Standing Up Against the OAR contoversy

[disneyboy]

OK, remeber when BVHE released THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR in COLOR and in FULLSCREEN? The fans bitched and moaned and 6 months later BVHE ate thier pie and released it in its ORIGINAL B&W and OAR. Why dont we do the same for DARBY and FAMILY BAND. Lets call, write letters, e-mail, and remind them what they did before. And MAYBE they can RE-release these 2 films in the OAR they deserve. Also, remeber the WILLY WONKA debacle for WB? That was the best "scandal"! WE HAVE THE POWER!

[Mr. Toad]

If you want people to do it what is the email and phone number?

[Luke]

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/panandscan.html

1-800-72-DISNEY

Disneyinfo@Disneyhelp.com

[deathie mouse]

By all means, ask Disney (and all film studios/dvd companies) to release their content in IAR (Intended aspect ratio hehehee) and in the best way posible (enhanced for 16:9, component RGB video transfers, etc.) Hopefully they will listen to their consumers.

But releasing open matte-shot widescreen in 4:3 is not so terrible. Horrible yes, but not so terribly one could say.

This is for Disneyboy since he sounds so frustrated.
(Cus I've also read his posts on the Darby and Family Band topics)

If you haven't read this site's aspect ratio info :

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/oar.htm

do so, and if you still need more info, hopefully this will ease your pain a little about Darby and Family Band for the time being


So brother, bear with me.


Theatrical presentations are projected (or have been projected) in three basic shapes (or aspect ratios).

I'll call them 1-square 2-wide 3-scope (wider)

Film cameras basically come in these three types, but a camera of one type can be used to shoot for the other by framing the composition of one shape inside the confines of the other.

The square type was the first one invented (or used), it's what's generally called 4:3 shape or 1.33 aspect ratio.

Actually this has varied over the years.
Silents were 1.33333 wide as tall, early sound (circa 1928-1931) was aproximately 1.21, and finally sound movies standarized into what's called the Academy Sound aperture, which is actually 1.375.
When TV was "invented" some years later they aparently didn't use this Academy updated ratio and adopted the old silent 1.33 ("4:3", 4 divided into 3) one.

Till recently all home display devices were this 4:3 shape.

In the 50's TV became important and movie studios decided to make film wider (bigger!) to have something that TV couldnt reproduce (and compete with)

To do this they:
A) use special lenses that shoot wider images and squeeze them into the square cameras (Scope, Panavision)
B) Compose and shoot for a "letterboxed" central section of the square camera's image (European, Disney, and USA widescreen)
C) Actually use wider film and cameras (70mm, VistaVision)

Disney films after the "changeover" (around 1955) mainly use B and fall under what I call the Wide shape, that is, between 1.66 and 1.85 wide. Let's call this 1.75 on average. Darby and Family Band belong to this category.

Since this type of film format uses a rectangular 1.75 wide central section inside the 1.375 square camera negative area for COMPOSITION , this is what we want to see on a DVD when we see a widescreen movie.

But in this 1.375 negative there's still image ABOVE and BELOW this central area that we want. And since most display devices still are 1.33 wide, when transfering to video on this type of film they transfer all this area, in a sense "opening up" the area above and below that wasn't meant to be seen, for the sake of easily putting a rectangular image into square display (hence the name "open matte"). You get all the theatrical image, but surrounded above and below with wasted non-essential empty image (lots of skies, ceilings and ground mostly) filling the remainder of the frame.

Or.. they can blot out this wasted space with black and you get a "letterboxed" Wide screen back.

Or they could blow up the central section so it fills the vertical space of the 4:3 display with the important composed-for-the-theater-image, but then they have to chop of the sides of the rectangle so it fits the narrower square shape and you loose a part of the theatrical image. This is called Pan and Scan. On this type of wide films you can loose up to 33% of the image if this is done.

Also, not all of the wide type (remember, around 1.75) films have the extra image area above and below in the negative, cus on some the cameraman put a blocking aperture plate in the camera to make the negative image forcefully be the 1.75 shape no way around it. These films MUST be pan/scanned obligatorily in 4:3 transfers. No open-matting for them! Those are called "hard-matted".

In recent years a new display shape has been made, the "16:9" one that is 1.7778 wide as tall. Now with this shape they can take the central COMPOSED FOR 1.75 section of the wide films and fill the frame of this display with no empty wasted space above and below, or lost, chopped-off sides.

