Aspect Ratios | Tomorrow's Filmmakers

today we talk about aspect ratios hey everybody welcome to another episode of tomorrow's filmmakers my name is Justus mcrainey and today we're gonna be talking about aspect ratios we're gonna be talking about the history of aspect ratios what they are why they are important to know and also how you can use them to tell a different message inside your film so first off what is an aspect ratio well an aspect ratio is basically the frame size that you are shooting your film on have you ever noticed the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen or maybe on an older movie the black bars on the left and right of the screen that is called an aspect ratio now the mathematical answer is that an aspect ratio is the proportion of the height and width of the image that you are seeing on the screen but I'm sure a lot of you guys are wondering why why do some movies look like this while some movies look like this or some movies have no black bars and look like this now in Hollywood today most movies are shot on either one eighty five to one aspect ratio or 235 to one but back in the day when everything was shot on film most movies had an aspect ratio of four to three it was essentially 0.95 inches by point seven three five inches resulting in a four point three aspect ratio and that's why many of the older TVs look like boxes because they had an aspect ratio of four point three so it was essentially shot kind of in a square so that it could be fit on the square film that was being fed into the cameras so there wasn't a widescreen it was just kind of like a box that everything was being shot in but since the world of cinema is constantly evolving and they are looking for ways to immerse the audience more they sat down one day and they said your eyes don't see in a box your eyes see wide how can we widen the image so the first movie to ever come out in a wider aspect ratio was the movie Shane which was created in 1953 now the way they did this was kind of just cutting off the top and bottom of the image to make it look widescreen so it was a really true widescreen they just kind of were testing it out what if we make it look wider when it's actually not so it wasn't the correct way to do widescreen but everybody loved it it was something new it was something different it was something more immersive but they soon realized that cutting off the top and bottom of a film was just not going to work so they started to look for ways to be able to print a widescreen image on the small square film that they are still using and that is when the anamorphic lens was invented which the technology is still used today now I was planning on doing an entire episode on anamorphic lenses but essentially what an anamorphic lens is is it basically distorts the image so that it can be squeezed back to its original shape later so on a four to three film image the lens would make everything shot much taller and distorted and that way it could still capture really wide shots but once you shot it the image would be stretched back to its original size resulting in a very wide image that would still fit on a four to three film stock and that is how widescreen was born in the very first film to ever use this technology was the robe that came out of the 1950s and it was a huge success and after that the technology just kept growing and growing and growing they took it to the extreme with Ben Hur which was shot in an incredibly wide 276 to one it's so wide that they don't even really use that aspect ratio today unless for a specific reason but back in those days it was incredible to be able to see so wide we have the original four to three aspect ratio which is a 1.33 the Academy ratio Cinerama CinemaScope VistaVision super Panavision been hers MGM 65 and then IMAX which allows you to capture super wide and also super tall resulting in an image that is so immersive and is the biggest screen you have ever seen now in today's culture the most cinematic aspect ratio is either 185 to 1 which show almost the entire frame or 2:35 to 1 which is widescreen and you can see really wide but even after all that we always here 16 by 9 16 by 9 aspect ratio I mean that's the standard for TVs computer monitors I mean where did that come from how did 16 by 9 become the standard aspect ratio whenever all of these aspect ratios exist well back in the day movie started to come out in widescreen and some movies would come out and kind of full screen well if you didn't watch it at home with the correct TV it wouldn't look right because it'd be the wrong aspect ratio so they decided to create a format that sat somewhere in the middle so it would look good with both formats so a 16 by 9 could play the 4.3 aspect ratio with the bars on the left and the right and it could also play the really widescreen images with the bars on the top and the bottom so the reason they made 16 by 9 the standard is because it could basically play every aspect ratio and still look good and the funny thing is 16 by 9 became the standard for everything after that widescreen DVDs are sixteen by nine 1920 by 1080 HD video that's sixteen by nine format even a 4k uhd is sixteen by nine format and that is the standard for all film and digital media so whenever you pick up your camera your cell phone your video camera whatever it is it is shooting in a sixteen by nine format but again mini movies still use Panavision or two thirty five to one to not only capture more images on the side but also to see more cinematic because that is what we are used to in the movie theaters so I just took you on a history of aspect ratios and how they came about and if you thought it was boring sorry it's something you need to know but what's really amazing is with the technology that we have nowadays people are using aspect ratios in the black bars on the top and bottom or left and right to tell a story about their film so if you haven't figured this out by now every single aspect of filmmaking no matter what it is can be used to convey a message even the size format that you are shooting your film in for example aspect ratios could make someone feel very claustrophobic and tight and not a lot of breathing room or it can make you feel massive and it's overwhelming and it's wonderful in just this grand massive image there's many different ways to convey a message with it so there's a lot of Directors out there today who will use aspect ratios to communicate a message for example a ghost story was shot in a boxy four-to-three aspect ratio to make our character feel trapped and very claustrophobic now what's also cool is they rounded the edges to make it look like an old Polaroid so it just feels like the entire movie is just a memory you're just watching a memory of somebody first reformed was shot in a 137 to 1 ratio which again gives the old-time kind of feel it makes you feel very claustrophobic Quentin Tarantino made a very old western movie called the hateful eight but he shot the entire thing with a very old cinema camera and used the exact same aspect ratio that Ben Hur used a 275 to 1 not only did this make you feel very cramped and claustrophobic in this one room where the movie takes place in it also makes it feel very old like an old movie that would come out in the 50s or 60s so all of this was done purposefully to give a certain feeling or message to the audience or in Life of Pi there's