4:3 and Letterbox
 

Im looking for some opinions on editing 4:3 (full frame) footage mixed in the Letterboxed footage... has anyone seen this done?
I am supposed to shoot non-native 16:9 Letterboxed, but the footage i shoot needs to be edited with 4:3 footage that already exists.... will this be wierd?

Note that the 4:3 footage will be 8mm and poorer quality than the DV footage i will shoot.

Thanks in advance.

Adam,
I'm not clear on what your questions are.

All unstated matters aside, yes it will be "weird". I question the point of mixing the footage at all.

But your message suggests that it's a non-debatable forgone conclusion in this project.

Thanks for the reply

its a documentary which is comprived of mostly amature footage... the footage i would be shooting is professional interview footage which is asked to be letterboxed. The only reason i think this would work is the differences between the 2 footage in terms of quality, look and content. Amature footage being almost 'homevideo-ish' and the proffesional footage being cinematic.

This will somewhat tone down the off beat variation between the 4:3 and 16:9... i hope.

My only other option is to crop the Amature footage to match the newley shot letterbox footage. This will be more consistant.

Thoughts?

So, there will be a "reason" for the amateur footage to look...amateur.

Which leads to the natural question of why you want to shoot the interviews in 16:9. What is the target venue?

the letterbox look is being asked by the client.

the ameture footage is someone fallowing a band around, either through shows, or behind the scenes. So the footage will be rugged and naturaly shot.

the 16:9 footage is all interviews. This is why i think itll differ from the rest.. my only question is that will it differ enough to not look "off beat". Will the letter box footage be out of place even though it may take on an peculiar look hence it being different content (proffessional interviews)? Has this been done before? I can vaguely recall this being done before but wanted to ask other DV buffs before hand.

the letter box footage will have a cinematic look. It may be stylistic to switch back and forth from amature footage to proffesional cinematic footage. thoughts?

Thanks

It's interesting that this comes up, because I see this technique used more often nowadays on a variey of TV shows. It shows up on the Sci-Fi channel, E! and other places. It often seems rather random and makes me wonder why they choose to letterbox some sections. But then again, I also wonder why they will make some clips black and white, add hokey noise and film scratch effects, do wierd things to the color, etc. I guess they're just trying to create some visual variety to make up for the lack of any real content...

Just my opinion, Adam.
I've mixed 16:9 and 4:3 footage in the same home movie and, while I suspect everyone has noticed, noone seemed to be disturbed because it purposely emphasized the change of contents between one scene and the next.
We're used to that with TV programming.
In your case, it will simply mark a "back to archives" point whenever you go to full screen clips, and "back in studio" when you mix to letterboxed footage. It will also help explain the difference in picture quality since you have to work with material from different sources.

thats exactly what i was trying to explain...
I guess ill give it a shot.

Tanks for everyones, input.

-Adam

Why don't you letterbox the 4:3 band footage...

You could even 'steady/stabilise' it (plug-ins in Premiere, AE etc...) and if you find you're chopping someone's head off then you can always move the frame so what you want is still viewable.

Will look much better all as 16:9 !

Yes I've seen this done. In Charles Papert's demo reel to be
exact. It was a bit distracting, but not too much. Depends on
the footage I'd say. Not every 4:3 footage lends itself to letter-
boxing if carefull framing was not used when it was shot.

In my opinion it would be a wonderful contrast between the 16:9 and 4:3. I've seen this done in a few documentaries which use archival footage from news broadcasts (which obviously was shot in 4:3). I believe "Fahrenheit" did this with the footage from the election coverage by the networks.

One thing you could do to the 4:3 footage is place it inside a boarder, like a tv "screen." The tv screen could fill the 16:9 ratio and your archival footage would fit neatly in the middle without it being manipulated (adding letterbox, etc). Something like this would contrast to the usual black background that you would be left with by mixing the two ratios.

A doc I saw some time ago that mixed formats, dv and 16mm, was "Pop and Me." Although it didn't mix ratios, the mix in formats gave it a wonderful contrast between sequences.