(All this is relevant principally to type 2 ("wide") films. Scope type are another matter with more extreme results cus they are wider -2.20 to 2.75 wide-)


If Darby and Family Band are released "4:3" open matte, if you must have them widescreen, if you have a 4:3 display try blocking the top and bottom of the image, using carboard or custom made vertical blinds, or if you have a 16:9 display or a video projector, using the zoom function or a 16:9 shaped screen.

This may not always work perfectly, for the reasons mentioned on the Darby posts http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... php?t=3994

As I mentioned on my post there, maybe one reason for the the release being 4:3 could be they currently don't have a widescreen master for health (film health) reasons. Or time = money?
16:9 enhanced masters have to be created from scratch, you know..

No, i'm not advocating 4:3 releases of widescreen movies, (It wastes bit rate, they are ambiguous to frame correctly, they loose resolution, and it's just plain WRONG) But if it's the only way you're gonna get to see your favorite movie...

And this is coming from someone who loves Widest films (original magnetic Cinemascope and UltraPanavision rule ) and thinks 16:9 displays aren't wide enough and letterboxed HDTV is not enough

(But i've kept Scope out of this post cus it' s already too long)

Hopefully enough people might complain and Disney change the release type before they're out, or actually surprise us and done them originally in 16:9 enhanced wide. :>. Otherwise do as i do with some of my DVDs and Laserdiscs and make a pseudo letterbox on them.

Upgrade when the HDTV widescreen blue-ray dvd comes out?

If this still makes no sense, read, lather, rinse, repeat.

It's all very confusing the first few times you try to phantom it all. DVD's , regions, PAL. NTSC, non square pixels, 4:3, enhanced, 16:9, anamorphic, widescreen, scope, hardened open mattes 1.66, 2.35, 2.40, 2.39, Academy not being really 1.33, 4:3 video not really being 1.33 neither (shhhh, don't ask), etc.

Still, it's good to be passionate about film. And Disney



Now, don't get me started with type 3- Scope...

[Joshua Clinard]

About a week ago I started a letter-writing campaign to do exactly what you are suggesting. The appropriate contact info for most of the studios, as well as the retailers is on the Studio & Retailer Watchdog

[Christian]

They can do like they did with Finding Nemo and have every movie come in widescreen AND fullscreen. It doesn't really cost that much more.

[Ludwig Von Drake]

If people are only given widescreen i don't think that they will notice. You only realize it if you aren't into the movie

Full screen is pointless moives are meant to be seen in their entirerty.

[disneyboy]

So is matted WS, the film the way it was filmed the way it looked liked on the LENS?

[Disney Guru]

Yes I think that OAR should be banned and Widescreen should be made a must have.

[xpern]

OAR banned?? Original Aspect Ratio (OAR) is the format I want to have. I always want to get the movies in the format they were made. If it's made in 4:3 then I want that, if it's made in Cinemascope gimme that. All other formats should be avoided! If there is something that should be banned, burned and buried it should be Pan&Scan.

[2099net]

So is matted WS, the film the way it was filmed the way it looked liked on the LENS?

I'm not an expert, but I think it depends when the film was made. Early matted films most probably would have been filmed through a 4:3 viewing lens - mainly because, like I've said in another thread, they would have been using old Academy (4:3) filming equipment.

Later on, although I don't know for sure, I think it's likely the equipment will have been modified to enable an appropriate ratio viewing lens, even it it was only by physically covering some of the viewing area up. However, most decisions on if the filmed sequence was appropriate or not would be based on viewing the "dailies" in a viewing room. These allow the filmmakers not only to check the framing, but also the film's colours and exposures.

Today, films are checked on electronic monitors rather than lens- check out most "Making Of" features that appear on DVDs. These show both widescreen and full frame framing at the same time.

[AwallaceUNC]

Yes I think that OAR should be banned and Widescreen should be made a must have.

I think you mean that pan & scan should be banned and that OAR should be mandated.

-Aaron

[Eeyore]

No, i'm not advocating 4:3 releases of widescreen movies, (It wastes bit rate, they are ambiguous to frame correctly, they loose resolution, and it's just plain WRONG) But if it's the only way you're gonna get to see your favorite movie...

Not trying to pick on you here, as lots of people feel that way, but the attitude in that last sentence is really terrible.

Accepting and welcoming mediocrity (or worse) breeds *more* mediocrity. Buying carved up, butchered pieces of crap from companies teaches them that *that's what you want!*. So, they spoon up more of it to you.

Let them know you won't tolerate it. Let them know by hitting them where it counts, in the wallet. Let them know by writing and emailing them how you feel.