a few dream sequences where objects in the movie are interacting with the aspect ratios and going on top of them and it gives almost like a jumping out of the screen kind of effect so all of this is done purposefully just to communicate a message to the audience so yes you can use different aspect ratios to give a certain feel but what is even more impressive is some directors change aspect ratios in the middle of the film to communicate a message for example the grand Budapest hotel jumps between three different time periods in the film the 1930s the 1960s and the 1980s and Wes Anderson communicates those time periods by the different aspect ratios so any time it's in the 1930s it's a four three aspect ratio with the black bars on the left and the right in the 1960s it's a different aspect ratio in the 1980s it's a two thirty five to one aspect ratio so anytime you jump between these different time periods you always know where you are because of the aspect ratio size and there are some movies that change the aspect ratio very obviously like Oz the great and powerful at the very beginning it's a four to three aspect ratio black and white and then whenever he comes into the Land of Oz and it's amazing the screen slowly widens and it turns into color so you start out with this very small frame and by the end of it whenever you're in the Land of Oz it just blows you away because not only does it turn to color but the screen gets larger and you just feel how amazing it is there's a movie that came out in 2014 called mommy and it was actually shot in a one-to-one aspect ratio which is a very small box so our main character feels small and insignificant and claustrophobic and we feel the same way too well in the film the main character actually stretches the aspect ratio to a normal size and whenever he does this it feels like a breath of fresh air to not only the character but also to the audience we are feeling the same thing he is feeling by widening the aspect ratio Scott Pilgrim vs. the world changes aspect ratios whenever there's a fight scene and so on and so forth there are tons of movies out there that change aspect ratios in the middle of filming to communicate a message to the audience now that's a very obvious way of changing aspect ratios is just switching back and forth but my favorite way that directors tend to use it is to use it very subtly so that you don't really see it but your brain can see that something is happening and you start to feel a certain way for example in the Dark Knight Rises Christopher Nolan shot in IMAX and in 235 to 1 so some shots have the black bars and some shots have no black bars because it's IMAX now whenever Batman and Bane are about to have their very first fight you see the black bars it's widescreen and then right whenever the gate closes those bars are gone in its IMAX and it gives you the feeling of something massive is about to happen they are about to fight something bad is about to go down so the aspect ratio changes but it's not something that you notice but your brain automatically starts thinking like oh this is serious this is gonna be something massive in the Hunger Games Catching Fire it is shot in two thirty five to one which is normal widescreen but everything that takes place in the battle is shot in IMAX so whenever Katniss is about to go to the battle it's 2:35 two one hits intimate it's close you feel claustrophobic and then right whenever she's going up the tunnel to the battlefield those bars slowly go away to where you are sitting there in the middle of the battlefield just seeing this massive overwhelming event so you're starting to feel exactly what Katniss is feeling this overwhelming amount of just this massive battlefield so it starts in two thirty five to one as she goes up into the battle it switches to IMAX and on top of that you can be even more subtle than that in the film it comes at night it was shot entirely at two thirty five to one but whenever our character has a nightmare all of those shots are in two seventy-five to one so you automatically know when our character is having a nightmare because the aspect ratio changes in it's much wider screen but during the final act of the film when it comes to it's terrible end the aspect ratio slowly shrinks to a staggering three to one aspect ratio which is a very very small wide screen it's so subtle you probably don't even notice it but you can definitely feel it this communicates to the audience that his reality has become his nightmare now the director has never told you that but he showed you reality with 235 to one he has shown you a nightmare with 275 to one and at the end of the film it's in the nightmare aspect ratio so your brain automatically starts to think this is a nightmare so as you can see aspect ratio is very important to understand and it can also communicate a message to the audience now there are some directors out there that are not very good and they just throw aspect ratios everywhere and they have no idea what they're doing and they do not care and all it does is communicate just chaos to the audience for example one of my least favorite directors out there right now is Michael Bay he's known for the Transformers movies some of them are okay most of them are not good at all but what is staggering to me is that in his newest film Transformers the last night he had three or four different cameras on set at all times with different aspect ratios because every single time the camera changes the aspect ratio changes every single time even in dialogue scenes where there's just two people talking whenever the camera switch back and forth it's different aspect ratios there's IMAX and there's 235 to one there's one 85 to one there's this there's that and it is constantly changing and Michael Bay has never commented on why he did this or why all these aspect ratios exist which leads me to believe he just didn't care or I didn't really even notice it or think about it so again as you guys can see aspect ratios are a very powerful tool and they are important to know what they are and why people shoot with different aspect ratios and if you want to know more about filmmaking and videos like this check out tomorrow's filmmakers com we have over 40 hours of content and new episodes coming out every single week that you do not want to miss also be sure to check out our completely free one-hour webinar in the notes below on my proven method to become a professional videographer it is a jam-packed one-hour webinar that you do not want to miss in the next episode we're gonna be talking about how you can use aspect ratios in your film because there are proper ways to get different aspect ratios and then there are improper kind of quick ways to get different aspect ratios that can sometimes work and sometimes not work so in the next episode we're going to be talking about how you can use different aspect ratios to change the mood and feel of your film and I will see you guys there [Music] you

Channel: Tomorrows Filmmakers

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Rating: 4.9223433 out of 5

Keywords: aspect ratios, film theory, filmmaking, christian film, christian, christian film school, film school, film academy, film college, online film achool, online film academy, online christian film academy

Id: BdPsyLtlamM

Length: 15min 28sec (928 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 16 2018