DVDizzy Forum

I was just wondering what most people prefer on a DVD, when a movie is shown matted in the theater. I was watching my Freaky Friday DVD (the original version), and I couldn't help noticing that the heads were chopped off in many of the scenes. When I compared it to my laserdisc, there was quite a bit of picture on the top and bottom missing from the DVD. I always want the original presentation, but I think in some cases the original film was made with the intention of simply unmatting it for video release. I don't think a director would purposly frame the characters with their heads chopped off. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I found it annoying. Or perhaps it was only shown at 1.66 in the theaters and it has been matted too much on the DVD at 1.85. If the matted picture looked properly framed, I wouldn't mind at all. Does anyone agree?

Well, I prefer the original aspect ratio at all times, even if an open matte shot happens to look better. I'm pretty sure the head chopping thing is intentional because one of the tips they give you in film school is that it's better to frame a shot so that the top of someone's head is sliced off because the brain mentally fills in the rest of that image. By trying to fit a head perfectly within a frame, the brain adds extra space and then it looks unbalanced. There's a better explanation of this somewhere, but that's the gist of it.

As long as when they mat it only useless things get covered, then it really doesn't matter. But if how you explained in Freaky Friday that heads were cut off when they weren't supposed to, then that isn't right. They should just unmat it for DVD so nothing gets cut off that isn't supposed to. I don't think any director would want the actors' heads cut off. But in A Bug's Life, in the scene when the circus bug "warriors" are relaxing in the ant hill after rescuing Dot, Slim's head is cut off in some frames. It might be on purpose b/c in a blooper of that scene he asks if his head is cut off.

Yeah I prefer movies when they don't have any characters' heads chopped off. this is why I enjoyed what they did with the Finding Nemo movie when they released it on DVD in both widescreen and fullscreen. i still laugh at the joke in a Bug's Life about not being able to see Slim's head during that scene in the movie.

If a movie is going to be released theatrically, then it was framed for the widescreen aspect ratio, and that's what I'll want to watch it in. Besides, just about every open-matte transfer I've looked at lops off some on the sides. Regardless, it's not always about more picture, but the right picture.

I completely agree with Luke here. In many cases a movie is filmed in the 1.33:1 ratio with the intention of "masking" off the top and bottom for theatrical presentation. A lot of times with movies like this, studios use the "open matte" version with the full screen releases which tends to confuse a lot of people and fuels the group who say that fullscreen is better. In general you'll want the theatrical framing, since 99.9% of the time it's what the director intended. In many cases the open matte version reveals excess head room and things like boom mikes that you were never meant to see. And sometimes you get cases where the special effects shots are hard-matted. For example, the Back to the Future trilogy DVDs. The full screen versions feature the open matte of the film (which to many people meant "seeing more") but the special effects shots were hard-matted in 1.85:1 so those sequences were actually pan-and-scanned in the fullscreen version.

So basically, unless you know the director not only filmed in but intended the full screen ratio, the widescreen version is always the way to go, soft-matted or not.

Udvarnoky wrote:I completely agree with Luke here. In many cases a movie is filmed in the 1.33:1 ratio with the intention of "masking" off the top and bottom for theatrical presentation. A lot of times with movies like this, studios use the "open matte" version with the full screen releases which tends to confuse a lot of people and fuels the group who say that fullscreen is better. In general you'll want the theatrical framing, since 99.9% of the time it's what the director intended. In many cases the open matte version reveals excess head room and things like boom mikes that you were never meant to see. And sometimes you get cases where the special effects shots are hard-matted. For example, the Back to the Future trilogy DVDs. The full screen versions feature the open matte of the film (which to many people meant "seeing more") but the special effects shots were hard-matted in 1.85:1 so those sequences were actually pan-and-scanned in the fullscreen version.

So basically, unless you know the director not only filmed in but intended the full screen ratio, the widescreen version is always the way to go, soft-matted or not.

Yes, I always want to see it the way it was intended. But what I was trying to say is that I think some movies, particularly in the 70's when widescreen home videos didn't exist, were shot by the director with the intention of just unmasking it for a video release, because at the time it was much easier to unmask than to pan and scan. I believe that they took this into consideration when filming it (to look properly formatted either way). When it comes to animation, I would always prefer the unmasked version just to see more of the artwork. The Secret Of Nimh is a good example. The U.S. DVD is full frame. I have the PAL widescreen version, which is very wide, but it just cuts off the top and bottom. Even though that is the theatrical presentation, I still want to see all of the artwork. The opening 5 minutes of Freaky Friday was animated, and to me, it doesn't look right matted.

mvealf wrote: Yes, I always want to see it the way it was intended. But what I was trying to say is that I think some movies, particularly in the 70's when widescreen home videos didn't exist, were shot by the director with the intention of just unmasking it for a video release, because at the time it was much easier to unmask than to pan and scan.

