UK aspect ratios wider than 1.38:1

[Ryan Gallagher]

Are there som common vintage UK ratios I’m unaware of?

We are showing Red Shoes (1948) DCP tonight, it turned out to be an oddball, slightly wider than my 1.38 academy preset, which all sources said it would be.

There is an opening card that is bang on 1.38, but once into the movie it is a touch wider in this restoration. If I had to guess 1.41 or 1.43 maybe?

One custom screen file and we look great, but my already built preroll suffered a bit of undersizing.relative to the custom masking position.

Next time! Lol.

[Ed Gordon]

That is an interesting find. I recall a retired projectionist from the UK saying that in his experience, the most popular AR in he UK seemed to be 1.66. But he was talking about the 1950's when open matte became popular. I came across a page of 60 screen captures of the Criterion Bluray release which includes a note saying the AR is 1.33. When I load the image into Paint and add rulers, the image is 1.37 in a 1.77 frame:

image.png

[Frank Angel]

You can't go by ANYTHING the video people who write DVD or BluRay notes say. You will forever see people who should know better -- like those people who put information in IMBD, and even Criterion, of all people -- claiming that the Academy Aperture is 1.33:1; HELLO...it is not. And projectionists are (were) constantly scribbling 1.33 on leaders for pre-1953 titles. There were a hundreds of thousands of films made after the advent of sound and NONE of them were 1.33:1. You will also find 1.85:1 attributed to all manner of films, especially from Europe where as Ed points out, has long favored 1.66:1 as their preferred ratio for spherical wide screen (when it was film). No question, 1.66:1 was the intended ratio, but not for THE RED SHOES -- that film was intend to be screened at .1.37:1. In 1948, cropped wide screen was not a thing yet -- give it three or four more years and the entire industry would abandoned the Academy ratio in like the blink of an eye, it was dead. Theatres were even playing titles shot in 1.37:1 and cropping them regardless, so they could say they were "Wide Screen."

Ryan, sounds like you just got badly authored files.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed with Frank: this is most likely a DCP mastering error. The Red Shoes was shot and originally presented in Academy / 1.37: I must have projected a dozen prints of it (why such a f-----g abysmal, depressing movie, and clearly the work of a sadistic, narcissistic, misogynist psychopath, is so revered by so many people and played so frequently in arthouses, is OT for this thread, but still an important question, IMHO). From the mid-50s, the majority of flat British films were "shoot to protect" for 1.66, 1.75, and 1.85, even if there was a preferred ratio that the director and/or DoP had in mind. Many were also shot with panning and scanning for TV accounted for, too. AFAIK, 1.66 was only ever a formally enshrined technical standard, that filmmakers were required to use and theaters required to support, in France and the former USSR.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Certainly... it does feel like a scanning and DCP mastering type error, and 1.37 would have been intended. Cause believe it or not one of the scenes I stopped on to compare my screen files was that exact shot with the candle-sticks!!! There was a bit more of the left most candle holder visible in my DCP version. Not to mention there was a card at the beginning that was exactly 1.37 as expected.

So in hindsight rather than do something totally custom for the DCP, I probably would have been just as "proper" to use my 1.37 preset and crop, despite it ignoring a touch of the DCP as provided. That is of course unless the DCP was missing image from the bottom and top, in which case everything I saw onscreen was part of the intended original.

I really wish the folks that author these DCPs would use the ISDCF DCP naming conventions more properly... if it's 1.37 inside of a flat container the name should say F-137. I get that studio cards tend to clobber that intent sometimes, but this one wasn't an example of that, it was just poorly labeled for what it actually was, causing an unnecessary tendency to have error prone exhibitions or missing things.

On the other extreme I also had a properly labeled FLAT DCP recently that looked entirely like it should be presented in something narrower, unless you knew the film or got lucky in a spot check and caught the single scene that opened up to 1.85 image area. (I got lucky in a spot check).

If they really had a reason for doing 1.43 (or whatever it actually was), there should be proper naming involved, or a projection letter or framing chart for such non-standard things. I do have a 1.43 masking chart I made myself (for IMAX ratios), but not a screen file yet, not super common thing to encounter... custom screen file was just as direct as trying to build out my 1.43 files only to have them also not be exactly correct.

I also checked one of those criterion images just now, in a 1.78 frame, I got 1480x1080 for the image area, so yes 1.37. Generally one does not assume a DCP to be "wrong", but I also didn't have time to do such research in the moment yesterday to contemplate that nuance. As a digital projetionist your default is to trust the studio issued DCP image area to be "intended", especially for something like this film that has undergone expert level restoration efforts.

I suppose there is a chance my 1.37 references and preset are the thing that are "wrong", but I'm pretty tidy with that stuff, and the smaller (correct) card at the beginning was a definite giveaway something was amiss with this one.