[deathie mouse]

Eeyore, I agree with you completely. So much that some of my friends thought me crazy for not buying several movies I loved till they came out in letterboxed laserdiscs (oh those were the days.., . ( If you wanna see just how obssesive I am about emulating the visual intention of movies, just check one of my crazy rants about upcoming HD-DVDs).

My sentiment in that sentence was in reference of full screen 4:3 discs of open matted films. On those, most of the time what you're missing from a true widescreen presentation is 2 thick black bars. So I meant that if "X" was your favorite widescreen movie and 'X" was shot on a full academy aperture camera and "X" was transfered that way, without the black matte, onto disc, it was not the end of the world, just put the "hard matting" back yourself (or alternatively use the zoom function if you have a widecreen display), since disneyboy seemed soo upset that he said these movies were dead to him. If he's lucky they are not dead, they are just showing too much err.. in a sense.. skin.. Seeing all the discussion around "open matte" Disney films in this site, I've even taken one of the 4:3 fullscreen images of a Disney film from one of Luke's images on this site and "zoomed" it to 1.75 (as it would be when projected theatrically) in which you can see how easily it is to get back the Widescreen presentation. I've been meaning to ask him permision if he could permit this to be shown (and host it) (since the original image was taken from his website) but I've been busy. (or lazy. take your pick ) hoping this might help visualize what's happening.

I'd been watching Hitchcock's Psycho in correct 1.85 widescreen for eons that way. (many many years before the 4:3 letterboxed DVD.) Luckily I had found an old tape in which they transfered the full aperture print as is, in which you could even see the black bars Hitchcock put on the print to cover the sparse camera dolly tracks on some shots in plain view.

Please be asured that I of course would much prefer they did them all 16:9 enhanced in the correct aspect ratio.
More pixels. My mantra. More pixels.
And it's a nuisance having to put the electrical tape and carboard on a monitor to create a letterbox that should have been there in the first place!

In a sense, if Lion King is 1.66 on DVD, to me, it's open matte, cus even tho the film print was hard matted (letterboxed) to 1.66 so that black bars didnt appear in European cinemas, in the US (if projected in standart-following theaters) it was 1.85 (and there were no instructions on the reels I got saying project at 1.75 or 1.66) So, do we add slim black bars on top and bottom to recreate the accurate US Widescreen presentation, or do we refuse to see it and complain to Disney? I'm more worried about the alterations being the only version available, sadly. I haven't bought The Lion King, even tho it has a special significance to me.

And yes, we must write to companies about correct presentation of movies on discs and them being in IAR (my term: intended aspect ratios and buy good editions.


note:Just to make myself clear, when i say widescreen movie I refer to 1.66-1.85 movies shot on 35mm Academy Aperture cameras in which the composition is filmed in the central rectangle of the 1.375 negative, be it with an aperture metal plate preventing the exposure of the areas above and below the 1.66-1.85 areas (hard matte), or with the standart open Academy aperture plate exposing the areas above and below the composed rectangles with non essential imagery (open matte).

which is what

Early matted films most probably would have been filmed through a 4:3 viewing lens - mainly because, like I've said in another thread, they would have been using old Academy (4:3) filming equipment.
Later on, although I don't know for sure, I think it's likely the equipment will have been modified to enable an appropriate ratio viewing lens, even it it was only by physically covering some of the viewing area up

is saying, the main modifcation from a standart Academy camera being the hard matte aperture plate (which automatically takes care of the viewfinder too) and I guess using it is probably the Cinematographer's or Director's preference, altho since the advent of home video it's used less than it used to be.
The lens can also be modified so that its exit image just covers the smaller diameter of the 1.85 image, intead of the 1.375 image, giving it the advantage of being lighter and more compact, with improved resolution and flare characteristics , but as this lens' smaller diameter would be only about just 91% the size of the standart Academy aperture lens, so it's not too different, my guess is that only very few "Prime" lenses of this kind are offered. I can't say for sure, since I've never had access to such prime (and probably expensive as hell) Hollywood hardware



All other formats I refer to as Cinemascope, VistaVision, Panavision, 70mm , etc etc..
With those others, as with widescreen HARD MATTED, I'm definitively NOT saying buying 4:3 releases of those is even close to acceptable. 4:3 releases of those are CROPPED and missing areas of the negative and they are an abomination.






.

