What aspect ratio should I shoot with, when mixing historical footage?

[Bouke Vahl]

You will not switch aspect ratio, you will do ‘something’ with the archive footage to fit it in the raster of choice.
Now, if you shoot a doc about a historical superwidescreen movie, you will go at least that wide.
Otherwise, it’s totally up to you.
Think of a good way to pillarbox, not the ‘zoomed blurred mirrored same image left/right’ used for vertical video from phones.
Whatever you do, do not pan/scan. It ruins the footage and looses a lot of resolution. Do keep in mind that some old footage must be cropped as it was shot with the intention to crop.

Others will think different I’m sure.

Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com

[Blaise Douros]

Shoot your interview and b-roll in whatever aspect ratio you prefer/whatever aspect ratio the delivery requires. Then get creative with the archival stuff. I’ve done a variety of treatments–my two favorite are:

– A graphical “frame” to denote archival footage. This can tie visually into a graphical element of your film’s logo or overall theme, or you could place relevant metadata about the footage in the “margins” if you want it to look technical.

– Duplicate a second copy of the archival clip, and place it behind the main footage in the timeline. Increase the size until it fills the background. Apply a blur effect to the background copy, and position it so it minimizes any distracting elements popping out from the sides.

There are a million ways you could slice this. One other treatment I’ve done which might work, (it’s time-consuming but looked pretty cool) was to place photos and/or videos in 3D space in After Effects comps with a blurry logo in the background for additional visual reference, and panned the camera between them so it’s almost like a 3D scene, with light particle effects to enhance the 3D camera movement. There’s a fast example of it in this video at the 10-second mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4oZF6_WVu8

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[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks, as far as delivery requirements go, I asked the person co-producing it with me and he said that since I know more about that than he does, he is leaving it up to me, but I’ve never done anything where I mixed aspect ratios before.

As far as duplicating it and blurring it goes, I think it will look very strange and the viewer will pick up on it looking off. It might work for a clear sky or something like that, but with footage of people in it, the people would be duplicated and blurred and it will look very weird I think.

You say don’t pan and scan, but why not? Sure you loose some resolution, but then you are not switching to a 4:3 aspect ratio, so therefore, isn’t panning and scanning better if you get to keep the same aspect ratio?

I watched some of Bowling for Columbine to compare, and Michael Moore, zoomed into the archival footage to match his interview footage, and he had no problem panning and scanning it seems, but is that bad?

[Ryan Elder]

I have a DP but he is just covering the cinematography for the interviews. He is not covering the decisions for if the aspect ratio on the historical footage should be changed. I told him about reframing the footage to fit the interview aspect ratios we choose, and he said that should be fine.

But I thought I would get opinions on here. Well what are some documentaries then to learn from where they switch aspect ratios constantly, while cutting back and forth between archival footage and interviews?

As for destroying someone else’s work, I thought I would just be showing it in a different context that goes with my movie, rather than look at it as destroying it, but if I should keep it the same, do you think the constant changing of aspect ratios could come off as distracting?

[Ryan Elder]

I am also watching Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired to get ideas, and I noticed how they pan and scanned all the 4:3 footage from back then as well, to fit the same size of the interviews. So it makes me think that it’s normal, as I cannot find documentaries that keep the original aspect ratio of the archival footage.

[Bouke Vahl]

[ryan elder] “. So it makes me think that it’s normal, as I cannot find documentaries that keep the original aspect ratio of the archival footage.”
So, you never saw my work.

Who cares what others do.
Doing what everyone else does is easy, and will not make you an artist. Nor a good software developer / product designer, nor a famous cook.
Driving as fast as the rest probably won’t win you the race.

Now, without any clue what this is about and what footage you have, it’s impossible to have more precise advice other than stay off the pink bordered heart wipes.

Bouke
http://www.videotoolshed.com

[Todd Terry]

[Bouke Vahl] “stay off the pink bordered heart wipes.”

As long as Star Wipes are still ok….

https://youtu.be/72bUheqRE5o

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

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[Blaise Douros]

Dude. Why are you here, wasting the time of people who know what we’re doing, if you think you already know everything there is to know?

I’ve been working in documentary and doc-style corporate work my entire professional video career. You are here for advice from people who know what they’re talking about. I know what I’m talking about. Bouke knows what he’s talking about. If you just want to argue about it, go do it whatever way you think is best and prove that it doesn’t suck. But don’t come back to us complaining that the broadcaster QA department rejected it.

So here’s my advice. Shoot 16×9. Basically every screen on the planet uses this ratio, so unless you’re doing a theatrical release, 16×9 is the standard.

Then use the methods I outlined. Don’t argue with me that they don’t work. They DO. They’re totally normal, standard technique that any documentary filmmaker uses.

[Mark Suszko]

I recall how they started the first “The Incredibles” movie: it’s documentary interview footage meant to set up what their past was like. To get across the time difference, the doc footage was 4:3 matted into the center of a widescreen frame. They do a slow push to make it bigger, but they always keep it centered with lots of dead space around it. When they then smash-cut to more modern times, they go full- frame.

A concept I like in mixing old 4×3 footage into 16×9 is to project it onto an iconic object, something that references back to the period, and *that* object is shot in widescreen. Could be the side of the building where it happened. Could be a still life of related prop objects, like clothing, personal effects, etc….

A very typical version of that is to composite the old stuff onto an old 4×3 TV set on a limbo backdrop, and then fly 16×9 camera moves around that TV to punctuate and add emphasis. Makes a fun device to cover edits. You can get more creative yet, and composite the shots onto the monitors of a TV Director’s live-switch room, as well as the viewfinders of studio cameras, with a reproduction of the original set on the stage, perhaps. So you’re like a ghost walking around the production as if it was happening in real-time, but only visible in those monitors and viewfinders.

You can do something similar by setting up an old projector and movie screen in a smoky dark room, then compositing your old footage into that screen, and again moving your camera around this framing device.

Yet another method that doesn’t involve pan-and-scan is to to make a multi-matted 16×9 composition, putting your 4×3 stuff in one side and then adding changing trains of dissolving stills in boxes around it. Change the positions and arrangement of the boxes from time to time but keep using the rule of thirds and golden mean in creating the arrangements.

These are creative ways to avoid using the pan and scan blow-up or the matted duplicate blurred clip as background.

I run a youtube channel and some people that send me vids give me vertical video. 9 and agita, obviously). I found a public domain shot of a hand holding an iPhone, and I composite their vertical video into that 16×9 frame to show what they sent me, and I like that a lot more than the blurred sidewalls thing. You might consider THAT for your 4×3, with the conceit being that your clips are all on a web site you made up.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. I am having trouble picturing what you mean though. Can you give any move examples that do this when it comes to moving the camera around an old TV, if that’s what you mean?

Also, the reason why I didn’t want to shoot in 16:9 is I don’t really like the look of it, and feel that it’s not quite wide enough, which is why I thought 1.85:1 or 2.20:1 would be better.