There are some such cases. In those instances I suppose it's just a matter of taste. The situation of later Stanley Kubrick films is a good example. After making 2001, he was supposedly very frustrated about having TV and home video pan-and-scanning cutting the picture that he began to film many of his movies in 1.33:1, so that at least the home video releases (back then there was no widescreen option for home video) wouldn't be so horrible. There's some dispute as to whether or not Kubrick preferred the theatrical ratio or not; some say that he only chose to shoot full frame to make home video versions decent while others (like Warner Bros/The Kubrick Estate) have taken his decision to the extreme by only allowing the open matte version on video saying that "it's how the director wanted it." I know some people who think this is ridiculous and would prefer to see The Shining in the matted widescreen presentation because it's tighter composition and gives the film a more claustrophobic feel.

Such cases can be confusing, which is why I think that some open matte films should be available in both fullscreen and widescreen formats. I've always preferred widescreen and it's the only version I'll buy, but I can see how some people would want an option for certain films.

OAR is the way to go, and that is matted/widescreen. And remember this...when you upgrade to a widescreen TV in the future, all of your fullscreen/open matte films will have bars on the side. Yucko.

abbatazappa wrote:OAR is the way to go, and that is matted/widescreen.

For you.

And remember this...when you upgrade to a widescreen TV in the future, all of your fullscreen/open matte films will have bars on the side. Yucko.

I have 2 widescreen TVs. Bars on the side is no less "yucko" than bars on the top and bottom, which you still get with 2.35:1 films. As long as I'm seeing the whole image, I'm happy.

Except sometimes in open matte movies you see things you're not supposed to, like the pipe that inflates Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or a boom mike in The Princess Bride. And you'd rather buy open matte movies with empty gaps on the sides than watch the film in its original aspect ratio that would fill the entire screen? Ok, whatever floats your boat...

Disneykid wrote:Except sometimes in open matte movies you see things you're not supposed to, like the pipe that inflates Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or a boom mike in The Princess Bride. And you'd rather buy open matte movies with empty gaps on the sides than watch the film in its original aspect ratio that would fill the entire screen? Ok, whatever floats your boat...

I don't lump everything into categories, it's case by case. With Secret Of Nimh, I would rather do what you described above with the unmasked full frame U.S. DVD, than a watch the extremely over-cropped 1.85 theatrical version that definately cuts off some great artwork. My point is that letterboxing on the sides is NO DIFFERENT than letterboxing on the top and bottom, which we have been watching for years. Of course there are also non-wide screen HD televisions which would be the best way to watch an unmasked DVD. With me, the masked version is usually the way I want to see it, but there are some occasions when the unmasked version has a better presentation, IMO. In many cases they do an incorrect job of masking, and it isn't presented on DVD the way it was intnded in the theaters, because somebody didn't know what they were doing and the general public can't tell the difference. Perfect example is the fiasco with the Back To the Future trilogy. They have redone it how many times? At least 3 that I know of. Getting the unmasked version and letting your TV mask it for you if you wish, would be a much better solution. At least you have the control.

And what if I want to see the pipe that inflated Violet in Willy Wanka? Now that you told me about it, I want to see it . Someone mentioned Stanley Kubrick, who filmed The Shining at 1.33, masked it in the theaters, but refused to mask it for video releases, even though masking it would hide the helicopter blades at the top of the screen that you weren't supposed to see in the opening shot.

