A Question on Framing and Scoping.

[Criswell]

I have noticed lately - on T.V, DVD and (new) Video, that a lot of old movies and even cartoons like popeye do not fit conventional t.v's properly.

The other day for example I watched Gone With the Wind and some of the credits ran off to the side of the screen!!! I thought T.V was the same scope as the old screen ratio (GWTW is certainly pre- widescreen).

But the same happened ( on a different T.V) with and old Popeye cartoon from the 40's. If the credits do not fit........then surely I am also missing out on cartoon content as well. Since then I've noticed a whole slew of old films on Turner etc that are the same.

I don't know if this is new, but it seems that they are zooming in for some reason.

Does anyone know the scope of the old films and the typical scope of square t.v's (not widesscreen) ????


NOTE: I am NOT including pan-scan "fits". I am talking about old films.

I believe it's a little thing called overscan...

[Criswell]

"overscan"............please explain......

[bigdaddyhorse]

As quick and easy as I can.
All TV's have overscan. The picture is always a bit bigger/more than you see on TV. It's because (not 100% sure of this, but pretty sure) not all sources are the exact 4:3 size and the edges are rough. If there wasn't overscan, the rough edges would burn-out your picture tube pretty quick, so to compensate TV's are set to show a smaller area and never the edges. This is done (at least on my set) by blowing up the picture inside, as the OS lines are always there around your screen.
Depending on what brand you have, the overscan can be worse. My Sony came factory set with so much OS I couldn't read sports scores or news on the bottom scroll that ESPN and the news channels have. Most sets have a secret menu that let's you adjust the OS and other settings, but it's difficult to find the codes to get into the menu and then you still have to know what it what or you can fuck your set bad. Luckily I found the codes for my set and adjusted it as good as possible. It was funny when I was tweaking mine, I shrank my 32" picture to about 12" in the middle for a few seconds.

A setup disc such as Digital Video Essentials will really help you with understanding and setting overscan.

As mentioned by BDH, you'll need to find out how to access your TVs "service mode" to correct the overscan. You can seriously screw up your picture if you aren't careful. However, if you are careful to write down every setting before you change anything, you can always revert back to where you started. You'll be amazed at how much you're missing once you start fooling around with this.... on the average TV you probably lose a good 10-15% or more of the picture due to overscan.

There's also a lot of great things you can do in the service menus of most TVs, such as removing picture "enhancements" such as scanline velocity modulation which cause all sorts of distortions in the picture in order to make the picture stand out more on a sales floor.

Good luck!

Overscan is the problem although films made prior to the sixties tended to utilize the entire frame on all sides regardless of format (1.33, 1.85, 2.35 etc.). Movies were made for theatrical exhibition on large screens, not TV. When adapted for television,
image information is always missing, even when it's letterboxed. After 1960, they
started accomodating the compositions for TV broadcast which is why later movies
don't have these problems. Of course, the framing is not as dramatic in scope films
today as a result. In the fifties, people were spread out across the wide screen. Today,
most directors keep them centered with the sides used for set detail. The same applies to standard flat films which are shot in 1.33 with plenty of headroom, then cropped to 1.85 for theatrical release and cropped slightly on all four corners for broadcast. Sometimes Turner window boxes the credits of old movies so the credits aren't cropped, then zooms up the image for the rest of the feature which slightly crops the image.

"Gone with the Wind" is another matter. In 1954, MGM cropped and repositioned a number of key shots in the film for 1.66 projection so the movie could be advertised as being in 'widescreen'. Of course it was filmed in 1.33 so these shots were very distracting in broadcasts when suddenly black borders would appear on the top and bottom of the screen. To make matters worse, they actually cut these cropped and masked shots into the camera negative so all post-1954 prints contain them. Later,
they zoomed up the masked shots for video to get rid of the black borders which cropped them further.

[Criswell]

Thanks guys....I knew about the widescreen issues and directors having to shoot widescreen but with later T.V showings in mind........thank GOD Leone did not have to worry about that!!......but I must say the overscan bit is new to me.

Criswell,

The move away from the dramatic use of widescreen was incremental although the discussion about accomodating television began in the early sixties after "How to Marry a Millionaire" was broadcast. The dreadful pan and scan print made it difficult
to follow the continuity. Fortunately, not every director adhered to the
suggested 'keep everyone in the middle' formula. Leone used
widescreen very dramatically which is why his Westerns lose so much
when pan and scanned. Kubrick and Lean also used widescreen artistically which
is why "2001" and "Lawrence of Arabia" lose their impact on video.
By the eighties most directors were more concerned with the video release
than theatrical presentation since that's where the money was. The reality was
more people would see it on TV than in theaters. Most
widescreen movies today do not impress you with dramatic compositions the way they did in the past. The two hundred million dollar "Titanic" was filmed in the subpar Super 35 format which was similar to fifties' 'Superscope'. The movie was shot flat (1.33) and then cropped to scope for theaters and shown full frame for broadcast although a letterboxed version was available too. Obviously you have to make major composition compromises to accomodate these incompatible aspect ratios. Once HDTV is established, they'll probably compose for that aspect ratio for most movies regardless of whether they're shot flat or with anamorphic lenses.

That's why it's so entertaining to see movies like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" in widescreen. Part of the fun is to watch all those comedians spread across the frame trying to out-act each other. Rooney is always looking around suspiciously, Hackett seems bewildered, Berle looks like he's about to have a nervous breakdown, Shawn is hysterical, Terry Thomas points his eyebrow, Silvers gives a phony smile while he schemes, Winters is ready to for a brawl, Merman is waiting to be offended and Tracy eyes everyone slyly. You have to see the movie multiple times to pick up what everyone's doing. There hasn't been a movie that utilized those types of compositions in a long time. The funniest shot is when they all look down into the hole they dug filling up the entire frame with mugging faces.

