Widescreen vs Pan & Scan

Let's take a brief moment to discuss "pan and scan" or "full screen" versus "widescreen" framing. They are two ways to present a single film. Most video stores will even offer both to their customers.

Here's the basic overview: movie screens and television screens are, traditionally, different shapes. (I say traditionally, since most new plasma screens are shaped like movie screens.) Basically, a television screen has this shape:














And a movie theater screen has this shape:











That's why when you're viewing a "widescreen movie" there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Those bars preserve the true shape and integrity of the frame. A "full screen" version cuts off the left and right sides of the frame, thus "filling the frame."

We define these shapes by what we call "aspect ratios" - the ratio of screen width to screen height - but basically, as we can see from the above example, it means that if you're watching a theatrical movie on a television screen, you're missing about 1/3 of the picture. It's like buying a two hour DVD and only getting 80 minutes on the disk. You're getting less quantity, and therefore you're getting ripped off. That much is pretty much cut and dry.

But you're also getting robbed of the filmmakers' true intention. And if you're a film buff, that's more than a crime...It's a travesty.

Here's how the television network fits a movie theater screen-shaped picture on the television-shaped screen...They hire a guy to re-film it. The technician "scans in" - therefore cropping the edges off the picture, or, in an attempt to capture action on the far ends of the screen, he physically pans the camera left or right.

Panning and scanning does two things to a film. First, it creates movement on camera that the filmmakers' had no intention of creating. Imagine, a director of photography spends the better part of a day setting up a still shot to capture a sunset. Then, a year later, some guy decides that this still shot should pan from left to right in an effort to show two characters watching the sunset - one on each far side of the frame. This creates movement in a scene in which the stillness was crucial to the meaning being created. In this case, a still shot might be about waiting, while a moving shot panning from one side to the next is about not waiting.

Second, panning and scanning can change the very meaning of a frame by simply altering the composition of the frame; it can change what a shot is about. Look back at the the two frames from Poltergeist. The first shot is about two men talking. The next shot, however, is about two men talking about selling the empty lots of a half-finished subdivision. If you've seen Poltergeist, you realize that the crux of the film's conflict is the fact that the real estate developers didn't remove the bodies from the old cemetery before they started building. The first shot - the "full screen" shot - is about talking. The second shot - the "widescreen" shot - is about being surrounded by ghosts. Which do you think is a scarier idea?

Now look at this shot from Cool Hand Luke. It's about a prisoner spending a "night in the box" for back-sassing.













Now look at the widescreen version of the same shot - the way it was meant to be seen.










This shot is about a prisoner getting into a confined space, surrounded by sky and light and fresh air. The first shot is about what's inside the box. The second shot is about what's outside the box. The entire meaning of the shot has not only been changed, it's been totally reversed.

Here's another one more from Cool Hand Luke. This full screen shot is about Luke betting a dollar in a poker game.













But the shot was intended to be about Luke's fellow inmates watching him bet a dollar in a poker game.










Which of the two is about a larger-than-life character whose fellow inmates can't help but to follow and worship? Which shot actually demonstrates that "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand"? See, the widescreen shot invokes the theme of the entire movie, while the full screen shot just shows a guy betting a dollar.

One more example. This one is from Pulp Fiction.













Vince's mobster boss Marsellus Wallace has asked Vince (John Travolta) to take out Marsellus' wife Mia (Uma Thurman) while Marsellus is out of town - just for "good company." Vince, meanwhile, has heard horror stories about how a man supposedly gave Mia a foot massage and got thrown out a window by Marsellus for the effort. In the shot above, Vincent and Mia are sitting in the front seat of Vincent's car, outside a restaurant. There is tension. Vincent knows he must follow Marsellus' request to be "good company" to Mia, but he also knows that if he crosses an murky line, he'll get violently punished. Therefore, placing both characters in the same frame creates tension for the audience. We know it's dangerous for Vincent to get this close to Mia.

Now, here's the size of the frame for a regular television set:















There's not a lot of tension created by a guy sitting in his own car by himself. Maybe we could show this instead...















Nope. Still not a lot of tension. This shot isn't about two people being dangerously close. This shot is about a woman smoking and deciding what she wants for dinner. Maybe we could split the difference...
















Well, now this scene is about, I don't know, two people who lost half of their heads or something. There's no denying something has been lost. But we still have one more option. We could just scrunch them up like a sponge and shove them into the same frame...
















The bottom line is this: if you have the option, opt for the "widescreen" version of a film over the "full screen."

Thankfully, it looks like this is the direction we're headed, anyways. As I mentioned earlier, most new televisions are already being built to the movie theater aspect ratio, and many television series are even being filmed and broadcast in wide screen (24 and True Blood come to mind, although there are plenty of others.) If you notice, even television ads for theatrical movies are being boradcast in widescreen, with the film title either on the top or bottom of the screen, over the black bars. (I first noticed this on an ad for Twilight, but it seems to be all the rage lately.)

With any luck, this entire discussion will be moot in a few years. Any thoughts?