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Letterbox or Squeeze for Documentary?
I am shooting a doc soon and wondered whether to shoot in letterbox mode or squeeze or 4:3 and crop in post-prod.? With all the changes in televisons to wide-screen and HD projection & broadcast, I don’t want the project to be obsolete format-wise before I finish it. Any opinions?
Thanks!
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7 Replies
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I’d go with Squeeze- assuming you are distributing on DVD. It can be easily converted to letterbox in post if you need to distribute on tape.
Noah
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Depends on how much vertical resolution means to you versus the DVX’s electronic ‘fake widescreen’.
This has been an ongoing debate but Barry Green showed in camera tests from his book that letterboxed has more lines of resolution. This doesn’t necessarily address all future widescreen delivery options (unless you’re going to blow it up).
Not sure if it applies but James Longley shot his documentary (“Iraq in Fragments”) in letterboxed mode. Oh, yeah… it was nominated for an Oscar too.
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Thanks all,
It is really confusing as I was running tests and I really did notice the loss of resolution in squeeze (I had a tap out to a monitor). I’m going to keep testing and check it out on a friend’s widescreen.
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I hear you and I know what you mean. I really wanted squeeze to do its job – going so far as to ignore all of the tech info (including Barry Green’s tests). I liked the idea of doing a 16:9 DVD and I have a switchable monitor so it would’ve been great.
I started a doc as well and shot a bunch of material over a few days in all sorts of conditions. It was much softer than I would’ve like and was a pretty noticeable difference from the letterboxed footage I usually shoot.
Worst case, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to edit it together with normal 4:3 letterboxed footage later. I don’t know what you cut with but Final Cut Pro automatically scales it when you drop it into a standard sequence. At the end of the day, it’s not terrible or anything, but you may notice some loss in resolution with SQUEEZE.
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I was also mucking about with uprezzing 4:3 Letterbox footage w/PhotozZoom. I think it works all right. I had some trouble but that was my fault – I chose some wrong settings in FCP. I think the loss by uprezzing is the same as the loss in Squeeze. I’m leaning towards 4:3 Letterbox and if I need to deliver WS, I’ll uprez. I am also thinking that shooting 4:3 and masking the viewfinder to frame letterbox may be complicated on a 2 person crew. And time is short & I am not sure I want to worry about the future of the electronics industry more than planning my interviews in this way…No easy answers I think.
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Col. Kurtz:
Not sure if you’ve seen these LCD ‘clingies’ but they work great….
https://www.aspectcorrect.com/
If nothing else, they do protect the screen. I’ve got the 4:3 TV Safe w/ 16:9 version.
Having typed your name, it just dawned on me that you’re Col. Kurtz… “the horror…. the horror….”.
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Thanks – that’s awesome & I just ordered it. This way I can play with shooting 4:3 & frame for letterbox – a dream come true.
Ye, the horror and “if” is the middle word in “life” – I watch that way too much…
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