It seems to be passed around as common knowledge that widescreen is categorically superior to a 4:3 display. And yet, I wonder if this belief is founded on anything more substantial than popular opinion? People seem to look at widescreen has having “a wider view of area,” instead of, what would seem to be the equally correct “narrower vertical view of area” (particularly as many films were/are filmed on standard 4:3 film, and simply crop the “excess.”)
I theorize that a lot of this is opinion that has bled over from the common perception that widescreen is the “true” way to view most movies, which granted, is true for most films of the last several decades, but not every movie. James Cameron, for instance, has filmed several of his films in 4:3, which were then cropped for theatrical showings, and has gone on record as preferring the original aspect ratio. And I wonder if this wouldn’t be the case for most movies, had widescreen not been shoehorned as the de facto standard by frightened movie studios of the impending surge of TV popularity in the 50s.
I’ve read one defense of the widescreen aspect ratio as it more closely matches our field of vision, but yet I recall reading (sorry, couldn’t find the cite) that 4:3 is actually closer to our eyes’ natural aspect ratio than 16:9. I’d be curious to confirm whether that is true, but the original author was awfully convincing in the facts he used, IIRC.
So aside from the fact that most movies are filmed in widescreen, is that format actually objectively better than fullscreen, or has it just come to be accepted this way via clever marketing decades ago?
I know you’re talking about movies and not video games, but FWIW, widescreen in video games definitely does give you an additional field of view on the sides, which can be important.
It’s better than pan-n-scan, which is what it’s more properly compared to. The typical method of making a widescreen film into a “fullscreen” version for video is to cut bits off the sides, and sometimes crop characters out completely. A less-than-competent editor could wreck a tense scene with two characters facing each other across a room by turning it into a “cut to this character while they say their line, cut to the other character for their line, repeat” shot.
I want to see what the director wanted to be shown. Not some chopped up mess of a film that is missing a lot of scenery and otherwise doesn’t really reflect the director’s intent.
Does it? Here’s my argument: Couldn’t the developer simply offer the same width of view (as in widescreen), with additional height, provided by a 4:3 display?
Also, there have been several games released for PC, BioShock being one IIRC, that originally features a “widescreen” mode that was simply a cropped version of the 4:3 original. Nary a person noticed until someone actually did an A-B comparison, then outrage ensued (why, I have no idea).
Right, and that’s not what this is about, hence why I stated “So aside from the fact that most movies are filmed in widescreen.” I’m asking what about the widescreen aspect ratio itself makes it better than 4:3 (if anything), and not any prior products developed with such. Sorry if this wasn’t clear.
It’s not “objectively” better. Who says it is? It’s a choice.
What’s “objectively” better is to watch a movie the way the director intended it to be shown. Having a widescreen display allows you to see most aspect ratios at a larger size.
I used “objectively” because at least, in my perception, that seems to be how its treated by marketers and consumers alike. I’ve never seen a display advertised as being “full-frame,” but “widescreen” is another bullet-point that can be added to a product, which lends the impression that it’s natively superior, imo.
I’m not sure I understand your point about “widescreen displays allowing you to see most aspect ratios at a larger size”–huh? Do you mean established widescreen rations, such as 16: 9, or 16:10? If so, I’m not disputing widescreen is the obviously popular format, instead I’m wondering if there is any other reason this has come to be, aside from it become the de facto standards in the 50s.
The thing is, the way I understood it, “the fact that most movies are filmed in widescreen” is exactly the reason it’s preferred. Because to make those widescreen movies into a “fullscreen” movie, they typically cut off the sides of the film, and then charge full price for less of the movie.
More interesting though, is this passage, which purports that widescreen is more fitting for our eyes’ natural aspect ratio:
And I’m wondering if there’s any truth to that. Is widescreen really “more engrossing” and “absorbing”? I never felt 4:3 was ever a barrier to immersion, and I wonder how much of the belief that it is is based around us simply being told that it’s the case.
