movies on superstation

[Adam Lawrence]

I was watching a movie on the "superstation" this weekend
and noticed something wierd.

Whenever the camera would pan side to side it seemed like they would
"scroll" the image to fit the aspect ratio to 4:3 yet without the letterboxing.

I was thinking they took the original 16:9 footage and displayed it
for broadcast 4:3 then, when ever the camera whould pan or shift to show
parts of the image that normally wouldnt be seen, they scroll the image with
the camera pan to reveal the extra footage.

this seems to be a very akward method in dealing with 16:9 rather than just
letterboxing.

Does this make sence to anyone....has anyone noticed this or know exactly
why they do this???

[Chris Hurd]

Are you talking about a horizontal motion?

If so, this is actually fairly common and it's known as "pan and scan." Personally I find it somwhat annoying. A widescreen image is cropped down to 4:3, and when important action takes place outside of the cropped viewable image, there's a sideways, horizontal fake pan to reveal it. This is done in the telecine process of converting the film to video for broadcast or home distribution. It doesn't look like a pan at all, but like a sideways tracking movement. It's strictly a postproduction process that has nothing to do with the camera.

Classic example: the lengthy final shot in Mike Nichols' 1967 classic, "The Graduate." Benjamin and Elaine, having spontaneously eloped, sitting on the back seat of a city bus, staring straight ahead, wondering what they've just done.

In the original widescreen version shown in theaters, they're both at the edges of the frame, one on the left, the other on the right. The version for shown on TV broadcast for years is 4:3 and can show only Benjamin or Elaine, not both of them together since it's not letterboxed. The "pan and scan" technique is used to reveal Benjamin and then Elaine, separately, panning from one to the other. Quite a different effect than what Nichols intended to show, the two of them in one long single static shot at each edge of the frame. It makes a big difference.

The "pan and scan" technique gives the audience only a hint of what they're really missing out on.

[Adam Lawrence]

exactly....i figured it was a post production technique....

...I also found it very annoying...it just doesnt look right

i noticed that everytime the camera would pan they would
scroll the image digitally to "hide" the technique into the camera pan....this made it look even more wierd.

Thanks

[Josh Bass]

I watched a TV version of Ghost Busters a while back and I think they did the same thing. There was a (an apparent) pan, but it looked weird and sped up. Like you were seeing a 30fps movement during a 24fps movie.