Pan and scan
Additionally, the new shots or cuts can result in moment-to-moment alterations in intended cinematic effects including pacing, atmosphere, and suspense.
However, in the early to mid-1950s, to compete with television and lure audiences away from their sets, producers of theatrical motion pictures began to use "widescreen" formats such as CinemaScope and Todd-AO, which provided more panoramic vistas and presented other compositional opportunities.
[4] Letterboxing was an alternative method of displaying widescreen films on a 4:3 screen, as it maintained the original aspect ratio by adding black space above and below the image.
As of 2018[update], though aspect ratios of 16:9 (and occasionally 16:10, mostly for computers and tablets) remain standard, wider-screen consumer TVs in 21:9 have been marketed by a number of manufacturers.
This method allows the maximum resolution of the image, since it uses all the available vertical video scan lines—which is especially important for NTSC televisions, having a rather low number of lines available.
In the pan-and-scan version of the film, the audience sees Oliver's reaction as the murder is being committed, but not when Sikes steps backward from the wall having done it.
As television screenings of feature films became more common and more financially important, cinematographers began to work for compositions that would keep the vital information within the TV safe area of the frame.
The advent of DVDs and their use of anamorphic presentation, coupled with the increasing popularity of widescreen televisions and computer monitors, have rendered pan and scan less important.
As a general rule (prior to the adoption of DVD), special effects would be done within the theatrical aspect ratio, but not the full-frame thereof;[citation needed] also the expanded image area can sometimes include extraneous objects—such as cables, microphone booms, jet vapor trails, or overhead telephone wires—not intended to be included in the frame, depending upon the nature of the shot and how well the full frame was protected.
Inversely, the cropping of a film originally shown in the standard ratio to fit widescreen televisions may cut off foreground or background, such as a tap-dance scene in which much attention is directed appropriately at a dancer's feet.
For instance, Sydney Pollack decided to shoot his 1985 film Out of Africa in a matted 1.85:1 aspect ratio because he was tired of having his movies, which had generally been shot in his preferred format of Anamorphic 2.39:1, "butchered" for television and home video.
[8] Pollack also brought a lawsuit against a Danish public television channel over a screening of his 1975 film Three Days of the Condor in pan and scan in 1991.
[9][10] The court ruled that the pan and scan conducted by Danish television was a "mutilation" of the film and a violation of Pollack's droit moral (his legal right as an artist to maintain his reputation by protecting the integrity of his work).
[10] Phil Lord and Christopher Miller made two versions of The Lego Movie, one in 2.39:1 anamorphic format and another in 1.37:1 open-matte spherical format because some theaters did not employ anamorphic lenses, and also because they were tired of having their movies, which had been shot in their generally preferred aspect ratio of 2.39:1^ panned-and-scanned for TV broadcasts (and, in the case of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, its DVD release which includes both the original 2.39:1 theatrical and the cropped 16:9 versions).