It's sad how much cinematic quality we've lost over the years. Cinerama, dramatic widescreen photography, 70mm, VistaVision and Technicolor are all gone for good.

[Criswell]

Thanks Richard.

I actually came across "Its a Mad Mad.........." the other week and I showed my kids the scene where Durante was dying and how voices were coming in from off-screen etc.

I understand why it's done.....i'm sure some of your films for example have made more on video than threatrically. Shame you can't shoot both simultaneously (or has that been done??).

Even more dramatic was How the West was Won. My kids asked my why the picture always seemed to have a line through the screen. I had to explain the whole three camera process on that baby and that in fact it should have had 2 lines!!!

[X-human]

Just some information, Overscan happens because more than just the image is broadcasted over a TV signal. You can see this on industry monitors which zoom out and split the image into four corner and kinda flip flop all the mini-screens so you can see the information. The information cropped off includes closed captions and other various information for a video engineer. You can buy TVs and DVD players with this, look over an UNDERSCAN option. That will zoom out on the image, letterboxing the picture with black on all four sides.

Overscan's different on each screen, some cut off more information than others. That also contributes to what Haines was saying about composition, since no two models of TV's are exactly the same, directors have to play it safe with composition so they're very loose with their framing.

The problem with older films is also what Haines said they used the entire frame, and that frame was usually 1.37:1 not TV's 1.33:1/4:3. So 1.37 should be window or pillar boxed. So when broadcasted on TV, distributors zoom or crop 1.37:1 to 1.33:1, and then Overscan steps in and your TV crops off even more.

Another problem is that untill recently when a distributor captured from film to video, a lot of information was often lost from all four sides. This was simply due to their carelessness in adjusting their capturing methods with each new film they placed in. That was a big problem with Dawn of the Dead, and why Anchor Bay's original release of Dawn at 1.66:1 was still cropping off too much and several people felt the open matte framing was closer to the director's intentions; because when it was originally captured the picture was cropped on all four sides. The new Extended Edition release is a new capture and contains the most information we've probably ever seen outside a theater.

Criswell,

All of my films have made more money on video than in theatrical. Very difficult
to make much money in exhibition unless you have a wide release where the costs
of P & A (Prints and advertising) are amortized amongst the revenue collected from
the theaters. For example, I did a seven theater run in DC and Virginia of "Space Avenger" with all of the prints in Chinese Technicolor back in 91'. However, I mostly
do regional bookings of my films on a city by city basis in the few remaining indie
theaters or chains left in the country. It's sad that most of the houses I booked
my pictures in have folded over the years and there's no way someone like me can
get their films in a megaplex which are completely dominated by the majors. Regardless, I try to get some dates on my pictures and break even if possible.

If I shoot the film in 1.33 (1.37) I do accomodate both formats regarding theatrical 1.85 cropping. However, when I shot "Run for Cover" in widescreen 3-D (aspect ratio the same as 2.35 scope) I did not keep characters centered and utilized the entire frame so the dimensional compositions would have a greater impact. I letterboxed it on video and some day plan on releasing a 3-D version of it on DVD.

In terms of shooting a movie both ways, it was done in the fifties. Many early CinemaScope films were shot twice in both anamorphic 2.35 and flat 1.33 since no one knew if scope would catch on. Many people saw them flat since it took years for all the theaters to convert to the new formats. Among them were "The Robe", "Brigadoon", "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Lady and the Tramp". All films released in "SuperScope" were also released in both formats although in that case they were shot flat (1.33) and then cropped and enlarged to 2 x 1 in the anamorphic format with black borders on the sides. Both original flat and letterbox versions were broadcast. I wish Turner would get their facts straight when they discuss why letterbox is important to retain the composition. They usually use "Seven Brides" as an example which is ludicrous since it was never pan and scanned for television. They simply played the flat version which was shot simultaneously. They often get information on Technicolor wrong too. At least their video masters are usually good even if their historical sound bytes are inaccurate.

Other films that were shot in two different versions include "Oklahoma!" which was shot in 70mm Todd-AO and 35mm CinemaScope and "Around the World in 80 Days" which was shot twice in 70mm Todd-AO (30 frames per second for 70mm prints and
24 frames per second for 35mm Technicolor anamorphic reduction prints). Both version of "Oklahoma!" have been released on video so you can compare the differences in the formats. I saw "Oklahoma!" presented in it's original 70mm 30 frames per second Todd-AO in 1982 and it looked spectacular. So sharp and fine grain it appeared three dimensional. Smoother movement at the faster speed although producers shot all 70mm movies at the standard 24 frames per second after "Around the World".

There's some confusion over the aspect ratio of pre-1952 films. The silent era used the entire frame without a sound track so the image was 1.33. When sound came in,
the left side of the image was cropped for the track so they put frame lines around the image in the gate which made the ratio 1.37 although it's usually referred to as 1.33 out of habit. Of course many theaters cropped the image slightly based on the size of their screen.

Television ratio is 3 x 4 so there is a slight cropping of the image which is further exacerbated by overscan on most sets. The only way to see the entire image would be to window box it but consumers might object to that look.

[X-human]

Television ratio is 3 x 4 so there is a slight cropping of the image which is further exacerbated by overscan on most sets. The only way to see the entire image would be to window box it but consumers might object to that look.

Isn't TV 4:3 (not 3:4) which divides out to 1.33.

Originally Posted by X-human

Isn't TV 4:3 (not 3:4) which divides out to 1.33.

I believe 4:3 and 3:4 is the same thing....it's just if you want length or width written first...

it works out to 1:1.33 or 1.33:1 (approximately)