Is HD Aspect Ratio meant for EVERY Production?
 

Over the years there have been video shoots I have done where we grappled with the limitations of the sides of the location we were shooting at. This means I was grateful we were shooting 4:3 because there was nothing more that I wanted to show beyond a specific location boundary.

I recall the video interviews I shot for "The Spirit of Comedy" (in the extras section) that NO WAY could I have tolerated any more room left for right. If I had to shoot that in HD, or in an HD aspect ratio of 16:9, I would have been forced to zoom in way too tight in an effort to create the same left right border that came naturally with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

There seems to be scant discussion about the superiority of shooting 4:3 for low budget interview shoots. It costs money to fill in the additional space of a 16:9 aspect ratio on both sides of a person being interviewed. You can lie to yourself if you want and shoot up their noses and zoom into their eyelids in the name of quality, but for my tastes, I want a choice as to whether I do a shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio or 4:3. Ironically, the additional HD resolution should allow me to stay wider, yet in reality I will probably have to zoom in more than necessary to help avoid stage left and stage right unwanted clutter!

The big winner in the 16:9 aspect ratio will be shooting live stage shows and sporting events, but the big loser in my opinion will be shooting interviews. Do any of you see the problem, everything is not meant to be shot 16:9, but I fear that a social stigma is going to be associated with using a 4:3 aspect ratio when for some productions 4:3 would actually would be the logical aesthetic choice.

Good point, but how about shooting or cropping your content to 4:3 and filling in the sides with black pillarboxing or subtle graphics for widescreen distribution? Just a thought...

I'm not so sure I'd agree. If you frame your subject so the face and shoulders fill the frame vertically with the subject turned looking slightly into frame and position the near eye so it's interesection of a line 1/3 down and 1/3 into frame (the old 'Rule of Thirds'), I think 16:9 gives a very natural looking and relaxed composition. If the opposite side of the frame seems too empty, position the subject beside a table and lamp or a bookcase or a plaque with their corporate logo or whatever to add some visual interest there. And then there's the situation where the subject is describing something and you might want to green-screen a cut-out in that part of the frame and show whatever the interviewee is talking about.

We've had a 16:9 projection TV for our family TV for a number of years now and I find interviews on 4:3 to be cramped looking and confining in comparison.

I have to agree with Steve about this one. 16:9 is just natural... I also don't understand what you mean by it costs money to fill in the area around the person being interviewed if you shoot 16:9. don't take this the wrong way but if most people thought the same a lot of film makers would be fired.

I'll give you a good example when the today show went HD. Everyone was so excited about 16:9 because they had more room to play with.. they didn't need to go so wide in there lens choice just to frame 4 people getting interviewed. My producer and the crew were on flipin cloud nine that week.

Before they went HD. We spent alot of time trying to frame in a shot.. Change the Lens,,, Pull Back.. Move crap out of the way so you can pull back even more. Now the talents don't like the HD but thats a total different issue.

I only shoot in 16:9... BUT!!!!! I can understand what your getting at.

At the end of the day what ever you decide framing is key no matter what.

if you know how to frame you can do it in any ratio.

I know i was not a big help but this topic is going to lean on the more personal preference side.

~Mike

Surely it's correct to say that 4:3 is just natural. That's why we used it for 100 years. Widescreen was first brought in by the film industry to compete with the evil new tv - huge screens across a huge cinema.. Whatever shape a tv is, it's just a box in a room for the large majority of people. If you like 16:9 shaped pictures you have always been able to just put some gaffer tape at top and bottom of the screen.

16:9 tv, no matter what people say, is smoke and mirrors by the manufacturers designed to make you buy more product - and they've succeeded!

I find it easier to watch simply because human vision has a wider-than-tall aspect. But yes, widescreen was originally developed after televisions became popular to give people reasons to go to the movie theater.

I agree with your last statement about filmmakers being fired, but not every production has a filmmakers budget, and that is my point. 16:9 is an excellent starting point when there is money being spent. But that aspect (pardon the pun) flys directly in opposition to the idea that video production is getting cheaper and cheaper and more attainable for the masses.

In reality, the price points for the camera gear are dropping, but the cost requirements for making a good picture are being driven upwards specifically because I now have more space on either side of the interviewee that I have to now light and set dress.

When I lit the interviews I mentioned above, I went with two portable HMI lights so I could have a daylight look and also color up the background a bit more. I used a C-stand with clear diffusion gel to soften the two HMI lights. If I had been shooting 16:9, I would have had to put the lights farther off screen, and in essence compromised the way I felt the shot needed to be lit, and I probably would have needed more light as well.

