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Wider 16:9
Hi. Im shooting a feature length movie using a Canon GL2 & I’m editing using Final Cut Pro 5. I’ve set my camera to 16:9 in the menu setting but when I go to edit my test shots the footage isn’t as wide as hollywood movies are. I’m wondering what I should do to make it the same aspect ratio as hollywood movies. Is there a short cut with the camera or does it need to be done in post production? If anybody knows the answer to my troubling issue and could offer some help that would be great.
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3 Replies
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IMHO, your best bet is to shoot in your camera’s native 4:3 aspect ratio.
Then use the widescreen matt in FCP to suit your needs.
Once you have selected which matt to use, just compose your shots so that they fit the framing of the matt.
Good Luck! -
“Hollywood” films are mostly shot with film that natively records aspect ratios of, say, 2.35:1. This is much wider than 16:9. Keep in mind: 16:9 is a ratio of width to height, and there is no such thing as “wider” 16:9. Ass mentioned, FCP does have a widescreen matte feature where you can basically cut off the top and the bottom to make it appear as wide as you like.
One more thing, the GL2’s 16:9 is not true 16:9, so you’re losing clarity in shooting it that way.
Alexander Gao
“When the revolution happens, I’ll be leading it.”
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By shooting in the 16:9 mode, you are not using the entire area of the CCD chips, so there is a bit less quality. However, if your final product is viewd on a NTSC TV, you won’t see the difference. I shoot a lot of long form stage performance projects and have tried both the 16:9 camera mode and the FCP matte. I do a lot work so tieing up one of my machines with additional rendering time with the matte on 2 hour long projects is not an option.
Bill Moede
CESA 7 ILS
Green Bay, WI
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