[Poppins#1]

Deathie Mouse I agree with most of what you have said. I am always an advocate for OAR, or more specifically IAR. On occasion I will purchase an open-matte transfer, if that's trully what it is (no cropping). But I always prefer movies to be in their intended ratio. However, I think animated films are an exception to the rule. I can't imagine why Lion King's 1.66:1 ratio on the DVD upset you. While it's true that live action films shot open matte have picture area that the filmakers never intended to be seen (Kubrick is the exception), it's hard to argue that animated films "accidentely" captured too much of the animators' artwork. After all, they did draw all the picture in the 1.33:1 film frame, and while they understood that some of the artwork would be matted out for theatrical exhibition, I don't think it was their intent that it never be seen. So it's my opinion that animated films be presented in the aspect ratio that they were drawn and shot. However if the filmmakers themselves decide for it to be released in a different ratio, then that's their choice as was the case for Beauty and the Beast, which was shot 1.66:1 but presented in 1.85:1 on the DVD.

[deathie mouse]

Oh no, no no no! Poppins#1, I appear to have not made myself very clear over why I haven't purchased the Lion King DVD. My bad.

when I said:

"So, do we add slim black bars on top and bottom to recreate the accurate US Widescreen presentation, or do we refuse to see it and complain to Disney?" maybe i should have said in a more logical way
"So, do we refuse to see it and complain to Disney, or do we add slim black bars on top and bottom to recreate the accurate US Widescreen presentation ?

I haven't purchased it BECAUSE of the alterations made to it and the original version not being included in the DVD, as you can read in this site's review at http://www.ultimatedisney.com/thelionking2.html

It has nothing to do with the disc supposedly being 1.66 (more on this later) I would be contradicting myself if i posted these long messages that say "a 4:3 'open matte' version of an 1.85 film is kind of ok", and then went on psycho and said" But i'm NOT gonna buy the1.66 Lion King DVD cus it has 19 more pixels of extra image and I won't stand for it!!!".

Even if i were ultra fanatical in my quest for more pixels and resolution (and I am) and argued with myself "but deathie boy, if it's 1.66 that means they sacrificed a little resolution by shrinking the image" well, that's what PAL discs are for I could easily get the PAL disc, crop it to 1.85 and still end with more resolution than an NTSC disc transfrered at 1.85.

So my only reason for not having bought it yet is being frustrated that I won't be getting the original, which as i've said elsewhere was the first Disney film I ever projected so i have my memories. (memories... o/~) Oh, that, and that I have to order it from Europe
I'm sitting on the fence until the last minute it's discontinued. I'll probably succumb at the 11th hour.



About another thing you mentioned, well, this is my opinion <--see? o p i n i o n--

I think the reason those 60's widescreen movies were shot and animated in Academy 1.37 is because Mr. Disney, wanting his films to have the biggest exposure possible and also producing shows for TV, was planning ahead and like a good businessman. As you may know,a lot of Disney's revenues came from overseas showings. Cinemascope and all that was a big hit in te States and lots of parts of the world but in Europe the widescreen standart that was favored was a 1.66 one which didnt blow up the center of the 1.37 image [which is how standart Widescreen is really achieved] so much, giving a less grainy presentation (also European films tend to be sometimes more about people than about spectacle so mmm a less wide (intimate) format somehow feels more appropiate) (This is of course an oversimplification ) so apparently most standart Widescreen projection done in Europe is at 1.66 (even for 1.85 US movies) cus you'd have to have YET another set of projection lens if you wanted to project both ratios , and believe me, projectionists, having to change lenses between shorts and the Cinemascope features, really wouldnt like having to do it on standart Widescreen movies all the time too! And i'm pretty sure that in lots of not as advanced cities through the world in those years they'd still be only having Academy screen shaped theaters. Plus there's also 16mm 1.37 reduction prints for other venues like schools, colleges, and remote locations. And of course for future possible use on Television! (Disney was soo way ahead in those things: alreaady eyeing home video (well, in the sense of broadcasted home video) so I'm sure that's the main reason those movies are animated full frame. Just exactly like today's films are still shot on open matte Academy aperture equipment and in Super-35 full frame. But they were animated "protected" or in other words, "COMPOSED" for something near 1.75, not 1.37, cus OTHERWISE they would have looked horrible on US theaters, with chopped tops of heads and bottoms and looked cramped as hell. (I've seen Academy projected at 1.85 by mistake and it's not pretty). So they actually must have drawn for the widescreen, and completed the animation to fill the 1.37 but it is in a sense, non essential imagery. The Disney Widescreen is supposed to be 1.75 cus that way, in Europe, audiences, at 1.66, would see a slightly looser image, while US audiences, at 1.85, would see slightly tighter framing. In any case an 1.75 film cropped vertically to 1.85 falls whithin SMPTE guideline tolerances, so if the US theater is really showing a true 1.85 image, a 1.75 film looks ok. Today's CAPS movies are done at 1.66 for the same reason: They have to be 1.66 otherwise if they are projected in an European standart 1.66 screen they would show up with black bars on top and bottom and i guess the reaction would be similar as the one when a non film saavy person sees a letterboxed video on tv . The 60's animated films are just more "open matted" cus projrection on 1.37 screens were more substantialy counted on back then. So in my opinion <--again , o p i n i on, a 4:3 full negative aperture version of those film is to be considered like a cool secondary bonus, one in which you can see the whole painted background, and study the whole animation as an art exercise (like watching an open matte version of a live action movie, to see more of the actors' bodies and more of the sets, costumes, etc, on a given shot. But if you want to see how the movie was designed, experience it the way the shots were framed for the language of film, have the movie experience as it was intended, mmm... you need to see them cropped down to around 1.75 or so. Like in the theater.

