New After Life DVD

[Lang Thompson]

>In doing some research, I discovered that some films are actually filmed
in 4:3
>format, but scenes are really composed with an eye to their appearance in
>widescreen display.  Thus, the film, as shown in the theater, is (in effect)
>letterboxed (though the missing information isn't particularly important).

This is called soft matting and was quite common during the 70s and 80s (at
least in the US).  The problem and one reason it's not done as often is
that directors often left things in the matted out portion that audiences
weren't meant to see--usually boom mics but also tops of sets, etc.  If the
film wasn't matted properly when shown audiences got to see this.  (If you
ever notice a boom mic in a film it's nearly always a projection error and
not the filmmaker's fault.)  When transferred to video the film still needs
to be letterboxed to get the entire intended image.

A different option is the format Super35 which James Cameron generally
uses.  This is filmed in 1.33 (or sometimes 1.54) with the intention that
the director can choose part of the image for widescreen and part for
full-frame.  One major disadvantage is that you end up with more grain in
Super 35 because basically you're blowing up a section of the original
image; another is that you can end up with indifferent compositions in
either ratio.  (There are some other technical differences such as the lens
used so it's not merely filming in 1.33.)  However, the IMDB doesn't say
that "After Life" was shot in Super 35 which would seem unlikely anyway for
that type of film.  

Lang

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