MovieChat Forums > Celda 211 (2009) Discussion > Why was it filmed in 1.78:1?

Why was it filmed in 1.78:1?


Anybody know why this film was shot in 1.78:1? I'm projecting this at the moment and its difficult to frame as a result.

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If you'll forgive purely amaturish speculation, isn't that the ratio of "widescreen television"? And the film was shot using Red One Camera, ie digitally. I had thought that this would be the default ratio for such a digital camera; I guess you would know that better than I.

The whole issue of aspect ratios is somewhat bewildering in depth to the layman, but something I find quite fascinating. I know ARs used to be fairly flexible here in the UK. With many films from the 60s there is still debate as to their intended ratio.

Is the framing particularly tight in this case, making a precise framing crucial? Are you screening it on film or digitally? I'm only asking out of curiosity, not because I could offer advice, as I'm sure you will have gathered.

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sadly, there seems to be a general disinterest in aspect ratios

as long as the screen is full, people are happy

distorted picture? no problem, as long as the screen is full

cropping? better than black bars that look like the edges of the tv

TVs with no way to display native sized images? as long as there is image processing to make film look like 1980s home video, excellent!

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According to Cineoutsider, the film was shot on the Red One camera at 1.78:1 (as pointed out by grambax), then cropped to 1.85:1 for cinematic release.

I haven't read any interviews with the cinematographer, but I have read that the director, Daniel Monzón, wanted the film to look and feel like a documentary feature. Without a ton of post-processing, digital can have a tendency to emulate the sort of brightly-lit, television, shot-on-tape quality that most of us associate with documentaries, so this might explain it.

Of course, digital is also cheaper to shoot than film, so it's not hard to imagine that was a large factor as well.

http://www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/dvd/c/cell_211.html

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I've shot low budget movie projects on digital, and you can easily shoot on a RED camera, and then crop it to 2.40:1 if you like. I think the RED also comes with a feature that will give you the aspect ratio on screen, as you shoot. I shot a 2.40:1 short film on a Canon T2i, so it's no problem really.

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