My point is that sometimes films were made at 1.33, and they knew it was going to be masked for the theaters, but they didn't necessarily go to any great lengths to compose for widescreen. In some cases, the unmasked version is a better presentation. There really are movies that were made with the intention of unmasking it for video (Kubrick), so preserving a cropped version for a square TV would be pretty silly. Director's will even say this with some films. Like I said, it's case by case. Just because it was shown cropped in a theater, doesn't mean that is the definitive version. I have even seen a movie in the theater where they masked it incorrectly, they chopped everything off the bottom and nothing from the top. Don't think that DVDs which preserve the theatrical presentation are always more accurate, they are still problematic, and it's very subjective.

mvealf wrote: When I compared it to my laserdisc, there was quite a bit of picture on the top and bottom missing from the DVD. I always want the original presentation, but I think in some cases the original film was made with the intention of simply unmatting it for video release. I don't think a director would purposly frame the characters with their heads chopped off. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I found it annoying. Or perhaps it was only shown at 1.66 in the theaters and it has been matted too much on the DVD at 1.85. If the matted picture looked properly framed, I wouldn't mind at all.

I havent seen the open matte or widescreen versions of Freaky Friday so i would be commenting blindly.

Open matte films seem to create olots of problems on video transfers so I'll try to add something from my perspective as a former projectionist

So this is not particular to Freaky Friday but to movies and discs in general, maybe affecting the standart Widescreen ones more so.

There could be two things (or "phenomena" ) happening:


One thing: Improper framing/matting/zoomboxing in the transfers
Another thing: Psychovisual phenomena

lets go hypothesise for a while, ok


1- Ok lets assume Freaky Friday (or any other Standart Widescreen 1.66-1.75 film) was shot "open matte" in Academy ratio (1.375) cameras.
One thing that could happen (As it did in Hitchcock's Psycho and the aformentioned Back To The Futures,) is that not ALL shots are in Academy or can be shown in Academy without booms, effects, dolly tracks or black bars showing up. so those shots are zoomed and /pan/scanned on the open matte version.

Then there's this thing called TV, (NTSC Video), that has 1/9th to one 1/16th the size and detail of 35mm film, So lets say the telecine transfer technician has a Full Academy Open Matte 0.600" x 0.825" inch (15.24mm x 20.96mm) 1.375 aspect ratio film element that was projected (or composed, will get to that later) for Standart Widescreen, lets say Disney ratio 1.75, inside that at 0.471" x 0.825" (11.97mm x 20.96mm). So a shot that had 1200 pixels of resolution and clarity is gonna be reproduced at 300 pixels in open matte video. The Technitian may say on no we won't be able to see the action with enough clarity, so he zooms it a little more than using the full 100% frame (specially since he has so much empty space above and below) So it's not a real pan/scan job, but it's not a full frame job either (There's nothing or none or no reason making him or telling him: you have to preserve 100% of the open matte area cus, well cus, mmm why? 100% open matte is wrong, pan/scan is wrong, just do what looks best for the current transfer.

So maybe the "open matte" ends up being variously zoomed /pan scanned up down sideways 10% here 20% there 0 % over there , etc. or maybe a fixed ammount all through the movie.

Now comes the widescren version. If it's done just letterboxing (matting) the existing video master, the black bars and rectangular shape might be "correct" but the image inside it is wrong! It wont be the same as matting the 100% area Academic Open matte print.
Back to the Future is an example of this happening. I don't know what happens in deep telecine caverns but mistakes are made, sometimes by the simple reason a person doesn't know what's gone on before. Do all telecine operators know a film may supposed to be 1.75 or 1.66 instead of the USA ratio of 1.85? (In the Theater chain I worked once, (the biggest in the State) not ONE projectionist, manager, or employee knew about that.) If they ever projected a 1.66 film, and heads would be chopped, they would have thought it was the print that was wrong and used the Frame knob (more about it later) to try fix it instead of asking for a different lens

I've have 2 "Open Matte" full frame versions of Psycho. One is done "correctly", showing 100% of the Academic image area (including black bars at the bottom covering camera tracks and parts of the girl's body in the shower put there by Hitchcock) (it's one of the early VHS) and the other (a Laserdisc) has these scenes and most of the movie zoomed in more. If you widescreened the second transfer, it would look wrong. The first one i letterboxed with a video switcher to 1.85 and looks perfect.




But lets say, the widescreen transfer is a new one. From scratch. Who says something like this wont be happening? In fact it has happened several times. (One recent example, for one NON Open Matte film, is Sleeping Beauty. They are cropping (zoomboxing it) at least 7%, maybe even 12%). So maybe a new widescreen transfer is zoomboxed to get a little more "clarity" (even a 16:9 1.75 DVD has just 1/8 the clarity of the real 35mm film you know..). Or they just screw it unknowingly.

