54 For All Mankind

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Blue
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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#26 Post by Blue » Tue May 14, 2013 2:09 pm

bdsweeney wrote:Having not seen the movie but always thought it looked interesting, I looked around to find a bit of info. From a 'reliable source' :-k , I was curious to read this:
Reviewer: [url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3PIPJ2P8C3Z8H/]Bill Andrews[/url] (N. Ireland) wrote:...read the reviews with interest - but frankly I was gutted to discover that Criterion have 'mutilated' this superb doc by messing with the original score/arrangements.

'Deep blue Day' by Brian Eno and intermittant musical inserts lasting only a view seconds (which previously transported the viewer away from the immediate scene with the Astronauts) have all been removed - the magic has been squeezed out of this classic piece of video/doc architecture by a company who have done the equivalent of a painting a moustache on a classic oil with a black felt tip pin!

Please cure my depression with some info on how I can get my hands on the original classic version on DVD or VHS? (unmutilated)!
Knowing Criterion's policy of releasing films on DVD as close to the director's original intent as possible, I find this hard to believe. Nevertheless, does anyone know if there is any truth to the above quote?

BTW: I agree with the previous posts, Eno's album is superb (regardless of how often Ascent (An ending) has been overused in films ever since it was the end-credit music in Traffic).

To add to this, I've since found:
Like you I also recorded FAM in 1989 when it was broadcast on BBC2 as a Horizon special. I watched in wonder at this incredible film footage, complemented by the haunting sounds of Brian Eno. Its one of those rare films that can be watched over and over again and still hold my attention as if it were the first time. Unfortunately my VHS copy was mislaid and it was time to replace it so I was delighted to see it released in DVD format from Criterion.I was very pleased with the much improved video quality but I was not happy with the re mixed audio tracks, with the removal of tracks such as Matta, Deep blue day, Weightless and Understars 2. In my view (and some others) this is to the detriment of the film, ruining the atmosphere of the BBC original. I recently obtained a VHS version from 1992 (World Island Video) and also imported a 1989 Lasrdisc version (Voyager) but unfortunately they are as the DVD. I am beginning to wonder if their are any official versions of the 1989 BBC showing? If not, I would be interested in obtaining the audio of the original and could at least play that alongside the DVD video footage!
This is all true,and while this is years later in posting this, I love this movie, love it on Blu-Ray, but I have also wondered if I can find a copy of the 1983 original. I find the music haunting in places ("Ascend" finds a primal, emotional place in me for some reason), and for all the Apollo footage I have watched, I think I would love to have experienced the original release. I love the 1989 version, but I actually remember reading about this movie coming out in 1983, and just plain forgot to see it - it was over in Dallas, and was a much shorter run than I expected. I went looking around some last night, but couldn't find even an old VHS copy up on an auction site. I would love to see this in the original form, if at all possible.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#27 Post by giovannii84 » Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:52 am

Does anyone have the Masters of Cinema edition of "For All Mankind"?
http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalo ... l-mankind/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I was wanting to know which version of Bean's artwork gallery they have used? If it is the original version with 32 paintings, or the re-issue with 24?

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vsski
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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#28 Post by vsski » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:08 am

giovannii84 wrote:Does anyone have the Masters of Cinema edition of "For All Mankind"?
http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalo ... l-mankind/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I was wanting to know which version of Bean's artwork gallery they have used? If it is the original version with 32 paintings, or the re-issue with 24?
The MoC version has Bean talking about 25 of his paintings. The painting called "A Delicate Balance" is not on the CC, otherwise the two pieces are identical content wise. The other difference is that the CC has the 24 paitings all indexed and accessible individually, while the MoC shows the paintings with commentary as one continuous piece.


