Not exactly. There was definitely more picture in the theatrical framing of the scene in question:
http://www.angelfire.com/moon/daehkcid/t3.html


But :thumbsup: to that

I'm not sure if any of these were the shot I was thinking of. It might've been the 3rd shot down, but I'm not positive.

Here's the 4:3 version of the 3rd screengrab (possibly NSFW):
http://sj.outnow.ch/images/kristanna_1.jpg

One thing to note is that on the angelfire page, the last 2 screengrabs clearly show more information on the sides, while the 3rd shot shows that the Don Burgess credit moved on the WS DVD version, which suggests it wasn't simply a misframing, but deliberate reframing.

I prefer FS Anchorman, but that's only because its the only way to see the theatrical cut, which is a shade better than the director's cut. Also, it has a totally different (unadvertised) commentary track on it.

This is a pretty funny thread. But I have to admit, one breezy summer night while I was getting ready to go to sleep on the floor in front of the TV with the windows open, I decided to throw on the fullscreen side of Fright Night because it felt really nostalgic...like when I used to watch it so many times on TV when I was a kid (although, yes, I did see it in the theater initially, but it was just ingrained in my memory after seeing it so many times afterward in P&S). It made me feel all fuzzy, and then I fell asleep.

well, if i could just chime in here, for a second. firstly, kubrick filmed and framed his films in 4:3 because he believed that was how film was originaly meant to be seen. "fullscreen" refering to the whole of a 35mm cell. prior to the advent of television in the 50's all films were shot and framed for 4:3 ratio. as movie studios watched their profits plummet due to people staying in to watch this amazing new thing "TELEVISION!!".

studio bosses had to think fast, how can we get them back into the cinemas? many ideas were tried, but one that stuck and is still here today is "WIDESCREEN!" the studios could now sell their product to the masses, with the claim that you will see MORE at the cinemas than on your square tv sets. this is the reason films are now shot and framed for a widescreen ratio, even though they're still using FULL FRAME film stock. it's all to do with framing the shot the way the director wants. he could get any shot he wanted using a 4:3 ratio but the industry is locked into widescreen so the director has to get the shot framed for widescreen.

there is an article on the web somewhere that goes into more detail, but this is the jist of what it said. try and find it, it's well worth the read. i think it' called the great widescreen swindle or some such.

for the record i'm glad films are w/s. i don't own a single film in 4:3 unless that was it's original ratio. tv shows are a different matter as of course they're filmed for a 4:3 tv. that is changing now with the introduction of HDTV and digital tv. when it comes right down to the bottom of it, it just doesn't matter, it is what it is! :shrug:

Being the perv that I am, the nudity argument is really the only one that might convince me to buy an FS version where a WS option existed. With this wonderful tool known as the internet, however, I can usually just download the scenes in question, so I have no moral dilemma.

With those saggy tits, I can see why the WS version cuts that part out. :wacko:

You are an extremely fast typer.

K

Actually, Kubrick's intentions is debatable. As this recent thread shows, Kubrick composed The Shining for 1.85:1 while protecting the 4:3 frame:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419899

It's possible that the same may be true for the other films as well, since his preference for opne-matte 4:3 was expressly for the home video versions, which had the standard frame of 4:3 when he made that statement.

Secondly, film doesn't have a standard ratio that is as it was "originaly meant to be seen." Film has undergone numerous aspect ratio changes from stills to motion. There isn't one right ratio.

"Full Frame" refers to the whole of a standard 35mm cell, while "fullscreen" would refer to the whole of a TV screen, although the two are used intergangably now. "Full Frame" is still misleading, since anamorphic widescreen uses the whole of the 35mm cell as well.

Another that stuck was the use of color.

Well, with anamorphic WS, they definately were seeing more than on TV. Even early matted WS was often shown P&S on TV, so the studios claims were true there. WS screens were often bigger as well, since it was easier to expand horizontally than vertically.

