[Help] How to find out whether a movie was filmed with "Open Matte"?

[spoRv]

Well, if it's listed as Super35mm, it isn't anamorphic, and then 99% open matte - unless filmed hard matted, but it doesn't occour often.

[zoidberg]

True but super 35mm is almost always shot with scope in mind. If you hard matted at the camera you may as well use 2-perf techniscope.
I was talking more about typical 'flat' 1.85:1 shows.

[captainsolo]

Essentially if it is a flat spherical photographed film from 1953 onwards you can expose more of the film to create a more open framing. Of course the real key to something being open matte is that either it was designed to be shown at 1.33 as many films in the 50's were due to the widescreen changeover and theaters slowly redoing their screens-or that it can be shown opened up and not wreck compositions by having too much space or revealing errors such as booms or set etc.

With any film from the 50's where the ratio is unsure you can look at the framing of an open 1.33 version and generally tell what the intent was. For example there has been much discussion on classic Hammer horrors and it becomes pretty obvious they were composed for UK 1.66:1-in comparison the initial three Bond films look good at 1.66 which was how they were shot, yet also look good in 1.33 opened, 1.55, 1.78 and 1.85.

The two films I feel are most important to have both open and matted are Psycho and Touch of Evil which both have pluses in either version. Personally I've seen them both ways and much prefer 1.33 for Psycho and 1.85 for ToE. Also Criterion released On the Waterfront with 1.33, 1.66 and 1.85 so you can see compositional differences. That one I think runs much better matted at 1.66.

[deleted user]

Thanks for all the interesting info

Another question - when films are open matte and get matted in cinema by the projectionist - then I assume they must be composed in such a way that matting towards the center area of the film gives the ideal result? But on the other hand I can hardly imagine that to be the case and when you compare Open Matte video sources to natively released scope video sources then the framing is not always centered

Which brings up the question - which framing is theatrically accurate? The centered one or the one fine-tuned shot-by-shot?

[spoRv]

Which brings up the question - which framing is theatrically accurate? The centered one or the one fine-tuned shot-by-shot?

Well, answer this: which has the right framing, The Matrix film scan, or the Blu-ray? (note: they are different, film has a bit more image top/bottom, and framing position is in few instances different)

I bet you will answer the film scan; well, the centered open matte projected matted in theaters has the IAR (intended aspect ratio); the fine tuned shot-by-shot could be (subjectively) better, but it's not theatrical accurate.

[deleted user]

Weeeeeeeeeell...

The Matrix 35mm print is a scope print, so that doesn't really apply. Unleeeeesss... they don't do any fine tuning on the scope prints and just take a centered matted open matte as source.

In case the scope ones are always centered open matte ones, then I would agree about those being theatrically accurate. On the other hand, it's not like they really have much of a choice there, is it? When you put that open matte on film, you can't shift it in any meaningful way, you can just put the whole image there and that's it.

So one could very much argue that while it is theatrically accurate, it may not be the director's intent, but simply a limitation of the projecting technology. Am I sounding lucid still?

[spoRv]

Am I sounding lucid still?

Yes. But this would lead to endless discussions about different color grading, SFX remade because weren't available at the times, director's cut denied at the time of the release blah blah blah!

[deleted user]

So what's your personal preference then? Theatrical framing or Blu Ray framing?

[spoRv]

Actually the difference is noticeable only in few shots... but I'd go with AAP-AR regraded using film as color reference!

[deleted user]

Actually the difference is noticeable only in few shots... but I'd go with AAP-AR regraded using film as color reference!

You're crazy!