1 The Director of Photography – an overview

Aspect ratios 183
Figure 20.11 CinemaScope
recomposed for 4 � 3 television
Television
Television started life as a competition between two systems, that of
John Logie Baird, which had an upright or Portrait frame, and that
from the Marconi Company, which displayed a horizontal, or View,
frame. It was the Marconi system that was adopted with its horizontal
aspect ratio of roughly 1.25:1. In 1952, the BBC changed this aspect
ratio to 1.33:1 to conform with the then current cinema standard.
More recently, with the advent of digitally transmitted television, the
world is slowly going over to the latest standard, which is quoted as
16 � 9 (in cinema terms, 1.77:1). Although the 16 � 9 television format
is closer to current widescreen cinema production, it does not
conform to any existing standard and is a compromise, albeit, perhaps,
a good one.
At some time or another, films made in all the formats previously
discussed will come to be shown on television. Many will have been
composed with this in mind as they will have funding from a television
outlet built into the production budget. This may be all very well for
the producer but it can be a nightmare for the operator, who may have
to be thinking about several frame formats in the viewfinder all at the
same time.
For big budget pictures this presents less of a problem, as funding
should have been put aside for a pan and scan telecine transfer from a
master copy to the television format of choice. Pan and scan involves
a telecine operator moving a television-sized scanning area left and
right across the widescreen frame to obtain the best possible composition
out of the original framing.This is clearly not ideal, but is far better
than just letting the television framing always be the centre section
of the original widescreen frame.
If the film was originally shot in anamorphic, or 65 mm, the television
frame section is likely to be a mere pastiche of the original concept.
Figure 20.11 shows the 4 � 3 television aspect ratio overlaid on
to a CinemaScope frame and Figure 20.12 shows the 16 � 9 ratio overlaid
on to a CinemaScope frame. Both these recompositions make
nonsense of the original framing. In Figure 20.11, the 4 � 3 version,
three of the original four members of the cast have disappeared. In
Figure 20.12, the 16 � 9 framing, the man on the left has managed to
reintroduce his ear but the other two still remain virtually unknown to
the television audience.
It is worth noting at this point that, while for over 60 years the film
industry has referred to its aspect ratios as a ratio relative to unity, one,