Which brings me to:
The Lion King

Lion King was projected 1.85. I know this for a fact cus I did it. I, being the film nut that I am, after I arrived to the theaters I worked in, adquired a roll of SMPTE RP-40 test film (used to calibrate movie screens/projector/lenses combinations) with my own money and made sure all movie screens were at the correct SMPTE standart which for widescreen movies is 1.85, 0.446" x 0.825" (11.33mm x 20.96mm) or within the permited tolerance of that (<5% cropping) This was done filing down the projector aperture plates, tearing down or widening curtains and (the most difficult part) interchanging the lenses for the appropiate ones. What i found before i did this was that most screens showed a lot LESS than they were suposed to. The worst case was one that showed 80% of what it was supposed to. (so a 2.40 film was shown with a width of 1.92 and the height was 0.8 ) so actually sometimes the DVD experience is a looot better than your local Bijou.

Well what I mean, when projected at full 1.85 Lion King looked perfect. Tight correct framing, wide imagery. Fine. Since i could see the print itself, it was hard matte (in othe words if you saw a film frame it would look like a letterboxed 4:3 disc with black bars) showing a little more image than what was being projecting on screen. I suppose it was 1.66 but it was 10 years ago (almost to the day ( I remember I measured it and I *think* it came out 1.66 but till i find a discarded frame i think i might've saved I don't wanna state it as a fact. ) One time I changed the lens for one appropiate for another screen and watched it full 1.66. It looked good but the action was a little more remote. more like watching a canvas or a theater play. Not as a LIVE in the movie Xperience . The stampede looked much more exciting in 1.85. The other way, it looked more, like, i guess I would say today, like I was watching the animators canvas as they worked on it .

Which bring us to:
DVD
The reason in my opinion <--see? o p i n i o n
why CAPS films are transfered to DVD at 1.66 is:

If you'd read this site's FAQ http://www.ultimatedisney.com/FAQ.htm , the section: "How does 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen work? Why do the DVDs that are labeled "1.66:1" look like regular 1.85:1 widescreen to me?", you'll see that a Disney movie transfered into a 16:9 DVD at 1.66, when seen on a normal consumer 16:9 display with overscan, is actually cropped slightly in the vertical direction and ends up being displayed as 1.75 or 1.85! (depending on the severity of the overscan)
But on a 4:3 display, since the player downconverts the full 480 pixel vertical image to 360 , all of it ends up being shown on the screen of the 4:3 display. Since 1.66 letterboxed is taller than 1.75 or 1.85 (so it has thinner black bars) it ends up filling the screen more than a true 1.75/1.85t transfer, and people without widerscreen displays get a fuller image. (can we say more "family friendly"? )

Which brings us to:
the Lion King DVD

I just read this site's Lion King review http://www.ultimatedisney.com/thelionking3.html before writing this and I find that the disc is actually 1.71. And I dare say it is actually 1.75. No, not because Luke measured it wrong, I'm sure he measured correctly, but because mmm.. err.. I say so? no that's not it It has all to do with digital SMPTE video standarts and syncronization timings, and that would BE another thread, but according to the information I have if you follow digital video standarts, 480x720 4:3 digital video is not 1.33 wide, it's wider,. If i plug in the conversion factor, 1.71 ENDS up exactly 1.74886 wide. 1.75 anyone?

And if you show THAT on a normal 5% overscanned 16:9 display, you end up seeing, yes, you guessed it, 1.85




_________________
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damn typos. they're gonna be the deAth of me