As for them still using 4:3 framed stock, they had to. There were thousands of movie projectors already in use with 4:3 as the standard. The two most popular ways to fit a WS image onto this 4:3 stock was anamorphic squeezing and matting. Anamorphic squeezing was nice because it allowed full use of the 4:3 frame while requiring only minor modification of the existing projectors, just a lens change to unsqueeze the image. Matting was even easier, since it didn't require use of different lenses at all.


Yeah, the director could frame the shot any way he wanted, as long as it was 4:3. The Academy Ratio was just as restricting as any other aspect ratio could be. In fact, widescreen was less restricting, since under the umbrella of "widesceen" there are actually 3 major aspect ratios: 1.66:1 1.85:1, and 2.35:1. And of course, some films are still made in 1.33:1. So widescreen offer more possibilities to directors, not less.

Couldn't find that article through a search. I do know of plenty of widescreen-advocacy pages though.

http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/
http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/

And here's an informative page on how film is transferred to video.
http://www.digieffects.com/frames/tr...lmtovideo.html

One has to wonder why widesceen stuck, when so many other inovations or gimmicks failed. The most obvious answer is that it stuck because it was successful in regaining viewers. The public responded favorably to widescreen, and has continued to do so.

It also has proved to be extremely popular with filmmakers as well. Kubrick aside, many directors have pushed for letterboxing of films on TV and showing them in what they feel is the proper aspect ratio, regardless of open-matte showing more image. This is why many Director's Cut DVDs are WS only, because the director gets to decide the aspect ratio, and they pick the one the prefer, the one they composed for.

Widesreen is not a swindle. While it started out as a marketing ploy, it has persevered because of its artistic posibilities and popular appeal. After all, adding sound to cinema was originally a marketing ploy as well.

as i said i like w/s, i was just giving you the jist of an article i read and thought would be of intrest to this thread.

is that sarcasm?

It's funny because I was just talking to someone about zooming in. That's even worse than pan & scan. At least with P&S you get that crappy camera movement. But with zooming in you're going to lose what is going on, on the sides of the screen, period!

Thank you for that link. That's what I was talking about. The framing when the T-X first appears was more open in the theater, and considerably tighter on DVD. It does look like it could be a deliberate reframing, though, rather than an error. If it's the latter, it should be corrected in the next release of T3. I still remember a DVD review that suggested it was a mistake, but I'm not able to locate that right now.

I read something a little while ago about Kubrick and his feelings toward matting films for letterboxed presentation. He composed for 4:3 because that was the aspect ratio he actually preferred for his films. That was his choice. He deemed matting a "necessary evil" of the industry, and preferred to keep the mattes open. That's why films like Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut are available only in open matte.

--THX

It's interesting to me that a guy like Kubrick, who did a great deal of his work between the advent of widescreen movies and the beginnings of home video would prefer a presentation he had to think many people would never see.

I mean, he really only made two movies after home video became widespread. If he always preferred fullframe presentations, then in his movies prior to Full Metal Jacket, he was composing an image that, at the time, he wouldn't expect anyone would ever see.

There may not have been home video, but there was certainly Television. I've read that Kubrick's preference for open-matte arose after seeing a P&S version of 2001 broadcast on TV.

You're right, since I rarely watch movies broadcast on television, I hadn't thought of that rather obvious outlet in the days before home video (and I watched a good many movies on television growing up since my family didn't get a VCR until 1986 or so, so I really should've thought of that).

What I hate are posters that start threads like this and then never post anything in them again -- I always have the feeling they check back and laugh at the stupidity they cause when they know full well that their original posts are crap.

But that's just me.

I haven't seen Dr. Strangelove (I know, I know), but I've read that Kubrick used multiple aspect ratios. How is the DVD presentation?

It depends on which DVD you get. The Warner Kubrick Collection and the original Columbia and the original Special edition all vary between 1.33 and 1.66. The new 40th Anniversary special edition is entirely 1.66. The editor of the newer DVD says that it is the way it is supposed to be but many feel that Kubrick prefered the changing aspect ratio. One of the best pieces of proof for this is the Criterion LaserDisc which Kubrick himself approved has the shifting ratio.