For sure 16:9 will give the properly budgeted production more room to operate, but for the ultra low budget production I think the opposite will be true. Eventually, the "cheap" fix will simply be to zoom in more, which now actually can change the emotional projection of the interviewee. One technique used when a news story wants to make a subject look suspicious is to simply zoom in to close-ups so that the eyes look shifty. I can see that happening on low budget shoots, but not for that reason, yet the result will still be the same, shifty eyes.

I'm shooting an infomercial for a chiropractor that will play in the clinic on several CC TVs that are all 4:3. The video will be replaced before the TVs will, so there would be no point to shoot it in a format that wouldn't play well on the intended output devices.

I switch back and forth, based on the requirements of the job.

I find 4:3 to have only one situation that is beneficial. Talking heads work better with 4:3 as it would look really weird to zoom in enough on a person's face to fill the screen. Filling vertically with a person's body doesn't seem unnatural with the narrow format.

Our own field of vision is wider than it is tall. Widescreen is more natural. In our environment, we rarely need to look way up or way down, but lateral movement is something we must track frequently. Perhaps when we were arboreal the need to have a greater vertical field of view was important, but land-dwellers need better side-to-side vision.

Old televisions probably couldn't make anything but a squarish picture tube. Remember how long it took to get flat glass CRT televisions? Getting the electron beam to scan unequal distances to different parts of the screen is a newer technology.

TV sets didn't start out at 4:3 aspect ratio. They started out round.

Nice info Marcus...

I forgot to mention that while a straight-shot talking head works best in 4:3, it doesn't mean you can't have a single person interview. Just do what was suggested earlier and have the person sit at a slight angle and put them off center a bit so that they are facing the more open part of the frame. When a person faces open area, that area becomes less "dead". It becomes part of their personal space.

As long as that space has been dressed, which probably means more set dressing and lighting requirements. For low budget or do it yourself productions, that is not necessarily a good thing.

oops, double post, see below.

But lets compare the haves and the haves less. When it comes to low budget shoots, the more people framed in the same shot, the more that can, and will go wrong, especially when one is dealing with first timers on camera, or people that just are never going to be as good as those who appear on national TV.

Common on camera mistakes by those less experienced included Nose scratching, looking at their wristwatch while someone else is speaking, looking away bored, sneering at a comment not realizing they are actually on camera, looking down at the table like they are asleep, sleeping, etc.... What a nightmare to have to cut around indescriminate performances. Yes there is also a close up camera, which can still easily fit TWO people, not one. Well, the mustache twitcher guy is starting to bug me so I'll zoom in extra close for an extra close close up of the one person in the group who is somewhat polished, but now I've made the one normal person look shifty-eyed because I had to zoom in so close to frame out the people sitting on either side.

Or, I can just add more distance between everyone. Now I need more lighting options, perhaps a larger backdrop, and audio just became a nightmare because my overhead drop down mikes now can't accomodate everyone.

I Don't understand why this is becoming such a big deal... it has nothing to do with budget if one knows how to frame and set up a set.. you can do it with no budget hell im sure 90% of the film makers in here have done a low to no budget of there own...

If im going to interview someone in a tiny room.. i can do it.. go look at my home studio video it's posted on this site... I took a tiny room and just set up a backdrop and bang done no issue with the 16:9 camera it works fine... and it was very low budget.. the reason why my wife gave me a free room, if you have a wife thats not easy todo.. and i did not want to bring all my equip from work and spooke her so i did alot of make shift backdrop rigging and such. the room is tiny and it is fine... of course it's only for a 2 camera set up and more in house green screening. but still if you know how to work a cam and you know the basics of film you can do it.

in film there is no such thing as a good budget... you give Spielberg 50 bucks or 50,000 he can pull of the same shots no matter what.( by the way his home movies must look flipin amazing)

It's not the camera, It's not the budget, at the end of the day it's the person working it.

Im sorry you wont see eye to eye with me... but this goes back all the way to film 101.

I'm not saying 16x9 is bad, just that if it is supposed to completely replace 4:3, I think that would be an artistic and creative mistake.

In the situation you describe, you have a low budget set up, but, you have complete control over your set-up because it is in your home in a dedicated room. That's not the type of scenario I am talking about. Most of the interviews that I have shot have been on location, and many times with a low enough budget to where I could not afford to hire help. I have many memories of an extension cord being in the shot in 4 x 3 mode and having to be hidden. I can only image that being an even bigger issue in 16x9.

A side wall with mounted picture frames that cannot be taken down can cause all kinds of issues, in 4 x 3, I could avoid it easier than I would have been able to in 16 x 9. People can be very fussy about what they want in and out of frame when it comes to interviews done in their home environment, having a wider frame can be both a blessing and a curse when it comes to low budget location work and I believe the quick fix will be to do more close-ups rationalize that as being what was wanted all along.