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Ribs
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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#30 Post by Ribs » Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:34 pm

The inclusion of two aspect ratios on the new release is definitely cool - one would hope Koyaanisqatsi, in the event it does appear down the road, will offer the same. I personally think this is a classic Criterion move to take this title, which is great, and push it to the very front of the line for 4K upgrades. It'll probably look just great but it does show that they do have that kind of innate love for these classic Janus library titles deep down.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#31 Post by ryannichols7 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 1:48 pm

I don't like Noisey/Vice but this should be on the disc. the score is extremely crucial to the movie and this is the first time I've heard any of the participants talk about it (Eno is my favorite musician of all time). not having anything about the score was disappointing the first time, and now they could easily make it right...but I'm sure the new BD is just going to be the same as the old one...though it's ambiguous whether the two aspect ratios will be available on BD or not

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#32 Post by omegadirective » Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:23 pm

That “two aspect ratio” option seems very odd and I’d be interested in reading more about that.
Usually directors have their preferred aspect ration, and criterion leaves it at that.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#33 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:49 pm

I saw it on HBOmax with my dad about a month ago, and it is so splendid just in the full frame shape, can’t help but wonder of course with this news how it’ll look in the other AR. Hope it doesn’t have a stretched or chopped feel to how it looks and moves.

And yes it’s a pity they didn’t include that video or better yet a new program on the music. When Morricone died I asked if there was a composer as imitated or used in other films as much as him, and I’d say that the various uses of the Apollo album in other films like Trainspotting, Traffic, etc. comes close to that statistic.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#34 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:41 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 6:49 pm
And yes it’s a pity they didn’t include that video or better yet a new program on the music. When Morricone died I asked if there was a composer as imitated or used in other films as much as him, and I’d say that the various uses of the Apollo album in other films like Trainspotting, Traffic, etc. comes close to that statistic.
And don't forget the all-time great use of Ending (An Ascent) in the final scene of the first episode of Chris Morris' Jam series, his disturbingly insane take on the sketch show: "Byyyeeeeee!"

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#35 Post by cdnchris » Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:36 am

For those curious:

The Blu-ray disc appears to be the old disc as far as I can tell, and it uses the old restoration (1.33:1 only) scanned from the interpositive.

The notes state the new restoration is sourced from the 35mm negative blow up of the original 16mm film. I wasn't expecting much but it does look really damn good in both ratios.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#36 Post by trobrianders » Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:15 pm

omegadirective wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:23 pm
That “two aspect ratio” option seems very odd and I’d be interested in reading more about that.
Usually directors have their preferred aspect ration, and criterion leaves it at that.
The "two aspect ratio” option ought to be the norm and not odd. My preference is almost always for full frame, particularly if the filmakers composed their shots with that ratio in mind. I think people are pedantic in their notion that the ratio that most fills up screen space is preferable. If they stopped to compare I believe people would decide on full frame.

Back in the 1950s it must have seemed a great idea to take compositions that were intentionally framed and shot in 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 and crop them savagely to the ratio of 1.66:1 or further to give audiences the new thrill of a wider screen presentation in theaters equipped to accomodate the new CinemaScope pictures. These days however the great home video labels like Criterion place a high value in returning to the original compositions. The Criterion Blu-ray release of On The Waterfront still contains the only home video presentation of the film in its originally shot aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is incredible to see the proper full frame compositions. The film makes much more visual sense in its original ratio.

So it's really regressive to find new 4K restorations of films like Johnny Guitar provided to Olive Signature in the US and Eureka Masters of Cinema in the UK mistakenly return to the widescreen theatrical aspect ratio of the 1950s. Why was that done? Because someone thought it's "authentic"? It isn't. It's repeating the mistake made in the 1950s of moving away from the original, "authentic" 1.33:1 or 1.35:1 image when there is no longer any valid reason to do so. The standard 2012 Olive release of Johnny Guitar on Blu-ray, though inferior in picture quality, is still in 1.35:1 and I'm very happy to own a copy of it despite the arrival of the new 4K restoration releases.

There are many films I own on Blu-ray like The Go-between or Kings Go Forth or The Man With The Golden Arm that are savagely cropped in this way and I still find the older full frame DVD releases of those films make for much better viewing experiences. I own La Caduta Degli Dei on DVD (2001 Italian release of The Damned with English subs) and as the screengrabs on beaver attest the full frame compositions work much better. Here's hoping Criterion start forming a regular habit of restoring full frame restorations as they so wonderfully did with the Kazan classic.

