A 2.35:1 image panned and scanned to
1.33:1.
Nearly half of the original image has been cropped.
Pan and scan is one method of adjusting
widescreen film images so that they can be shown
within the proportions of a
standard
definition 4:3
aspect ratio
television screen, often cropping off the
sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the
composition's most important aspects. Some film directors and film
enthusiasts disapprove of pan and scan cropping, because it can
remove up to 45% (on 2.35:1 films) of the original image, changing
the director or cinematographer's original vision and intentions.
The vertical equivalent is known as "tilt and scan" or "reverse pan
and scan".
Background
For the first several decades of television broadcasting, sets
displayed images with a "4:3"
aspect ratio in which the width is 1.33
times the height. Meanwhile, the producers of theatrical motion
pictures began to use "widescreen" formats such as
Cinemascope which enable more panoramic vistas
and present other compositional opportunities. But at the height of
a television screen, these formats might be twice as wide. To
present a widescreen movie on such a television requires one of a
few techniques to accommodate this difference. One technique is
"
letterboxing", which preserves the
original theatrical aspect ratio, but not as high as a standard
television, leaving black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.
Another common technique is to "pan and scan", filling the full
height of the screen but cropping it horizontally.
High definition television offers a wider 16:9 aspect
ratio (1.78 times the height instead of 1.33), which allows films
made at 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 to fill the whole screen without having
to use either pan-and-scan or black bars, but films shot at 2.20:1,
2.35:1, 2.55:1, 2.39:1, and especially 2.76:1 (
Ben-Hur) still require either
letterboxing or pan-and-scanning.
Techniques
During the "pan and scan" process, an editor selects the parts of
the original filmed composition that seem to be the focus of the
shot and makes sure that these are copied (i.e. "scanned"). When
the important action shifts to a new position in the frame, the
operator moves the scanner to follow it, creating the effect of a
"pan" shot. In a scene in which the focus does not gradually shift
from one horizontal position to another—such as actors at each
extreme engaging in rapid conversation with each other—the editor
may choose to "cut" from one to the other rather than rapidly
panning back and forth. If the actors are closer together on the
screen, the editor may pan slightly, alternately cropping one or
the other partially.
This method allows the maximum resolution of the image, since it
uses all the available vertical video scan lines—which is
especially important for
NTSC televisions,
having a rather low number of lines available. It also gives a
full-screen image on a traditional television set; hence
pan-and-scan versions of films on videotape or DVD are often known
as
fullscreen.
However, it also has several drawbacks. Some visual information is
necessarily cropped out. It can also change a shot in which the
camera was originally stationary to one in which it is frequently
panning, or change a single continuous shot into one with frequent
cuts. In a shot which was originally panned to show something new,
or one in which something enters the shot from off-camera, it
changes the timing of these appearances to the audience. As an
example, in the film
Oliver!, made in
Panavision, the criminal
Bill Sikes commits a murder. The murder takes
place mostly offscreen, behind a staircase wall, and Oliver is a
witness to it. As Sikes steps back from behind the wall, we see
Oliver from the back watching him in terror. In the pan-and-scan
version of the film, we see Oliver's reaction as the murder is
being committed, but not when Sikes steps backward from the wall
after having done it.
As television screenings of feature films became more common and
more financially important, cinematographers began to work for
compositions that would keep the vital information within the "TV
safe area" of the frame. For example, the
BBC
suggests program makers who are recording in 16:9 frame their shots
in a
14:9 aspect ratio which is then broadcast
for non-widescreen televisions with small black bars at the top and
bottom of the picture, while owners of widescreen TV sets see the
full 16:9 picture. Film makers may also reverse this process,
creating an original image that includes visual information that
extends above and below the widescreen theatrical image; this is
called "
open matte". This may still be
pan-and-scanned, but gives the compositor the freedom to "zoom out"
or "uncrop" the image to include not only the full width of the
wide-format image, but additional visual content at the top and/or
bottom of the screen, not included in the widescreen version. As a
general rule (prior to the adoption of DVD), special effects would
be done within the theatrical aspect ratio, but not the full-frame
thereof; also the expanded image area can include extraneous
objects—such as cables, microphone booms, jet vapor trails, or
overhead telephone wires—not intended to be included in the
frame.
Reactions
Some directors still balk at the use of "pan and scan" versions of
their movies because they feel it compromises the directorial
vision with which their movies were created. For instance,
Steven Spielberg initially refused to
release a pan-and-scan version of
Raiders of the Lost Ark but
eventually gave in (although he successfully ordered the
letterboxed format for the home video releases of
The Color Purple and
Always);
Woody Allen refused altogether to release one of
Manhattan, the
letterbox version is therefore the only version available on VHS
and DVD. Any tampering with the original image of a film,
particularly to crop it to fit a television screen, implies a
compromise of the original image, and the cropping of a widescreen
image to a full screen image for standard televisions requires
skill by a film editor to prevent undue loss of elements of the
composition.
Changes in screen angle (panning) may be necessary to prevent
closeups between two speakers where only one person is visible in
the pan-and-scan version and both participants seem to speak
alternately to persons off camera; this comes at the cost of losing
the smoothness of scenes.
Inversely, the cropping of a film originally shown in the standard
ratio to fit widescreen televisions may cut off foreground or
background, such as a
tap-dance scene in
which much attention is directed appropriately at a dancer's feet.
This situation will commonly occur whenever a widescreen TV is set
to display full images without stretching (often called the zoom
setting) on images with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 or less. The
solution is to
pillar box the
image by adding black bars on either side of the image, which
maintains the full picture height.
In Europe, where the
PAL TV format offers more
vertical resolution to begin with, "pan-and-scan" broadcasts and
"pan-and-scan" DVDs of movies originally shown in widescreen are
relatively rare.
However, on some channels in some countries
(such as the United
Kingdom
), films with an aspect ratio of more than 1.85:1
are panned and scanned to fit the broadcast 1.78:1
ratio.
One modern alternative to pan and scan is to directly adjust the
source material. This is very rare: the only known uses are
computer-generated
features, such as those produced by
Pixar and
video games such as
Bioshock. They call
their approach to full-screen versions
reframing: some
shots are pan and scan, while others are transferred
open matte (a full widescreen image extended with
added image above and below). Another method is to keep the camera
angle as tight as a pan shot, but move the location of characters,
objects, or the camera, so that the subjects fit in the
frame.
The advent of DVDs and their use of
anamorphic presentation, coupled with
the increasing popularity of widescreen televisions and computer
monitors, have rendered pan and scan less important. Fullscreen
versions of films originally produced in widescreen are still
available in the United States.
See also
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