I would speculate that from a pyschological/perception point of view (aaargggh - unintended pun!), most viewers would mostly vote for a wiiiide width:height ratio. At least 2:1 if not more.

But as a previous post said, we started out with round tubes (1:1 as it were) because of technical limitations. Since then there's been a simple trend for displays to become progresively wider as the display technology to do so becomes more affordable. (It being much more cost-efficient to produce a wide-ratio LCD than a wide-ratio cathode ray tube).

Alessandro,

Have you seen the video where i show my studio/room.. im using a closet space for my width. if your telling me your going to have a un controled enviorment that is less then 5 feet wide(my green screen set up is 5 feet wide)
your going to have alot of probes no matter what aspect you shoot.

I find it hard to belive you have such framing issues with 16:9.. it's not lake your throwing on a wide lens. as far as replacing 4:3 that fight is done... with hd consumer cams come into play and all networks going HD. its won.. plus when was the last time you saw a 4:3 movie screen at your local theater.

as far as my setup.. i can unpack take down and move it to any location if i really needed to, no help needed. before my wife gave me more space. I did not have any room in the house to keep the lights and screen. So i just set up shop in the living room,Media Room, even the kitchen. and i would have to break it all apart before she got home. it's all about taking control.

16:9,4:3,HD,SD, budget no budget it will not matter if you know your stuff.

This is like apple vs pc, or ps3 vs xbox it's all about personal pref.. but sooner or later you will have to join or be left behind.

I think your still living on your super 8 days and thats fine but you really have to understand. In this biz you have to keep moving forward

speaking of moving forward... I got a Mint Canon super 8 with audio as a gift from one of my segment producers. :)

Alessandro we could have used you on the high school debate team, lol. this has been a fun topic full of information and going back and forth.

Where did you get the idea that 16x9 was supposed to completely replace 4x3?

Well down here it's very hard to sell anything that isn't 16:9.
Still I don't see what the fuss is about. One can shoot 4:3 and put that in a 16:9 frame and you can move it around in that 16:9 frame. You can shoot 16:9 and mask it too. You can fill the rest of the frame with black or anything else. I've done all of this, in tight spaces at times.
Yes native 16:9 is trickier to shoot well but in the end you have more creative options. 16:9 cameras are now very cheap compared to where they were a few years ago so I'd have to say the cost of production has gone down.
Now that I'm feeling quite comfortable about 16:9 I find at times an even wider aspect would be nice.

Hmmm, I haven't posted on DVINFO in a long time.

I like 4:3. It's close to the square, much closer than, say, 16:9. It has it's own qualities and asks to be used in a way that is quite different than, say, 16:9. For superb cinematic examples of it's use, see also The Passion of Joan of Arc, by Carl Dreyer, Arsenal, by Aleksander Dovschenko, and Metropolis, by Fritz Lang.

It's an inspired choice between the two, for some. You can always have your project 4:3 letterboxed for 16:9 television viewers ;} .

BTW, 16:9 is almost right between 4:3 television and 2.35:1 cinema. 4:3 is horrible for watching standard movies while 16:9 only has small black bars. Many movies in the past several years have taken television into consideration so a great deal of the action takes place toward the center of the screen. it really looks like movies are now framed for 16:9 and only scenery is on the outer edges.

If you don't like your backgrounds, put a cheap greenscreen behind your talent and use a garbage matte to key out the rest. Problem solved cheaply.

Ha, I wish I could shoot super-8 more often, although I do have a short super-8 film I D.P.'d that is being shown during the Cannes festivities, it's not an official entry but somehow the director is having a promo of the short screened there anyways.

I just shot an interview on Betacam Sp in an artists loft. The artist actually had one wall that was his working/painting area and it was in itself a painting of various patterns and colors. I found the 4 x 3 frame gave an entirely different feel to the interview and based on the somewhat tight quarters, it allowed me to keep my one battery operated bounce light closer to the subject while emitting less heat than an AC light would. (air conditioning was off and outdoors it was in the low 90's). If I had had to light a bigger area, I would have needed two lights and I might not have been able to be as wide without then seeing outside the border of the painting on the wall. or my bounce card.

This is really complicated stuff. I stayed wider much of the time because the artist had terrific arm motions and gestures as he spoke and I could capture that in a wide shot WITHOUT revealing the surrounding area that would have clashed with the area we were shooting in. If I had been as wide in 16 x 9 as I was in 4 x 3 to get the full range of the hand & arm gestures in, I most assuredly would have gotten the sides of the room in my frame and that would have clashed with the painted space directly behind the artist.

Sometimes you go into a space and your goal is to not change it very much, and the wider my frame is the harder that goal becomes.

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From about 99% of the discussion about HD that I read everywhere.

