How can I shoot my short film in a different aspect ratio?

Can somebody school me in the technical aspect of film?

• As big a cinephile as I am, all of the camera/film vs. digital/aspect ratio stuff has always gone over my head. What exacty is 65mm film? What are the aspect ratios all about? ...show more

• Answer:

  Well, aspect ratio is a simple one: It's the percentage of height vs width of the image. An older film, made before widescreen was invented, is called "full-screen", 4:3, or 1:35. Think of it as a mathematical expression of percentage. In other words, the width is 4/3 of the height, or 1-1/3 as wide as it is high, rectangular image. 1:35 is the millimeter width of the film and the corresponding image, or 35mm. It's this size film which results in a 4:3 aspect ration as explained above. This is also called full-screen, as compared to widescreen, which is anywhere from 1:65 to 1:85 these days, with the higher number resulting is a wider picture. Studios came out with these in the mid-50s in an effort to lure people back to the movie theatres and away from their newly-discovered televisions by offering something"bigger and better". They came up with marketing names such as Cinemascope (20th Century Fox), Technirama, VistaVision (Paramount), etc. There was even Cinerama, which went half-way around specially equipped theatre interiors as a half-crescent projection, but it was proved too limited and expensive and flopped. So basically, aspect ratio is the comparison of width vs height. "The Artist", last year's big Oscar winner, which was supposed to take place in the 20s, maintained the feel by being shot in full-screen or 4:3 just as movies back then would've been. Compare this to the new "Batman Rises", which is probably 1:85 or possibly even 1:235 (I haven't seen it yet) with the latter number representing the percentage of a circle. So a film shot in 1:85 is in an 85-degree semi-circle. See? 1:235 is about as wide as they go, a 235-degree semi-circle (where 360 degrees is, of course, a full circle), anything beyond that would be impossible to been seen without turning your head back and forth! Holy confusion, Batman!