.43 IMAX theatrical releases have to be cropped to 16:9 for home media, so I think scale of IMAX has been really understated here.

For me, 2.40:1 is not only what I associate with cinema, but I think that anamorphic widescreen also works best for horror films. Because having the frame vertically compressed and the faces distorted creates this uncomfortable claustrophobic feeling.

But Zack Snyder's Justice League showed me the power of UNCROPPED 1.33:1 and how it definitely works best for big concept stories. Also, it showed me how I REALLY hate it when an image is manually cropped in post-production.

1.85:1 honestly feels smaller than both 2.40:1 and 1.33:1 to me. It makes the movie look too plain and boring. Only a few movies I love use 1.85:1 effectively, such as Jurassic Park.