Freaky Friday being Disney, may been in 1.75, add 10% zoomboxing, plus improper by ignorance of fim history 1.85 strict letterboxing and you have an 1.75 composed film loosing 15% of it's vertical image. (For example a 9 inch full head shot looses almost an inch and a half of the head there.)

Oh and if you watch a Widesceren disc on a Widescreen TV that on top of that has Overscan, you might loose another inch of head there and now you're seeing just 3/4 of the head!

Of course i'm not saying that's whats happening on Freaky Friday since I have'nt seen the disc.

But if it looks very wrong on widescreen disc and the disc was transfered correctly, that would mean it looked that bad on the theaters!, which it's unlikely (i mean on a correcty set up theater, a bad theater can screw anything like mvealf says here:

mvealf wrote:I have even seen a movie in the theater where they masked it incorrectly, they chopped everything off the bottom and nothing from the top.

Either that theater is all screwed, or that film was projected in the incorrect ratio. So if they put an Academy 1.375 film (or even a 1.66 film) through a 1.85 lens it just blows up the center part, then the projectionist all he can do is use The Frame Knob to bring the upper half down so to not chop the heads

I don't think the cameraman or director would frame things for a theathical film so they look bad on theaters but good on video, that is never done, even Kubrick films. (there might be errors made by less able filmakers but those are that: errors, not by design) Otherwise those films would have ended up having to be projected like that atrocity mvealf mentioned.

2-Now we go to the second phenomenon: Psychovisuals. When you look at something on a smaller TV at home, be it letterboxed or widescreened, the effect is very different than in the cinema, a 20 foot tall head that you have to look up and down or scan with your eyes becomes a 10" to 20" head you watch from a distance of 10 feet almost fixed on your vision, You are more aware of its borders or "limits" cus you can quickly flick your eyes around it and you're seeing it all at once, intead of being overpowered by it, and therefore observing it more analitycally than just being inmersed on the storyline and it's emotions (thats why mmm the video experience is sometimes so different than in the theater, thank God surround sound can be better and wider at home to compensate ;P)

A shot that doesn't seem tight in a huge theater scren might lookto be too tightly framed in the more compact TV (or Plasma) screen. (I think this phenomenon is what Disneykid was reffering too also)

Another part of this phychovisual impressions could happen when we watch an Open matte version first, or for a long time, then we see the letterboxed version> We know there's more image, we've SEEN this image, and now it's gone. So we might have gotten used to it and we might feel the widescreen is cutting something. (Well. it is! ) But apart from the transfer really being wrong, we might feel unconfortable for a while till we get reused to it being in the proper composition.


I'll add a couple things more about transfers and projections.. Things on a theater are fixed more or less, the theater is supposed to be properly set up, and after the theater is built the lens and screen sizes chosen, there's almost nothing a Projectionist can do to alter those things (Well he can, if he knows they're wrong, by making the screen be replaced or getting a different lens ) But what i mean, the movie is designed by the cameraman/director and it's fixed. Ahh but there is one control that is given to the projectionist (apart from being able to unfocus the film to hell that is ): The Frame Knob.

The frame knob can be used as a cheap fix for all this standart Widescreen ratio 1.66-1.85 differences (but not gross errors like 1.375 composed films being projected in Widescreens) (The Frame Knob's actual function is for small variations on screen to projector distance/lens combinations, they are not always spot on from theater to theater you know). If you have a different aspect ratio film like 1.66 on a 1.85 theater, you project the film you check heads you move frame up or down. but then the bottom will be slighly wrong. DVD owners (or TVs) don't have a frame knob.

(Cinemascope/Panavision films are a different story, if you move the frame up or down more than a bit, you start seeing, first: negative splice marks, then: the next frame above or below. In fact the splice marks are the up/down limits of the current 2.40 (now 2.39) vertical image, If you see a movie projected (or a DVD) in true 2.35 (the aspect ratio there is narrower cus the image is taller) you're supposed to see splice lines, if you dont see them, unless digitally removed, they are cropping the film ertically to 2.40 (Which is why they changed Cinemascope from 2.35 to 2.40: to prevent the splice lines being visible) (So if a DVD says "2.35" and/or is 2.35 wide and you dont see splices it's been cropped twice: first vertically to 2.40 to eliminate the splices, then horizontally to make it "again" be "2.35", it's not much but youre already loosing a little more than 4% of the original Cinemascope 2.35 image)


And there's another possibility: which is what mvealf is suggesting: That Freaky Friday was designed and shot as a TV movie then given theatrical release. If they kept the heads (or the vertical composed area) within the extreme TV Safe Title limits (20%) it can be projected at a maximum of 1.71.

