[QUOTE=Lord Dowswell][size=2]…snip…Well the thing for me is that I love 4:3 because I want to have wide shots that show the scale of characters walking next to large structures. I dont mind having my characters being far away from the camera, because I want the viewer to get a feel for the environment.>>
Yes, I see for vertical objects, 4:3 favors maximizing the hieght!
>>I dont mind if theres large areas of negative space, I feel it adds something to it…its a bit like IMAX if youve been to a IMAX cinema youll notice that it nearly covers your peripheral vision (a idea that I think is wonderful).>>
Negative space is good… I’ve seen imax movies, and while they are more squarish, they are so big, they fill you field of view!
>>So for me its 4:3 all the way. However, its not going to be easy for me, because it seems that 4:3 cinemas are few and far between, they are probably found in cities somewhere I would imagine, and run by die hard fans of the old movies who show the old movies. TVs like you say have gone all 16:9.>>
You could just do a letterbox for 4:3… 4:3 image area with veritcal side “letterboxing”… it’s what they do on some HD stations with things that are 4:3… sometimes they add black side bars…
>>But I just dont want to see 4:3 die out, I love this ratio a LOT, I really REALLY dont want to see it die.>>
Well, even though US broadcast TV signal is switching to HD, there are still 4:3 sets around (converter boxes) AND a lot of computer monitors are still 4:3, so 4:3 will be around for quite a while…
>>Widescreen and well I dont know here…Im not 100% sure on this one, but I think wide screen was initially created with one thing in mind…and that was to make more money, because you can fit more seats into the cinema this way. I hate to say that though, but I think it might be true.>>
I think “more money” was relative after declining ticket sales after TV came along. With viewers staying home to watch the new invention of TV (RIGHT IN their OWN living rooms!!!) studios looked to up the ante and give the viewers something TV couldn’t… a wider view… which is closer to human vision two eye extend the viewable areas wider… the brows above cut into vertical height, and the space between the eyes is overlapped with the field of view to create more of a rectangle than a square… Not to say widescreen is necesarilly BETTER, just that there is a connection to the human field of view. Also, books and magazines have been quite popular for a while and they generally have vertical pages, so different shapes have their strengths!
>>Occum’s Razor?
are you talking about this film here?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216526/
>>
Sorry, two Cs… no, just the principle of Occum’s Razor…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam’s_Razor
"This is often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.”
What I was getting at, is as an artist, you (we) have all sorts of layers of motivation and meaning, but often, when viewed by others, they only get a fraction of the presentation, or take away what they will… their own interpretation of what they have seen.
I would modify what I mean by Occum’s Razor for you case to be, not that the most common reaction is “the best”, but just the most likely… see? Some people would just take at face value 4:3 was that older format, and consider no further reasons to the choice. Not to try and scare you away from 4:3, just to say, don’t be too surprised if some people don’t appreciate 4:3. : )
So while you might choose 4:3 because of stylistic, compositional, and historic reasons, a chunk of viewers may just think “oh, he makes computer animations, but is still using the old fashioned TV look…” Some people CHOOSE to shoot 8mm film, grainy and blurry, for artistic effect, and that is so old, it appears to be a concsious artistic choice to most viewers (you can’t get super 8 film at the local store like you could 20 years ago… it’s special order now…). But if I made a movie shot on VHS, people might just assume I didn’t have a good camera and just used something I borrowed from the Salvation Army. It SHOULDN’T change people’s perception of my movie… it’s the same story. But, sometime the medium is the message…
I think 4:3 is fine, and especially when chosen for thematic reasons. The only thing I want to point out (from experience) is the chance we take in showing our work to the public, we then lose control, and people take what they will from viewing it with their own experience. For some, 4:3 will just be “that old format”… they may not get the layers of reasoning, but that’s ok too… And it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do what you need to do! Some folks will “get” the 4:3, and some won’t…
I guess it’s sort of like when Speilberg filmed Schindler’s List in black and white… it COULD have been color, but, he chose BW… in hindsight, it probably couldn’t be anything else… but you know there’s always someone who would have made it in color…
For me, since I got an HD set, I can FINALLY see my DVDs full screen, without the letterboxing on most films… just like I saw them in the theater. I hated the letterbox stripes on my 4:3 set. So now, I would probably make most of my new works 16x9, to fill my frame, and more commonly, the TV sets of more people.
But that’s just my choice, I certainly won’t try to convince you a circle is a better shape than a triangle! If nothing else, the creative fields are based on the variety of approaches, and that’s the thing that keeps us from all seeing cookie cutters of our own work, and the same work over and over…
If you have a passion for 4:3 compostions, go for it!
: )
Joe