#239 - Everything You Were Afraid To Ask About Aspect Ratios

Aspect ratios, really? How much is there to know?

Quite a bit, actually.

Imagine you're working a on film, say Mission Impossible:Ghost Protocol and you have to wrangle it's 6 shooting formats and their aspect ratios, into 3 different deliverable formats and their aspect ratios, namely CinemaScope (2.40), IMAX Digital (1.9), and IMAX 70mm Film (1.43).

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Shooting formats:

1. 35mm Anamorphic (2.35:1 when unsqueezed)
2. Super 35 (1.33:1)
3. VistaVision (35mm 8-perf, 1.96:1)
4. 65mm 8-perf (1.4:1)
5. 65mm 15-perf (1.33)
6. RED Epic (2.44 unsqueezed for anamorphic, 1.9 for flat)

Well you can read how Evan Schiff handled this exact problem, a decade ago, in this excellent blog post on aspect ratios.

In this issue of Cut/daily we'll take a look at all things aspect ratios, including a resource to download free high resolution mattes.