Anamorphic squeeze
How on earth did they play this in theaters as the lenses are different for wide films than for flat films because today's movie theaters don't use 20 min reels of film on 2 different projectors they use 60 min reels of film on 2 projectors or put the whole film on a giant platter and use one projector.I don't see how theater's could play such a film do you know if it was a made for video production only?[/QUOTE]
It's not the film aspect ratio that's changing during projection. It's the aspect ratio of the original photography being squeezed into the frame. Think the beginning of JFK (the movie), it was projected as 1.33:1 due to the fact that most of the footage use were old stock footage with AR of 1.33:1, but the rest of the movie is shot with 2.39:1. The lens during photography compresses (squeezes) the image on a 35 frame that has an aspect ratio close to 1.37:1. When this film is projected, an anamorphic lens is used to un-squeeze the picture back to 2.39:1 AR. At the theaters, all they have to do is open the screen to AR 2.39:1, regardless of the movie shifting between different AR as such is the case with GBH, the screen AR does not change, it stays 2.39:1, while the movie switches to 1:85:1 and 1.33:1 in parts, the vertical real estate of the screen stays constant, only the left and right side shrink or expand. On home HDTV, this creates an issue with presentation, because HDTV are 1:78:1 AR, not 2.39:1 AR, if the DVD/BD was to maintain the AR integrity as it did in theaters, the 1.85:1 and 1.37:1 scenes will appear quite small within the 2.39:1 AR on your 16x9 TV. To take full advantage on the 16x9 TV, what it amounts to is that think of it as a "zoom in" when the movie shifts to 1.85:1 and 1.37:1, and "zooms" back out when it's 2.39:1. Again, the beginning of JFK is a prime example, because the BD does not zoom in to fill the 1.33:1 parts at the beginning to fill the screen. Perhaps it sounds more complicated then it really is, and that's my fault for I lack an easier way to explain it. The complications is not at the projection level, it's actually at the capture level. And you might not know this, this practice of using multiple AR has been around for a while. Kubrick used it quite extensively in Lolita and Strangelove. Hope that helps. Cheers.
