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And who is to say what a film looks like? Why should anything have "film grain"? Why is 24hz a standard? Why is letterboxing a thing? These are all tools, the

• Applejinx 3y ago
  To take one of your examples, the easiest target: letterboxing is a thing because film is created by filmmakers and cinematographers who must decide what pictures go in the frames of their film. As such, they choose to place objects in certain ways, reveal things (think John Carpenter using extreme widescreen in 'Halloween') through use of the edge of the film frame, and make choices of what images go where, much like a painter might outline figures in position on the canvas. So, whether or not the resulting film had extra space (and perhaps film lights, extras, etc) captured on the initial recording, the film is what's placed in the intended frame. To think anything else is like wanting to play back the record made in the recording studio, and play all of the hit record takes along with all the outtakes at the same time, just because they were there. A documentary exists of the making of Steely Dan's 'Aja', in which the song 'Peg' is played. The Dan sit in the studio and audition guitar solo outtakes, which mostly deedle about in an animated way, sometimes with envelope filter, all before Jay Graydon came in with a bottleneck slide and a few well-chosen Hawaiian-guitar-sounding riffs, leading into the hit record's solo. You might as well ask to hear all the loser solos played back at the same time as Jay Graydon's hit solo. I mean, they exist on the master tape! Surely the winning solution is to listen to every detail, and that's what 'Peg' sounds like now. You got more stuff! Everybody wants more, right? Play three solos at once. That counts as more! It's even been done in other records, why not here? Who's to say wanting more is wrong? Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, apparently. And they did say those first attempts at solos were wrong, and revisiting them, still considered them unspeakably wrong. So far, nobody has gained access to those masters (I believe they burned up in a fire, not long ago, lost forever?) and put out the popular choice where you can swap out solos or play them all at once to have more.
  • op00to 3y ago
    I don’t want to see boxes on my content. I’d prefer it fills the screen.
    • Applejinx 3y ago
      The cinematographer will say, get the right screen then. Heck, I've got a curved 21:9 screen. Great fun. I do like it when stuff I watch fills the screen, and I've made videos that do that. When I do that out of regular widescreen footage, I'm the one who has to determine what will go where in the frame. Then when it's watched on a phone held upright, it's a very very teeny horizontal line :) and if I'd wanted to serve that screen, I'd be making TikToks…
    • crtasm 3y ago
      Well if you're creating content you can have it fill whatever shape screen you wish.
  • Levitz 3y ago
    Sure, I understand these things have a purpose, my point is that film doesn't stop being film just because it's different. If the public decides letterboxing looks terrible, then it will turn into a more niche thing, that doesn't mean movies stop being movies.
• danparsonson 3y ago
  Indeed, reading the article I felt like the author was conflating their feelings about watching analog film, and a director's intentions when creating a movie. The former is an artefact of the medium as it was before everything went digital, while the latter is about a creative vision and a story to be told.