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tenia
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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#37 Post by tenia » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:20 pm

No it shouldn't be the norm. The norm is for lots of movies being shot full frame without the will ever to be shown this way. While there can be cases or given times in history for multiple ratios to coexist, these are specific cases. Outside of those, other ratios are curiosities at best, confusing alternate versions at worst.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#38 Post by swo17 » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:30 pm

It was interesting to be able to watch Touch of Evil both ways, but mostly because it taught me that the best way to identify the optimal framing is to pay close attention to movement as opposed to individual shots. There are scenes in that film where the camera tracking feels odd and unnecessary in fullscreen, but makes perfect sense in widescreen to keep the focal point in frame

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#39 Post by trobrianders » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:32 pm

tenia wrote:
Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:20 pm
No it shouldn't be the norm. The norm is for lots of movies being shot full frame without the will ever to be shown this way. While there can be cases or given times in history for multiple ratios to coexist, these are specific cases. Outside of those, other ratios are curiosities at best, confusing alternate versions at worst.
I respect other preferences. I tried to explain my reasons and I'd be interested to hear your reasons. Not sure what you mean by "without the will ever to be shown this way". Whose will? The filmmakers? The distributors? The theaters? The film-goers?

Have you at least given it a try? On The Waterfront, Johnny Guitar, The Man With The Golden Arm, for example are available on blu in different ratios. Have you at least tried to watch movies in two different ratios so you can arrive at a preference in practice and not just theory? The assumption I'm challenging is that there is some sort of automatic preference for a cropped, wider image, purely because it makes full use of modern screen space.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#40 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:10 pm

trobrianders wrote:
Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:32 pm
The assumption I'm challenging is that there is some sort of automatic preference for a cropped, wider image, purely because it makes full use of modern screen space.
Why would you assume that a viewer is opting for the widescreen version primarily because they have a widescreen TV? I have the big widscreen TV, the dedicated cinema room and the huge home video collection, but more than half of all my viewing is certainly in 4x3, because I have a slight preference for films made before the 50s and a huge preference for TV shows made in the previous century. But if I watch On The Waterfront or Johnny Guitar, you think I'm deliberately going for the widescreen versions because I'm scared of a pillarbox?

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#41 Post by trobrianders » Sun Apr 03, 2022 6:04 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:
Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:10 pm
trobrianders wrote:
Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:32 pm
The assumption I'm challenging is that there is some sort of automatic preference for a cropped, wider image, purely because it makes full use of modern screen space.
Why would you assume that a viewer is opting for the widescreen version primarily because they have a widescreen TV? I have the big widscreen TV, the dedicated cinema room and the huge home video collection, but more than half of all my viewing is certainly in 4x3, because I have a slight preference for films made before the 50s and a huge preference for TV shows made in the previous century. But if I watch On The Waterfront or Johnny Guitar, you think I'm deliberately going for the widescreen versions because I'm scared of a pillarbox?
No need for the snippy tone. You're welcome to view any way you please. I'm not making any characterizations about your personal viewing preferences. I'm generalising. It doesn't matter what you choose. I'm bemoaning the lack of choice. Most sales of On The Waterfront on blu-ray you get the wide presentation. That's it. Even though anyone watching Criterion's full frame presentation would immediately notice the compositions were framed for 4x3.

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tenia
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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#42 Post by tenia » Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:35 am

We probably had multiple times this discussion but there is plenty of dead space and overhead room on the 1.33 version of On The Waterfront. To me, 1.66 looked best.

As for what I meant, there isn't much more to understand : 35mm has a certain technical shooting AR, which isn't automatically translating as the intended projected ratio.
Same goes, actually, also for newer movies which can be shot digitally with higher ratio than what they're meant to be seen in. For instance, you can find a 1.78 Open Matte version of The Revenant. Its existence doesn't mean Inarritu wanted the movie to be seen this way, nor that such a choice should be offered to the viewers. It often comes from the filmmakers, it can be related to studios' politics (especially movies released around the switch to widescreen), it certainly shouldn't be down to the viewers.

(Didn't we have exactly the same discussion a few months ago ?) (Edit : indeed, only 2 months ago in The Damned thread)
trobrianders wrote: The assumption I'm challenging is that there is some sort of automatic preference for a cropped, wider image, purely because it makes full use of modern screen space.
I'm not sure there is such a thing to challenge, at least outside of the general audience. I couldn't care less about making full use of my 1.78 screen, since I also mostly watch 1.37 movies.
For instance, Criterion went with a wider ratio than they likely should have for Riot in Cell Block 11, based on archival exploitation material. I don't care it's better for using my screen as it was released : if this isn't how the movie was composed for or projected at, then it should have been the higher ratio.

