Widescreen speech for school
 

I am going to give a persuasive speech for a Speech Class, and I am going with persuading the audience to go with Widescreen over Fullscreen.

My teacher informed me that we cannot use Powerpoint for this speech, and that we can only use one visual aid.

I know what I want to talk about, like we all would, but I don't know what to use as a visual aid. She said that we may use a single picture as our visual aid, but only one.

What would be a good visual aid to show what portion of the movie is getting chopped off?

I was thinking of taking a $1.00 bill and cutting it up in front of the class to emphasize the uselessness of the remaining portion after the "fullscreen" is formatted.

Any ideas?

Wouldn't it be better to have a speech about OAR? ---just a thought.

Well, OAR would be the underlying theme to the speech. I know that some films are/were not filmed in 2.35:1, 1.85:1, 1.77:1, or 1.66:1, but this would be a persuasion to get the audience to stop being fooled by the movie industry into wanting to fill their screen with the Full Screen movies.

This would have been very relevant in 1999.

Go with DaVinci's Last Supper instead of a dollar bill.

Great idea, Canaryfarmer.

So that can show how you can ruin artwork just to fit the screen. You think most brick and mortar stores would have a print of The Last Supper?

Maybe not all of his classmates spend every waking moment posting on a DVD message board and therefore are still uninformed on this issue...

losers.

Just use Google's image search. There's a bunch of huge images of it.

I agree that this would have been very relevant in 1999...however, I still think it is relevant now.

The slow transition to widescreen television and fullscreen DVD sales supports the notion that we still need to inform J6P.

Wow. Groucho gets credit for everything!

It sounds like by "chopping off the sides" you're also forgetting that the fullscreen format of most recent movies is derived by opening up the mattes, rather than chopping off the sides. In that case, the fullscreen version offers more picture, but not OAR.

In that case, I could put some mattes on the print of the Last Supper, and take them off as well as cut the sides.

I know there are varying degrees of Fullscreen vs. OAR debates, but this speech can only be 5 minutes.

Would it be safe to say that the majority of Fullscreen movies are either Pan & Scan or chopped versions of the widescreen prints?

I don't need to get too technical in the speech, this is for persuasion to watch the Widescreen over the Fullscreen.

The majority of new releases (last 10 years or so) are open matte, the majority of old films are pan and scan.

And this is just talking about 1.85:1 films. There's also 2.35:1 films, which can be scope or Super 35...a whole new discussion.

Serious Groucho makes my head hurt.

FYI: The Last Supper demonstration is used for the TCM between films "featurette" concerning widescreen/fullscreen/OAR. I don't know if it matters or not, but if your teacher and/or any classmates (not very likely, perhaps?) happen to watch TCM you might lose some points for originality.

Hmm.. sounds a bit self-important. Just remember that there is no "right" or "wrong" way, it's simply a preference.

Do you have a laptop with a DVD drive? Take in a movie that has both widescreen and fullscreen versions on it and use it as an example in class. Prove to them that you see more with widescreen.

School's in session already?

I used a printout of "The Last Supper" when i did my speech on widescreen a few years ago.

All i did was have a "fullscreen" opening cut out on a sheet of paper that folded over the printout of the painting.

For an example of open matte, find a photo of The Last Supper which shows the entire doorway under the painting. Then matte it down to the OAR.

School isn't in session, but this is a Summer Speech course at the local community college.

Ok...so maybe I cannot strongly argue the "you get more picture" with Widescreen, but can I at least argue that you should have the widescreen TV for the most flexibility?

So...anyone have an idea what argument I could use to persuade OAR(or Widescreen) format over Fullscreen?

Generally, a persuasive speech is an attempt to sway an audience to see (and maybe agree with) your opinion. So he is arguing the merits of his opinion, or preference if you will. So it's not self-important, it's the assignment. But I agree that he should make an effort not to be condescending and just simply state his logic and reasoning.

I definitely not planning on being condescending.

I just want to show them that they are not missing part of the movie with the "black bars", and that the movies in Widescreen format will show what the director filmed the movie in.

In the very least, I can persuade the audience to understand/accept my opinion that there is a definitely more of a movie feel when you are watching widescreen movies.

Regarding the Last Supper thing on TCM, I will give the credit to TCM...so I don't care if the instructor takes off for originality...at least I am not trying to hide where I got my visual aid example.

That was basically what I was thinking he should do, except it would obviously be a mock-up.:

Have one poster of the Last Supper, but attach some white posterboard behind it that extends above and below the original. Then draw a boom mike on the top and some out-of-place props, various film crew and equipment on the bottom half. Then you can start the presentation with the OAR image and then show the ways that the image can be negatively altered by alternately folding the sides back or by exposing the top and bottom.

That might be too much trouble, but I think it would be effective.

But most films today are filmed with the fullscreen DVD version in mind, so they move the boom mic and other things out of the frame.