Just Say No to Pan and Scan

For those of you who don't know, Pan-and-Scan is what the video companies do to beautifully framed movies to make them fit on standard TV sets. The average movie is 1.85 times wider than it is tall. The standard tv set is 1.33 times wider than it is tall(also known as 4:3) To make the wider movie picture fit on a TV, they have two choices. They can shrink the movie image down so it is as wide as the television, leaving a blank space at the top and bottom of the screen.
This is known as letterboxing, and is the prefered method of videophiles and true movie lovers because it preservs the filmmaker's original vision. Unfortunately, Joe Consumer doesn't like this method because s/he assumes that the black bars are actually cutting off part of the picture (which in some cases they are, but more on that later)
The other method is to cut the sides off of the picture and then slide back and forth to try to include all relevant action.
In theory this wouldn't be too bad because it gives you a bigger picture, but in practice it doesn't work out. In a two-shot (two actors facing eachother) you are left with one actor talking to thin air. In the video version of Star Wars, as Luke looks through his binoculars at the sand people's Banthas he says "I don't see any of them, oh wait there's one now" and yet you see nothing. In the widescreen version, you see a sand person walk into the frame. And in Multiplicity, the studio paid big bucks for the effects to have multiple Michael Keatons on the screen at one time, and yet in the video version all you can see is one. The sliding also tends to cause strobing due to the way a TV is interlaced. Not only does it take you out of the movie, but sometimes it can even make you sea-sick.

With the advent of HDTV and 16:9 (which is 1.7777 times wider than it is tall) this is becoming less of a problem, but HDTV is not that popular yet. And watching regular tv on a 16:9 has exactly the opposite problem. You either have to cut off the top and bottom, or letterbox the sides.

As I said earlier, sometimes letterboxing does cut off the top and bottom of the picture. This is because there are two different formats for movies when they are shown in the theater. The original format was what they now call "Flat". Each frame of 35mm film is 1.33 times wider than it is tall (aka 4:3) Back in the old days the movie screens were 4:3 and they would use the entire frame. Then in the 50's Cinemascope created the O-Rama fad of widescreen movies. They used a special lens on the camera that compressed the image horizontally, and then another lens on the projector that stretched it back out. This way they could fit an image that was as much as 2.35 to 1 on the same 1.33 to 1 piece of film. The problem was that these lenses were expensive, and so they came up with a plan to use their current flat lenses and just discard the top and bottom of each frame, thereby creating an image that was widescreen but without the cost of "scope" lenses. Scope lenses create a much sharper picture (because they don't have to be blown up as much as a flat) and so they are typically used on big budget action films, while flat lenses are used on lower budget and indi. films. If film makers would think about the video release while making their film, it would be simple to transfer the 4:3 movie frame to the 4:3 video frame with no cropping, panning or scanning. But the problem is boom mics. Film makers assume their work will only be seen on a 1.85:1 movie screen, and so they let boom mics creep into the top of the frame (who cares, that part will be cut off anyway, right?) But that prevents the film from being transfered as-is to video (boom mics will completely ruin the moment and bring you right out of the movie (although if it's a comedy it can actually add to the moment, like when we showed Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 4:3 and you could see the mics in the rabbit scene, and Terry Gilliam's hands during the animated sequences)) What they should do is keep the mics out of the frame and if it's flat transfer it directly, and if it's scope letterbox it.

If you plan on visiting Sedona, Arizona, make sure to visit the Sedona SuperVue Theater for a giant screen movie about the area. I guarantee you will enjoy it.* You may also be interested in taking a tour to the Grand Canyon with a Native American guide... For more ideas, goto Sedona's Top Ten.

* If you don't enjoy the show, I'll give you your money back and throw in a free bag of popcorn.