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.

Forget the open matte discussion.

It's as simple is...

What shape is a movie screen?
"Rectangle"
What shape is a standard TV?
"Square"
Now how do you fit the entire rectangle into a square?
"silence"
Well, then, let me show you...

Facts, schmacts.

The tip of a boom mike wouldn't be funny, but one of the grips crawling underneath the table next to a bunch of wires and coke cans would be. I'm just trying to liven up the speech with some beautiful lies.

Read up on this site. It has good examples of films in P&S and widescreen.

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/starwars/index.shtml

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/l...de/index.shtml

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/l...rs/index.shtml

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/l...ip/index.shtml

There's more on that site but those above are good examples.

That might be more effective if it was actually true, but it isn't. A 4x3 TV is not square, but rather a rectangle. Not as wide a rectangle as 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, but a rectangle nonetheless.

DJ

I did a widescreen/full screen speech for my speech class a couple semesters ago as well.

The room we were in was not equipped to do powerpoint presentations. So what I ended up doing was printing out comparison images on transparancies to use on the overhead projector. Then using a marker to show everyone what was missing or the differences. Seemed to work out fine.

I'm thinking you could get around the "one picture" requirement. Could you use a big canvas with several smaller picures on it and argue that it is one picture? What if it is a picture of several pictures?

For an example of what could happen when the mattes are opened, you could show that part in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where you can see the hose attached to Violet's blueberry costume. Or show the other end of the chain coming out of the bike in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

BTW, how did your business speech go?

My portion went pretty well, and she said that I was a pretty natural speaker, but the rest of my group was not the best. It didn't help that our subject matter was boring, and not everyone showed up every day.

I'll have to think about whether I want to risk part of my grade to skirt the system...heh.

Thanks for all the replies today...now I just need to start gathering the stats on Widescreen and Fullscreen.

Typical [liberal] POV. Yep, there's definately never a right or wrong way to do things. :rolleyes: Please.

I'm not big artsy fartsy type person, but I surely don't think it'd be proper to cut and trim down a famous piece of artwork just to fit it in a particular frame I have.

I even feel this way when people cut up their vacation photos to put in scrap books because they won't fit in there in their full 3x5 or 4x6 sizes.

Believe it or not, there's still some people out there who can't even grasp this concept. My retired teacher aunt who goes to movies alot still can't figure this out. You think it'd be :brickwl2: by now.

Debating widescreen vs. full screen can be tricky because of the open matte issue. When open matte films are formatted for widescreen presentation, you do lose some picture information. Not anything that's important to the director, but you still lose it. So if you're seeking to demonstrate the merit of widescreen by showing what more you actually see, your point could be nearly DOA, applying mostly to older films. And with more and more films being done in open matte these days, your point has ever declining value to those who simply don't care.

One angle you could use instead is advocating the director's intent for his or her work. That is something that cannot be argued against, even though there are those who scoff at the idea of honoring what the director wanted. They want their screen filled--to hell with anything else! So be it. But you could emphasize the artistic side of filmmaking. The composition of a scene is as important as the performances of the actors. Find screen shots of open matte films where OAR clearly has a better composition than its open matte equivalent. Open matte may show more on top and bottom, but that doesn't mean the picture is any better.

--THX

The images we used for my newspaper series "Widescreen 101" are very persuasive. It's also a fairer representation of widescreen (on a 4:3 set, which is what most people still have) because it truly shows how each format looks on a 4:3 screen. Even with a "smaller" widescreen image (because of the black space; don't call them "bars"), it's hard to see how anyone could argue for P&S after seeing how this scene from "The Mask of Zorro" looks in each format.

http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/pdfs/lesson1a.pdf

If you print out this newspaper page, it could be the one image to which you have been limited.

My entire series is indexed here:

http://www.widescreenadvocate.org/download3.html

Rasalas,

Thanks for the articles.

I think I am going to have to lean toward the director intent for the persuasion of widescreen/OAR.

That way, I can briefly touch on open matte, but still emphasize the widescreen preference by almost every director.

:) I don't believe PixyJunket used the term "never," nor clearly applied the comment to anything other than the topic at hand.

--THX

I just started a new job at a music & movies store. I can't even tell you the number of times I've had people pick fullscreen over widescreen, and then tell me a misinformed answer as to why they don't like widescreen.

So good luck with your speech. These people need it ;)

It can also be said that a fullscreen version of a film - more of conversion, actually - is an alteration and a distortion of the film.

If you want to see a movie at home the way it was seen in the theater, then widescreen/OAR is the only way to go. A movie screen can't be made to fit a TV screen. You can't put a rectangle into a square and make it fill the square.

And in time, the adopting of widescreen TVs will make fullscreen pointless. Except for those stuck with fullscreen DVDs who are suddenly complaining about bars on the sides, and have to pay to replace all their DVDs. Ha!

I hope to see the day that fullscreen DVDs go the way of the dodo.