Letterboxing at 1.85 would be too extreme for that
Widescreening at 1.66 would been better choice then.

I've seen video widescreen transfers of standart Widescreen movies that seem too loose and I've seen ones that look too tight. I really wish the last frame of a DVD was a frame showing the RP-40 Projectionist Aligment film proving the transfer used the correct dimensions

I'll tell two more anectdotes or experiences

one: Of all the movies I projected, only one proved "problematic" It was a eddie murphy cop movie dont remember the number . I found that on the 1.85 screen if the image was centered, there was lots and lots of empty space above the heads making the movie look misframed, odd, and boring, so i tried to use the Frame Knob and move things up . At first a little. Then after a couple of times making sure no scene in the movie had chopped heads, a lot more. but then the bottom looked wrong. It made me think the director overprotected his framing a lot. Like for a 2.00:1 ratio. Maybe he was aiming for 70mm blow up prints?

Moral of this anecdote: even tho I projected lots of prints in different aspect ratios (Scope 2.40, Scope 2.39, Standart Widescreen 166, 1.75, 1,85, and even some Academy 1.375) 99.9% of them projected correctly on their standart ratios (since I had my screens correctly set up and used lenses for each) so all were shot correctly for those ratios, therefore, when i see a transfer on video looking wrong I inmediatly suspect the telecine operator framing or zooming the thing incorrectly (He's the equivalent of the Projectionist in a sense. He projects on TV equipment.)

two: In a Film Festival It happened to be that one film I was showing came with the director included he came to me and complained that his movie was wider, that i was cutting off the sides. Well I wasn't! His movie was being projected in all its full 0.825" (20,96mm) width. But the director kept insisting It was wider and couldn't I make it wider? So in trying to explain I was actually showing all of its width, that i had carefully selected lenses and filed down the Projector aperture till it showed all the 0.825" width on the screen and I couldnt make it any wider, I even showed him the diagrams I had made for each screen in the theater (with photocopies of the RP-40 image with red magic marker delineating what you saw on each screen) But still he wasn't convinced he swore he had more image at the sides that he'd always seen the movie wider, So in "desesperation" trying to please him (or assure him that the audience was seeing all his precious width), I pulled out the Projector aperture plate and of course all that showed was the optical soundtrack image on the left of the screen and even some part of the sprocket holes! (And the "open matte" Academy image spilling up above the curtains and down into the theater seats and floor below.) He then was convinced and very happy when he realized he was seeing his film correctly projected for the first time in his life I guess. I supoose he either saw it before in screens that made it look "wider" even possibly incorrrectly labeled "1.85" screens that were cropping lots more vertically than they should, like 2.00 screens used in some bad theaters to show both Scope 2.40 and 1.85 films with one same screen, so maybe he was used to see the movie with a lot less of the bottom??

Moral: sometimes the people who should know, don't!


Maybe both directors wanted 70mm blow ups!



_________________
I want 2000 x 5000 23:9 displays with Frame Knobs.. uuhh.. maybe I should get a 35mm projector and be done with it

Some widescreen TV sets have the equivalent of a "frame knob" which they call "scroll".

Once you've zoomed in your 4:3 image to fill the 16:9 screen you can choose to scroll the picture up or down. Useful if you need to read subtitles that would otherwise be lost down the bottom or for seeing the tops of peoples heads that are being chopped off at the top!

At least it's a better option than those awful "smart" controls where everybody gets stretched in varying proportions...

disneyunlimited wrote:Some widescreen TV sets have the equivalent of a "frame knob" which they call "scroll".

Yes, my widescreen TV has this, and I love it for the Japanese laserdiscs that are letterboxed with Japanese subtitles in the black area. There are several Disney movies, Mary Poppins in particular, where there is a small black area at the top and a huge black area at the bottom for the subtitles to fit completely. The picture is closer to the top, and not centered like most letterboxed movies, so it is nice to be able to scroll it down and look perfect, while completely masking the subtitles. The image on the Japanese laserdisc is wider and shows more picture than the U.S. laserdisc or DVD.