Last edited by tenia on Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:35 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#43 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:37 am

I didn't find his tone "snippy" at all, and it's a perfectly fair question. In my case, my preference is for the correct aspect ratio as agreed at the time of production - I couldn't care less about "making full use of modern screen space". (Hell, the 1.19:1-framed The Lighthouse is one of my favourite films of the last few years.)

On the Waterfront is an interesting one. I certainly agree that 1.85:1 is very obviously too tight, and am quite surprised that Criterion went to the trouble of including that version. In fact, this reminds me of when I oversaw Arrow's The Night of the Hunter and I received a PM urging me "to get the aspect ratio right, unlike Criterion" ("right" allegedly being 1.85:1), but when I compared framings at 1.37:1, 1.66:1 and 1.85:1, I've rarely been more certain that 1.66:1 was correct, a conclusion endorsed by the film's restorer Robert Gitt, who'd gone even further and checked it at 1.75:1, reckoning that it looked acceptable at that ratio but to him there was also no serious doubt that 1.66:1 was correct. With Waterfront, it's not quite as glaringly clear-cut, and I suspect Boris Kaufman went to some effort to make it look visually acceptable at 1.37:1, but I remember when sampling all three ratios that I found that I consistently preferred 1.66:1 - which historically was most likely to have been the intended primary projection ratio anyway. (Both films were made during that uncertain flux period where 1.66:1 popped up a fair bit in American films, only to be comprehensively usurped by 1.85:1 by the end of the decade.)

From a production standpoint, your call for multiple aspect ratios to be made routine simply isn't practical; in most cases there won't be extant HD masters in both ratios, and the cost of creating a new one will be commercially prohibitive (especially since an Academy-framed one would have next to no commercial value for things like TV sales, the usual means of recouping that investment), especially if the film requires more than one disc in order to cope with what will inevitably be a second full-length feature encode. And the number of people who'd appreciate this is minuscule, so it would be very hard indeed to justify that cost to the people who ultimately sign off on the budget unless it's an interesting historical borderline case like On the Waterfront.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#44 Post by trobrianders » Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:27 am

tenia wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:35 am
We probably had multiple times this discussion but there is plenty of dead space and overhead room on the 1.33 version of On The Waterfront. To me, 1.66 looked best.

As for what I meant, there isn't much more to understand : 35mm has a certain technical shooting AR, which isn't automatically translating as the intended projected ratio.
Same goes, actually, also for newer movies which can be shot digitally with higher ratio than what they're meant to be seen in. For instance, you can find a 1.78 Open Matte version of The Revenant. Its existence doesn't mean Inarritu wanted the movie to be seen this way, nor that such a choice should be offered to the viewers. It often comes from the filmmakers, it can be related to studios' politics (especially movies released around the switch to widescreen), it certainly shouldn't be down to the viewers.

(Didn't we have exactly the same discussion a few months ago ?) (Edit : indeed, only 2 months ago in The Damned thread)
trobrianders wrote: The assumption I'm challenging is that there is some sort of automatic preference for a cropped, wider image, purely because it makes full use of modern screen space.
I'm not sure there is such a thing to challenge, at least outside of the general audience. I couldn't care less about making full use of my 1.78 screen, since I also mostly watch 1.37 movies.
For instance, Criterion went with a wider ratio than they likely should have for Riot in Cell Block 11, based on archival exploitation material. I don't care it's better for using my screen as it was released : if this isn't how the movie was composed for or projected at, then it should have been the higher ratio.
Thank you for your considered response. I certainly don't have an issue if a film is presented in accordance with a filmmaker's intention regardless of aspect ratio. Debate sometimes occurs when that intention isn't clear. There are a couple of things going on here related to how films on disc are publicised. On the one hand we're told we should appreciate the fact that films are being presented in a widescreen format as though that were intrinsically a positive thing when it isn't necessarily always true. That happens because publicity machines assume viewers believe it to be intrinsically positive. That assumption wants challenging. On the other hand home video labels like Criterion, Eureka and others, on occasion, present films in two aspect ratios as if that were intrinsically positive. Criterion did that with On The Waterfront, Eureka did that with their limited edition of Shane. There are other examples I could cite. So which is it? It can't be both.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#45 Post by trobrianders » Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:40 am

MichaelB wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:37 am
I didn't find his tone "snippy" at all, and it's a perfectly fair question. In my case, my preference is for the correct aspect ratio as agreed at the time of production - I couldn't care less about "making full use of modern screen space". (Hell, the 1.19:1-framed The Lighthouse is one of my favourite films of the last few years.)

