Cinema Terminology
The motion picture industry convention assigns a value of 1.0 to the image’s height; thus, an anamorphic frame (actually 2.39:1) is described (rounded) as 2.40:1 or 2.40 ("two-four-oh"). In American cinemas, the common projection ratios are 1.85:1 and 2.40:1. Some European countries have 1.66:1 as the wide screen standard. The "Academy ratio" of 1.37:1 was used for all cinema films until 1953 (with the release of George Stevens's Shane in 1.66:1). During that time, television, which had a similar aspect ratio of 1.33:1, became a threat to movie audiences, Hollywood gave birth to a large number of wide-screen formats: CinemaScope (up to 2.66:1), Todd-AO (2.20:1), and VistaVision (initially 1.50:1, now 1.66:1 to 2.00:1) to name just a few. The "flat" 1.85:1 aspect ratio was introduced in May, 1953, and became one of the most common cinema projection standards in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Read more about this topic: Aspect Ratio (image)
Famous quotes containing the word cinema:
“Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream.”
—Frederico Fellini (1920–1993)