Which very well may be true, in which case, I’m curious if that’s the only reason widescreen is now the preferred format? Does widescreen really offer no innate benefit over fullscreen?
This would make sense, if true. Is it? 4:3 is also a wider format than it is tall, and according to at least one article I’ve read, conformed more to our eyes’ natural field-of-vision that 16:9 did. I don’t know if that article was correct though, so I’d love to find out if anyone knows what aspect ratio we actually see in?
Wide screen offers more exciting composition choices for the filmmaker, for one. For example, there’s not much room to “breathe” in 4:3 - if you have one character on camera left, and one on camera right, they pretty much have to be really close to each other for the shot to work. If you pull out so that the distance between them is greater, they will have awkwardly large headroom that just Doesn’t Make Sense.
Now, 4:3 is great for closeups, because the squarish frame is better for heads. But the crafty filmmaker can simply use 16:9 and use natural objects in the environment to pillarbox the 16:9 down into 4:3 - a door way, a window, things like that. Taking 4:3 and boxing it down to 16:9 is much more unnatural for most environments, and so just isn’t done often.
But ultimately, it’s a choice. If you have to shoot something with lots of talking, dialogue, and people not performing many actions, with limited environments, then 4:3 is perfect. But if you want wide expanses, dynamism within the frame, good positive/negative shapes, then 16:9 is a whole lot easier to work with.
(Also, most films are not cut off, as you suggest. Most films are shot with anamorphic lens, which essentially squish the sides of the image until it fits onto the 4:3 35mm film, which is then later unstreched in post or in projection.)
Conservation of detail. In games, especially first-person games, information aligned with the horizontal axis tends to be more important (a natural consequence of, among other things, gravity), so an expanded horizontal field of view gives the player more useful information. Expanding both horizontal and vertical resolution on the same surface area will make everything much smaller, so a widescreen aspect ratio provides the best informational density.
I think the same argument really applies to everything else. The true “aspect ratio” of our field of vision aside, I’m pretty sure we tend to do more horizontal scanning than vertical; much as in the video game example, most of the stuff we care about tends to be aligned that way.
I recall this too, but I disagree with it. As terrestrial creatures whose predators traditionally came from the same plane upon which we live, I think people tend to ‘edit out’ much of our vision’s ‘height’ while we concentrate on the peripheral. So I think we naturally see the world in ‘widescreen’.
According to the supplemental features on one of the many versions of T2 I own (I think it was the Ultimate edition, but could be mistaken on that) this is not strictly speaking correct. He films it in a larger frame, true, but he then crops each version down from that original version. Neither the widescreen, nor full frame, is the entire filmed image. Each may show some things not seen in the other, but there’s not going to be anything important missing, because he’s not just chopping the sides of one version or the tops and bottoms off the other version, it’s a custom process for each version, to make sure it’s done right.
I don’t believe most filmmakers do it that way, and clearly a lot don’t, but if they did, there wouldn’t be any real benefit to widescreen home versions, other than personal preference (and of course widescreen TV’s now becoming the standard makes them a better choice if you have one of those.)
It’s simply a matter of history. Picture the original, “academy” ratio, roughly the shape of an older TV. Good enough for pretty much every movie made in the golden age of Hollywood. Then TV comes poaching on the studios’ entertainment monopoly, and people go out to the theater in ever diminishing droves. How to compete? If you just made the picture BIGGER, that wouldn’t do much; screens are different sizes anyway. Proportionally bigger is really no big deal. But if you STRE-E-E-E-E-TCH the screen out the sides, then it LOOKS bigger. You get twice the movie on the screen! TO stretch it vertically wouldn’t make much sense. Think about it: most of the things people do happen upon a horizontal plane, not a vertical one. A horizontally stretched frame increases the amount of action–not to mention horizon–you can can include on the screen at one time.
I think it’s worth noting at this juncture that windshields tend to be widescreeen to a very substantial degree. They were developed entirely independent of the entertainment industry and so probably reflect the needs of drivers, pilots, and ship captains reasonably well.