On the Waterfront is an interesting one. I certainly agree that 1.85:1 is very obviously too tight, and am quite surprised that Criterion went to the trouble of including that version. In fact, this reminds me of when I oversaw Arrow's The Night of the Hunter and I received a PM urging me "to get the aspect ratio right, unlike Criterion" ("right" allegedly being 1.85:1), but when I compared framings at 1.37:1, 1.66:1 and 1.85:1, I've rarely been more certain that 1.66:1 was correct, a conclusion endorsed by the film's restorer Robert Gitt, who'd gone even further and checked it at 1.75:1, reckoning that it looked acceptable at that ratio but to him there was also no serious doubt that 1.66:1 was correct. With Waterfront, it's not quite as glaringly clear-cut, and I suspect Boris Kaufman went to some effort to make it look visually acceptable at 1.37:1, but I remember when sampling all three ratios that I found that I consistently preferred 1.66:1 - which historically was most likely to have been the intended primary projection ratio anyway. (Both films were made during that uncertain flux period where 1.66:1 popped up a fair bit in American films, only to be comprehensively usurped by 1.85:1 by the end of the decade.)

From a production standpoint, your call for multiple aspect ratios to be made routine simply isn't practical; in most cases there won't be extant HD masters in both ratios, and the cost of creating a new one will be commercially prohibitive (especially since an Academy-framed one would have next to no commercial value for things like TV sales, the usual means of recouping that investment), especially if the film requires more than one disc in order to cope with what will inevitably be a second full-length feature encode. And the number of people who'd appreciate this is minuscule, so it would be very hard indeed to justify that cost to the people who ultimately sign off on the budget unless it's an interesting historical borderline case like On the Waterfront.
Forgive me you're right. You took an off the cuff remark literally. I was wrong about that and you were right. Of course it would be commercially unviable. I have a preference for seeing films in full frame. That's the picture editor in me. I'm appreciative when films like On The Waterfront and Shane are presented full frame. I can happily watch Kino Lorber's blu of Marjorie Morningstar, for example, despite feeling that the frame is too tight. I much prefer watching it on DVD where there's space for the story/film to breathe. It's right to question why so many films are presented in too tight a space for no other reason than they make fuller use of modern screen space. Is there really anything to argue in that? Another good example occurs to me. The monumental TV series, The World At War, was first presented to us on DVD in the TV format in which it was originally broadcast, 4x3. A blu-ray edition followed and the publicists loudly trumpeted the fact that this edition was Widescreen. All they did was chop chunks off the image, top and bottom (including foreheads during the interview segments). Viewers weren't happy. A subsequent blu-ray release restored to the original format. Can you not see that widescreen is being presented as an intrinsic good when it isn't neccessarily so.
Last edited by trobrianders on Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#46 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:57 am

trobrianders wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:40 am
It's right to question why so many films are presented in too tight a space for no other reason than they make fuller use of modern screen space. Is there really anything to argue in that?
Which specific releases are you claiming do this? It's certainly not especially prevalent practice in my experience, and Shane isn't in any way a representative example, as that film's production and release history is decidedly anomalous.

As a fair amount of pretty rigorous and strongly evidence-backed research has determined, the switchover to widescreen was very rapid indeed when it came to US commercial cinema, and I've overseen Blu-rays of films from as early as 1954 where there was not even the slightest doubt that a widescreen presentation was intended. Just to cite an example on which I personally worked, take Indicator's The Mad Magician, for which we had historical written evidence that both that and the two supplementary Three Stooges shorts were framed for 1.85:1 from the outset.

I think part of the problem is that we've become so used to erroneous 1.37:1 framings of 1950s films right up to and including the DVD era (especially if older full-frame transfers were used) that it can be quite startling to see such films finally framed correctly for what may be the first time in several decades. But the historical evidence is out there, and a conscientious disc producer will certainly have consulted it before deciding to make destructive changes to the composition - a decision that I'd personally never make unless I was certain that what I was doing was historically correct.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#47 Post by trobrianders » Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:16 am

MichaelB wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:57 am
trobrianders wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:40 am
It's right to question why so many films are presented in too tight a space for no other reason than they make fuller use of modern screen space. Is there really anything to argue in that?
Which specific releases are you claiming do this? It's certainly not especially prevalent practice in my experience, and Shane isn't in any way a representative example, as that film's production and release history is decidedly anomalous.