Well if you are discussing HD, then yes, HD is a 16x9 format.
But SD for the most part is a 4x3 format. And SD video is not going away any time soon. So you can shoot all the 4x3 standard Def video your heart desires, and be happy once more.

I wish that was true David, but some of the very high end film festivals seem to have a requirement that all entries be converted to either Film or HD even though a betacam sp player with a line doubler would produce a very adequate image for those who originally shot their productions on either film or non-Hd formats. The result is dozens of "filmmakers" will needlessly spend thousands and thousands of dollars converting their films to HD when all the festival needed to do was simply get a betacam sp player. Multiply 20 filmmakers each spending between 5 to 10 grand to needlessly "uprezz" their movies and you're talking about 100,000 to 200,000 dollar total expenditures by filmmakers for one film festival that could be completely avoided if the festival owned a 10,000 dollar betacam sp player and a decent line-doubler for a couple thousand more.

Here in Finland all TV transmissions are going to be digital beginning 1:st of September this year. And the standard is 16:9. So goodbye 4:3. Which often would be much better especially for interview type programming. I just sold two travel documentaries to a national TV channel and they want it 16:9, so I reframed and uprezzed the docs with some vertical adjustements in some takes.

It is also a fad thing: I do also net videos and there 16:9 is the norm now, even though on the net the frame ratio could be anything.

There is a lot of misconception concerning DTV in the U.S.
Most think that DTV means High Def, but that is not necessarily the case.
All it really means, is that the broadcast transmission signal is digital instead of analog.
There are 18 different formats supported under DTV, including 480i, otherwise known as Standard Def.
Nowhere in the guidelines does it say you must broadcast in 16x9.
As a matter of fact, the majority of broadcast TV stations in the United States will continue to broadcast in Standard Definition.

This is an interesting discussion.

In every project I have shot there is always a moment where the particular aspect ratio becomes an issue for a given shot, and you think to yourself "too bad I'm not shooting this in xyz". If you are shooting 4:3 and you need to shoot a group of people (as was mentioned earlier), or perhaps an establishing shot of a building, you wish you were shooting widescreen to avoid having to show so much floor etc. If you shoot widescreen, sometimes you need to widen to show a little more height and suddenly there's a ton more visual information on the sides. I'm working on a Will Ferrell movie at the moment and just last night I was framing up an exterior of a building--we decided we needed to add a little more room at the bottom of the frame so we switched from a 29mm to a 24mm prime (night exterior so we couldn't use a zoom) but since we were shooting in the 2.35 aspect ratio, it added a LOT of space on the sides. I even joked with the director that it would have made a great shot in 1.85...! This echoed a film I shot a few years ago in the Bradbury Building in downtown LA--this is the one that was used in "Blade Runner" with the fantastic wrought iron elevators. It's a 6-8 story atrium and very narrow, so you can well imagine that trying to shoot wide vistas of the interior on the 2.35 aspect ratio requires extremely wide lenses!

That all said, I personally find the 16:9 aspect ratio to be a great medium. The widescreen is more satisfying visually than 4:3 in almost all instances as far as I am concerned. Now that I have 16:9 televisions, I find 4:3 with side letterboxing to be far more annoying than 16:9 with top and bottom letterboxing ever was (that was always kind of cool, really, except that the images became so much smaller). I can see that it presents an immediate practical issue for those used to shooting 4:3 headshots, but I would expect that the added demands of HD in terms of making the subject look good and not being able to "fudge" the backgrounds as much would be much more of a hassle than the extra width.

It is (going to be) digital PAL SD at 16:9 format here in Finland, 720x576 pixels. No HD, alas. Even the ex-CEO of National TV when pushing the change though that it would be digital HDTV, but how wrong he was...

Still about half of the households do not have a digital converter and analog broadcasts will stop totally in a few months. I do not have one either.

As long as money is no object, than the wider screen usually will be more fun to "decorate" when shooting and then when watching. However, I frankly would like to see vertical TV from time to time. I'm waiting for the day when our TV's are built on some kind of rotating axis and a signal from the cable box actually rotates the television screen 90 degrees based on the program that is being broadcast. When it comes to the annual Victoria's secret fashion show, or Sports Illustrated swimsuit model special, certainly those would work better in vertical TV than "horizontal" TV. My low, low, low budget interviews in which I really don't have the resources to change what I call the frame sidelines benefit from standard 4:3. I've also developed a DC lighting package so I can go into many locations and not need one electrical outlet for the interview. But if or when I get into the 16 x 9 world, I'm pretty sure the same DC lighting package that works in the 4x3 world won't work nearly as well in the 16 x 9 world, which is why I don't think that 16 x 9 is actually as low budget friendly as 4 x 3 is.