Yes that is an excellent thing. But not all Disney Movies were made in Widescreen. And the reason why they don't do it a lot is because it is more expenssive for them to release the titles in Widescreen Presentation.

mvealf wrote:The image on the Japanese laserdisc is wider and shows more picture than the U.S. laserdisc or DVD.

See? So that means that Poppins on those US transfers was zoomed in. Is the visible Japanese vertical image the same as the US ones? What's their aspect ratios? capture capture!

Oh and I realized I really didn't answer mvealf's original question. I sometimes like to watch the open matte versions too, but open matte versions are only wholly acceptable to me if the true widescreen composition can be derived from them or a widescreen version is included or readily available separatedly

Is that the case, watching the the open matte version is kind of like watching a (very extended) behind the scenes supplement/feature shot from a "different" camera farther away from the set.

Disney Guru wrote:But not all Disney Movies were made in Widescreen.

That's true, but of the 44 animated classics 30 are Widescreen movies (with 5 of those being wider than 2.25)

Disney Guru also wrote:And the reason why they don't do it a lot is because it is more expenssive for them to release the titles in Widescreen Presentation.

You mean DVD, cus they have to make a new transfer or beacause they might loose potential sales from average-still owning 4:3 displays-consumers? (Because if you meant 35mm film, the cost is the same unless you use a special camera format like 70mm.)

And one more thing. Since Kubrick was mentioned, I remembered I was once in a Dr. Strangelove screening (I was in the audience watching) where the film got tangled and broke, so I ran up since I knew the guy was not gonna be able to save it in one piece by himself (and how many 40 year old classics prints are around? This was a travelling preservation Festival print) So anyway, a couple of frames were sacrificed in the splice made to repair the tear and I have a dirty 2400dpi scan of one of them, complete with sprocket holes, soundtrack and everything. It's 1666 x 3232. The image made by the camera is in 1.375 Academy. It's a shot of a man seated at a desk so you only see his hands and head with empty space above and below him. Punching the 1.85 Projector Aperture dimensions (0.446" x 0.825") in my magic broom gives a cropped 1070 x 1980 image. If this film were composed and shot at 1.375 or 1.66 like the Laserdisc or DVD seem to imply, cropping it to 1.85 would have cut the head and the hands in some part. Well, at 1.85, 1070 pixels tall, there are stil like 60 pixels both above and below the top of the head and under the hands. So you could still crop it 10% more and still not cut off any part of the character. He is exactly centered between the two "spaces", so obviously this was composed for 1.85. Since the aspect ratio can't be changing from scene to scene in the print (unless it's printed on it, like Brother Bear, Brainstorm, Mad Max II:The Road Warrior, etc) the WHOLE movie is composed through the camera viewfinder in 1.85. The rest is extra image of the sets that came along with the ride.



Edit: changes a 4 into a 5. need to be accurate. you know.

deathie mouse wrote:

mvealf wrote:The image on the Japanese laserdisc is wider and shows more picture than the U.S. laserdisc or DVD.

See? So that means that Poppins on those US transfers was zoomed in. Is the visible Japanese vertical image the same as the US ones? What's their aspect ratios? capture capture!

I wish I could do a nice computer capture, which would come out perfectly. Can anybody recommend some easily downloadable software that can capture? I can view it on my computer, but it doesn't capture

I presume you've tried the usual method of capturing the current window display by holding down ALT and pressing PRINT SCREEN. This should copy whatever is on the screen onto the clipboard. You can then paste it into your favourite graphics program. Doesn't always work with video, though.

Alternatively, you could capture your laserdisc output on your PC using VirtualDub which can capture at full size into an AVI file. Play this back using Media Player and then try the above ALT + PRINT SCREEN method. It works for me!

You can find out more about VirtualDub at http://virtualdub.org

mvealf's concerns about the framing of "Freaky Friday" aroused my curiousity, so I popped in the disc to check it out. Yes I would agree it's a little tight, maybe it was meant to be matted at 1.75 rather than 1.85. But I didn't notice the chopped-off head syndrome. As the actors move around, occasionally the top of their heads may momentarily exceed the frame-line a tad, but this is normal. It's not like they were standing around with the top of their heads lopped off.

But that reminds me of something else. Does anyone remember a Steven Bochco series from about ten years ago called "Murder One"? It had the most peculiar framing. It was done artistically to give the show a unique look. Almost all the shots of the actors were framed from the middle of the forehead down. They purposely chopped off the top of the actors head. It was kind of wierd-looking and it took a while to get used to.