RE: Widescreen vs. letter-box--trivia

Henry Mattoon (hmattoon@afionline.org)
Thu, 25 Jan 2001 15:39:18 -0800 (PST)

Reply to: RE: Widescreen vs. letter-box--trivia
It's the anamorphic process, which you still see on widescreen films shown on television, where the opening/closing sequences with credits are compressed to roughly half their width on the horizontal axis. Hence, weird very skinny, tall, disfigured people, sets, etc. That's so say the opening credits will register "OK," -- ie, readable and not cut off on the left/right, and then with the very next cut after the opening sequence with credits, the image is uncompressed so the rest of the film looks "natural," though of course with loss of widescreen image area.

Henry

Henry K. Mattoon
National Moving Image Database
The American Film Institute
2021 N. Western Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323/856.7702 voice
323/856.7616 fax
<hmattoon@afionline.org>
<www.AFIonline.org>

sdehut wrote:
>Just for the sake of discussion:
>
>Before "letterboxing" became the usual way of presenting wide-screen films
>on video format, there was a technique that sort of condensed the
>widescreen image into a narrower format, with sometimes odd-looking
>results. While reading this discussion, I have been trying to remember
>what it was called. Does anybody remember?
>
>Sue DeHut
>
>
>
>Susan Davis-DeHut
>Director, Educ. Media Services
>Linfield College
>900 SE Baker Street
>McMinnville, OR 97128
>
>
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