As a fair amount of pretty rigorous and strongly evidence-backed research has determined, the switchover to widescreen was very rapid indeed when it came to US commercial cinema, and I've overseen Blu-rays of films from as early as 1954 where there was not even the slightest doubt that a widescreen presentation was intended. Just to cite an example on which I personally worked, take Indicator's The Mad Magician, for which we had historical written evidence that both that and the two supplementary Three Stooges shorts were framed for 1.85:1 from the outset.

I think part of the problem is that we've become so used to erroneous 1.37:1 framings of 1950s films right up to and including the DVD era (especially if older full-frame transfers were used) that it can be quite startling to see such films finally framed correctly for what may be the first time in several decades. But the historical evidence is out there, and a conscientious disc producer will certainly have consulted it before deciding to make destructive changes to the composition - a decision that I'd personally never make unless I was certain that what I was doing was historically correct.
I have no doubt, if little actual experience, that you're right that framing decisions by yourself and your colleagues worldwide are properly considered and correct and I'm appreciative of the professionalism you bring. That would not explain how decisions like the lopping off of foreheads in the above cited example of The World At Wat come to be. I think they occur because somewhere in the chain (close to marketing/publicity) there is enourmous pressure to present in a widescreen format because it is believed that will help sales. Isn't that so?

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#48 Post by trobrianders » Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:27 am

MichaelB wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:57 am
trobrianders wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:40 am
It's right to question why so many films are presented in too tight a space for no other reason than they make fuller use of modern screen space. Is there really anything to argue in that?
I think part of the problem is that we've become so used to erroneous 1.37:1 framings of 1950s films right up to and including the DVD era (especially if older full-frame transfers were used) that it can be quite startling to see such films finally framed correctly for what may be the first time in several decades. But the historical evidence is out there, and a conscientious disc producer will certainly have consulted it before deciding to make destructive changes to the composition - a decision that I'd personally never make unless I was certain that what I was doing was historically correct.
I am very prepared to admit that this is something I hadn't properly considered but could be very true and I'll try to bear it in mind during future viewings. Thank you.

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Re: 54 For All Mankind

#49 Post by MichaelB » Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:31 am

trobrianders wrote:
Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:16 am
I have no doubt, if little actual experience, that you're right that framing decisions by yourself and your colleagues worldwide are properly considered and correct and I'm appreciative of the professionalism you bring. That would not explain how decisions like the lopping off of foreheads in the above cited example of The World At Wat come to be. I think they occur because somewhere in the chain (close to marketing/publicity) there is enourmous pressure to present in a widescreen format because it is believed that will help sales. Isn't that so?
I thought we were talking about 1950s films made during the changeover from Academy to non-anamorphic widescreen? The World At War is an entirely different subject, and in any case is available in the original framing (I can confirm this first-hand because I have a copy). In fact, one of the reasons why it was restored with the correct framing is specifically because the restoration team insisted on doing it correctly, despite being contractually required to supply a 16:9-framed version primarily intended for TV sales (again, a different topic from physical media releases) - a less conscientious outfit might have cropped the frame and only then carried out the restoration. And it's not just a question of "helping sales" so much as ensuring that sales happen at all (which of course has to be the case in order to fund the restoration in the first place), because many TV channels simply will not consider anything that isn't framed to 16:9.

But this is a different area from physical media releases, which is what I thought we were talking about.

trobrianders
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:18 pm

Re: 54 For All Mankind

#50 Post by trobrianders » Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:51 am

Quite right. A project has to be deemed commercially viable before it can proceed. And if that means preparing an aspect ratio that a restoration team would have definite issues with for a physical media product or a broadcast ready product then so be it. At least you've said that commercial pressures exist which bring forth outcomes detrimental to a film. That was my point. Going back to framing during the changeover from Academy to non-anamorphic widescreen. Weren't commercial pressures having a bearing on outcomes there too, which were detrimental to a film?

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