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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

4:3 is the new cool

P

Patrick Jennings

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for years i was cropping dv to 16:9 to be cool, then when everyone was shooting 16:9 i was shooting scope.

but now everyone is shooting in scope and 16:9 is the norm. it's losing it's pazazz...

i'm starting the 4:3 revolution/renaissance. i've convinced some of my friends already :)

all we need is some major blockbuster in 4:3. force all those people with widescreen televisions to suffer through pillar bars! ha!

check out some of my 4:3 footage

Leisure_Class.jpg



http://vimeo.com/2160476
http://vimeo.com/2222708
http://vimeo.com/2274779


JOIN ME!!!!!!! when was the last time you offered a client 4:3 as an option?
 
While beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, empirical tests have shown that most people prefer compositions that most closely follow the Golden Ratio: 1.6.

The new television standard of 16:9 is a ratio of 1.78, much closer to the Golden Ratio than 4:3 which is 1.33.

In advertising spots, it's often useful to stand out from the clutter, so artistic devices, such as black and white, can be helpful. In the case of 4:3, however, there is still so much low-end, poor esthetic quality 4:3 advertising that I doubt it would achieve the stand out from the crowd advantage.

If the artistic elements or story line cry out for 4:3, then it's the appropriate choice.

Art is impossible to define, but we know it when we see it.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
i doubt the story line of a film will cry out for 4:3 just as it doesn't cry out for scope.

scope used to be reserved for the sprawling epics. now every second thing i see is in scope. but just as scope offers a different landscape in which to frame your shots. 4:3 offers a very cool alternative to the norm.

would you consider shooting a narrative feature in 4:3? i don't think anyone would at the moment. and why not? it's cool! i said it's cool so it must be
 
but it was a gimmick for the old war film thing. imagine the Bourne Ultimatum in 4:3. i love that movie.
 
jenningsp said:
for years i was cropping dv to 16:9 to be cool, then when everyone was shooting 16:9 i was shooting scope.

but now everyone is shooting in scope and 16:9 is the norm. it's losing it's pazazz...

i'm starting the 4:3 revolution/renaissance. i've convinced some of my friends already :)

all we need is some major blockbuster in 4:3. force all those people with widescreen televisions to suffer through pillar bars! ha!

check out some of my 4:3 footage

Leisure_Class.jpg



http://vimeo.com/2160476
http://vimeo.com/2222708
http://vimeo.com/2274779


JOIN ME!!!!!!! when was the last time you offered a client 4:3 as an option?
Click to expand...

and red raw is starting to look like DV because so many people shoot it.

:)
 
I'm thinking of shooting a short film in 8:1 format. Basically the size of a horizontal banner ad at 728x90. :)

-shooter
 
obin said:
and red raw is starting to look like DV because so many people shoot it.
Click to expand...

There's more truth to that statement than you intended, I think...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
There's more truth to that statement than you intended, I think...
Click to expand...

I started saying this the second I saw music videos coming out locally

"God, now we are going to have a BUNCH of under graded, way too washed out/grey images, because people will either be slack and not grade properly, or people not used to the RED will get enamored with it and go with it, despite it rapidly becoming common place."

What I have come to realise, through extensive shooting of DV, and now more broadcast formats (DVCPRO-HD, DigiBETA etc, as well as RED.) is that a LOT of the bias to do with a format that makes it look cheap is to do with people shooting without grading properly or spending enough time/effort in post.

I have lots of narrative stuff shot on Mini DV that has been lit reasonably well, graded FOR the lighting, and people don't 'spot' as DV because of that. Sure it's been limited by chip size/DOF factors etc, but the recording medium is rarely the issue in terms of people spotting a particular issue (unless there are some artifacts inherent to the format).

With non consumer film this was never an issue, because stock choice, color timing etc was done by highly experienced professionals, so was always thought about. More mass market solutions will always lead to a bias against a particular 'look' because a certain percentage of the market simply won't finish the job properly or have the skills/tools available to make the product as great as it could have been, because they don't 'know' the secret sauce that they are missing out on.

This is likely to be the same for 4:3 and 16:9 and 1.85 and 2.35:1 - people in the mass market go with an option because it's AVAILABLE, which makes options that people who choose an alternative to be different feel 'COOL', but neither are necessarily making an informed decision, as this takes experience and expertise from people who have done a lot of different stuff, and experienced people tend to shoot on higher end formats because they are needed on the expensive jobs (much more logical reason than them being snobs or anything like that.)
 
Lets all go for 4:4 and start the Square Revolution!:) Seriously, 4:3 has its pluses due to the many content on T.V. that it was made for.
 
Darren Orange said:
4:3 is about IMAX.....it is making a comeback.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The reason IMAX works is scale. 4x3 works when the coverage on the field of vision is as wide or wider than wide-screen formats but with additional height. Height for skies etc. Kubrick liked it (Eyes Wide Shut).
 
Open your eyes. Stare at a single point straight ahead of you on an empty wall. Place imaginary "markers" at the four corners of your peripheral. Now connect the dots. What shape is it?

Widescreen formats work better aesthetically because of the fact that having two eyes side by side the way we do paints the world in a rectangle. That's how I've always seen it, anyway.
 
watching IMAX 4:3 doesn't carry the same effect as watching it on a tube.
 
I hate 4:3!

I hate 4:3!

...And it is NOT cool.

When I got started in cinematography, it was all friggin' 4:3 there was no other option. ALL the cameras were 1.33:1 except for 35mm (which was 4.11:3 unless you cropped it), or Super 16, which as a film student or when I got started in working professionally, you just couldn't get your hands on (in backwards South Florida).

One thing I remember is that, prior to the late 1990's *ALL* video cameras were 4:3 and *ALL* monitors were 4:3. The only way to see a movie in letter box was *LASERDISC*. Remember that format?

Everything was just 4:3 and no one even bothered questioning it. I hated the aspect ratio. I started wondering why the hell 4:3 got chosen as the standard aspect ratio for everything (just like the ergonomic disaster known as the QWERTY keyboard).

Guess what? It was all because Thomas Edison had Amblyopia "lazy eye". He saw the world through one one. Of course he thought that the nearly square 4:3 aspect was good enough. Once he standaridzed the aspect ratio of 35mm film, the rest was history.

QWERTY keyboard - 4:3 Aspect Ratio - NTSC 29.97 fps - 44.1 kHz audio sampling​

All bad ideas that became standards that we have not yet completely discarded.

And... if 4:3 was so cool, why did Jim Jannard wisely choose to make the RED ONE mysterium sensor 16:9? I've met him and he seems like a very cool guy to me.

I will now don my asbestos undies, just in case, but I expect you 4:3 zealots to keep it civil. Remember, we won't be hiding under screen names for much longer...
 
Um.

There was this film maker named Stanley Kubrick. He released and shot all of his films (some of them classics) in 4x3 with mono soundtracks to reach the widest possible audience.

Here is his filmography:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000040/

Every format has it's own usefulness. Aesthetics change and film is fashion, so I think it is good that you are trying to bring back 4X3, A while back everyone was bringback seventies color TV shows.


David
 
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