IMAX misinformation and clarity -- Please digg?

[RoninFox]

From the start I pretty much accepted that widescreen was better, but I didn't get to the point of realizing the crap that is full until one weekend I watched X-Men on tv, and saw the shot of Wolverine holding two guys at bay with his claws in the bar.  Worst digital pan I've ever seen as the cropped image moved from one would be attacker to the next, only able to hold two characters on screen at a time, completely took me out of the movie and I had to turn it off.  After that any movie I watched in cropped fullscreen bothered me.

[Raven]

My mom and dad always asked for the fullscreen version of movies if there was a choice, but I think that was simply because of the small tv in the huge living room.  It wasn't the black bars that got them upset, but the fact that everything was too small to see.  But thankfully, lightning took that TV out and now they have a new HD tv so they've since lifted their fullscreen only declaration.

[daltysmilth]

While I definitely prefer widescreen (or, more accurately, I prefer to see the film as close to how the director intended it to be shown as possible), I'm not militant about it.  I don't consider a fullscreen DVD a blight upon my eyes, and I would guess there's an art to making a good fullscreen transfer.  The people that make the fullscreen versions of movies for home video need the work just as much as anyone, and if they're good at their job, they probably take pride in their work.  And anyway, depending on what aspect ratio the film was originally shown in, fullscreen might be fairly close to how it looked in the theaters anyway. 

[Trumpysgirl]

I can understand why they call it "re-directing" the movie, though. I'm no great director, but as a film student I've had to create a lot of films on my own and I have to plan them down to the precise detail in order to get the vision I want.

I work for this guy who has me film videos for his company from time to time. He has very limited expertise in this area, but nonetheless he owns all of the equipment I use to make the films. What usually happens is I will edit a piece together and then he will add the music (he's an audiologist).

One time he had me make a film that I put a lot of time and effort into: getting the framing right, syncing up the shots with the music that he had pre-selected, everything. I was running low on time and the film was almost complete when he volunteered to finish everything up so I could go home. I thought this was nice of him and assumed that he would just put in the final shots I had selected and then render it.

Nope. The next day I saw the film and discovered to my horror that he had rearranged the entire thing. Shots were out of place and didn't make any sense in the order he put them in, the scenes that I had carefully placed to correlate with the music were gone, and to make matters worse he had rendered it in this god-awful format that made everything look pixelated and horrible.

I was furious, but I couldn't say anything because he was so pleased with himself (and I'm sort of employed by him). Since then, I don't care what time it is, I finish the damn film and render it before I leave to go home. So, while I don't place myself on the same levels as Scorsese and Spielberg, I can understand seeing something you put your time and effort into butchered and feeling like something was taken from you.

[AmandaGal]

I still get people wanting FULLSCREEN DVDs at work.

I have friends like that who just won't give in to widescreen no matter how many times I explain why it's better. Black bars give people the willies, I guess.

That's how my dad is.  He actually zooms the DVD when it's in widescreen just so it gives the illusion of full.

My mom does that too.  It's even worse than a regular full screen DVD.  Sometimes the proportions are wrong and at least someone took the time to edit the fullscreen version.

Black bars do give her the willies.

[Doctor Who?]

Sorry but i think 90% fullscreen movies out there are pan and scaned by some tech who doesn't know a thing about film making and doesn't even pay attention to the story.

I swear the number of times I have been watching a fullscreen movie and something important doesn't even appear on screen,or I can only see half of someone's face.

I hate fullscreen.

Also is it just me or do people always look a little weird in Fullscreen?

[Trumpysgirl]

Also is it just me or do people always look a little weird in Fullscreen?

It's because they've been stretched to fit the screen. I actually had a friend tell me that she preferred fullscreen because she could see more of the characters, 

[Doctor Who?]

Yeah more of their insanely long chins and foreheads.

[MSTJedi]

On a related note, what is it with people who have HDTVs that end up with fullscreen stuff stretched to widescreen. It makes everyone look way too fat and squatty. Isn't there some way to fix that? Not being an HDTV owner myself, I wouldn't know.

[Darth Geek]

I've had widescreen TV for years so it's not an issue with me. But I really do understand some people prefer fullscreen if they have 4:3 TVs. It's not the black bars, its that THE PICTURE IS SMALLER. I don't care what proportion screen it is, I want to see the picture as big as I can so I can see it better. For people who don't know, understand or care about the portion of the frame they are missing with Pan & Scan, of course they are going to complain about the size of the picture. And black bars on the sides when you have a 4:3 picture on a widescreen TV is irrelevant since it doesn't change the size of the picture. So let the people who want fullscreen alone. Since all new TVs nowadays are widescreen proportion (the best thing the industry could have done IMO), eventually when they get a new TV they'll be happy with widescreen DVDs and still not care that what they are seeing is somehow different than before.

[MSTJedi]

Yeah, I remember trying to watch a widescreen movie on a 20" fullscreen TV. Not a fun experience.

[MrTorso]

I've had widescreen TV for years so it's not an issue with me. But I really do understand some people prefer fullscreen if they have 4:3 TVs. It's not the black bars, its that THE PICTURE IS SMALLER. I don't care what proportion screen it is, I want to see the picture as big as I can so I can see it better. For people who don't know, understand or care about the portion of the frame they are missing with Pan & Scan, of course they are going to complain about the size of the picture. And black bars on the sides when you have a 4:3 picture on a widescreen TV is irrelevant since it doesn't change the size of the picture. So let the people who want fullscreen alone. Since all new TVs nowadays are widescreen proportion (the best thing the industry could have done IMO), eventually when they get a new TV they'll be happy with widescreen DVDs and still not care that what they are seeing is somehow different than before.

Except now when the fullscreen fans get their new 16X9 television they complain that they have black bars on the sides of their picture when watching all the fullscreen DVDs they demanded for so long.  They also complain or think that something is wrong with their DVDs too when they have their TV set to expand 4x3 images to 16X9 (squat and fat!).

[Trumpysgirl]

I'm seriously going to have a brain aneurysm over this: why are black bars such a huge friggin' deal for people? I barely notice them within the first ten seconds of the movie, yet all I hear when I watch with friends is how "distracting" they are.

[MrTorso]

This was my favorite website for a long time in the late 90s.

http://web.archive.org/web/19981201091405/http://members.aol.com/savetele/savetele.html


The guy was completely serious. He used to troll the alt.laserdisc usenet boards and rail against widescreen.

[Trumpysgirl]

This was my favorite website for a long time in the late 90s.

http://web.archive.org/web/19981201091405/http://members.aol.com/savetele/savetele.html


The guy was completely serious. He used to troll the alt.laserdisc usenet boards and rail against widescreen.