How long before everything is Widescreen?

[RandyS]

I thought everything pretty much was already.

So did I.

 

[RandyS]

Two years, 7 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes and 12 seconds.

And 6 nanoseconds.

 

[Harvey]

Shows may be shot 35mm film and posted in HD, or shot in HD video which is 16:9 but 'protected for 4:3 framing'.

Most feature films today isolate the action to the center of the frame so they can be easily cropped to 4:3 for television and video. Television takes advantage of the widescreen frame even less, of course, for the reasons you list.

 

[PKerr]

Shows may be shot 35mm film and posted in HD, or shot in HD video which is 16:9 but 'protected for 4:3 framing'.

Most feature films today isolate the action to the center of the frame so they can be easily cropped to 4:3 for television and video. Television takes advantage of the widescreen frame even less, of course, for the reasons you list.

Now if they can just get rid of that damn shaky cam.....

 

[doubleohfive]

Not everything has to be widescreen.

 

[RoJoHen]

Not everything has to be widescreen.

Well, no, but it makes sense. Fullscreen TVs aren't really being sold anywhere anymore, so why would things continue to be filmed in that format?

 

[jefferiestubes8]

Not everything has to be widescreen.

Well, no, but it makes sense. Fullscreen TVs aren't really being sold anywhere anymore,

Well not everyone is high definition but all TVs are widescreen.

16:9 (1.78:1), universal to high-definition television and European digital television.

Most feature films today isolate the action to the center of the frame so they can be easily cropped to 4:3 for television and video. Television takes advantage of the widescreen frame even less,

This really annoys me. Especially on 2.35:1 Cinemascope films such as a romantic comedy genre. Why bother? Just shoot a Romantic comedy film in 1.78 and do a release in 1.85. Most people will see it on Blu-ray/DVD anyway.

Long gone are the days of full framing like you saw in C'era una volta il West (1968) aka "Once Upon a Time in the West" - International (English title), UK, USA which had 2.35:1 framing way out to the edges. Really almost every image was beautifully composed.

 

[doubleohfive]

I realize pretty much everything is shot in widescreen these days ... I'm just saying that despite this assertion, it doesn't necessarily mean that something shot in 4:3 is entirely valueless.

I suppose my only concern would be to make sure that if everything is going to be widescreen that there at least still be the ability to view stuff originally shot in 4:3 in it's original format.

On the purely academic side of it, one could easily shoot the next great American cinematic masterpiece, adored by everyone -- and it could be done in 4:3. So what?

Is widescreen cool? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean 4:3 is necessarily dead.