But it’s easier to move throughout life if you try not to assume the worst in people. This is understandable, and I’m sure most of us have rolled our eyes at a film for one reason or another. These sorts of people can be easily found on Twitter and in comment sections on blogs, as you may suspect. “It’s a way to make a cultural argument for the cinema.” “It is part of the argument that there is something about movies today that separates them from television,” Connor said. Put another way, 4:3 has come back around to signal film. Without the same technical limitations, aspect ratio is a new tool in the storytelling toolbox.” “On TVs, on mobile screens, in movie theaters. “We have a generation of filmmakers who grew up with a wide range of standards,” Decherney said. The fact that widescreen televisions can screen in all aspect ratios-old documentaries, episodes of The Twilight Zone, prestige TV shows-also means there is no longer any given standard. This is supported by digital distribution, which makes it possible to screen different ratios using the same lens. The 4:3 ratio was abandoned for wider pastures, both literally and figuratively. These allowed for sweeping vistas, grander action, and, in general, extra stuff to be shown within the frame. To compete, film adopted ever-wider stances: Cinerama (2.59:1), VistaVision (1.85:1), and later IMAX (1.43:1). “One of the reasons that widescreen became wider in the ‘50s was to provide a cinematic experience that was going to be different from a TV experience,” says Peter Decherney, a cinema studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Once you could get the same view for cheap from your couch, the film industry decided to change tack. Soon, though, the pedestrian television was designed to fit Academy Ratio, tainting its prestige. Though noticeably a bit wider, this ratio is so close to 4:3 that they’re essentially considered the same thing. This was dubbed “Academy Ratio.” You know it from classics like Casablanca (1942) and Citizen Kane (1941). When sound finally accompanied film, the size of the image needed to change slightly to account for the additional information the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences set that new ratio, 1.37:1, as the standard. You know this from silent films like A Trip to the Moon (1902). The numbers “4:3” describe the literal size of the film, meaning it was four-by-three inches on 35mm film stock. At one point, the 4:3 (technically 1.33:1) aspect ratio- created in 1892 by William Dickson, an employee of Thomas Edison-was the standard.
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