4:3 and The Rediscovery of The Academy Ratio

“The Academy Ratio” is a frame ratio of 1.37:1, and was the standard used from the earliest days of sound in American cinema into the 1950’s, lasting as late as the late 60’s. It’s most recognizable as a boxy, almost square ratio compared to todays more rectangular frames.

“4:3” will be used a catch-all term for the boxier aspect ratios.

Recently there’s been a resurgence in interest with the traditionally “boxy” aspect ratios, culminating with the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which chooses an aspect ratio much closer to the original film plane, 1.33:1, or 4:3 on HBO Max.
The explanation for this choice was Snyder’s love of the IMAX film format, which captures images in a massive 1:43:1 ratio. This choice has inadvertently sparked both a renewed interest in the 4:3 aspect ratio itself and, with direct comparisons to the 2017 release, what an open matte film scan looks like before it’s been cropped for theatrical or home video release.

I have not watched Justice League, so this article will focus more on the neat facts behind the filmmaking rather than a review. I’m sure if you wanted to see it you have by now, and vice versa.

What Is Open Matte/Open Gate?

Quick vocab lesson:

• Open Matte is a term used when using the full height of a 4-perf frame of a motion picture film.

• “Perf” is short of “perforation”, and a 4-perf frame of film is 4 of those perforations high.

• The perforations are the little cuts in the side of the frame that cling to the gears of cinema cameras and projectors to make the movies move.

• We will be ignoring anamorphic today because it’s a whole other beast, in the meantime watch this video for a primer.

A standard motion picture film frame is a rectangle of emulsion, and since most motion picture film (outside of 2-perf formats like Techniscope) capture images in a 1.33:1 or 1.37:1 frame, the boxier “raw” image is usually cropped in post to any of the common film aspect ratios using black bars, called letterboxes.
The letterboxes are sometimes used to hide post-reframing, or as a buffer for boom mics and lights to keep close to talent.
Great example of an open matte scan vs the final image can be found in this video on Jurassic Park.

Open Gate is the same thing, but mainly used by Arri to refer to the “Open-Gate” shooting mode on their Alexa digital cameras.
More on that here in an email provided by Steve Yedlin.

Widescreen Television - 4:3 Passes Away

In the mid-2000’s television underwent it’s most significant change since color. The traditional, boxy 4:3 aspect ratio was phased out in favor of the new standard of 16:9, just barely different from one of the most popular cinema standards, 1.85:1.
This meant that both Jurassic Park and Good Morning America were being displayed in (almost) the exact same aspect ratio.
It also meant television could more easily adopt more “cinematic” ratios for storytelling without losing half the screen at the top and bottom, as was the case with the more square TV’s of the past.

This also meant that the 4:3 would pass into a realm of nostalgia.

4:3 is Dead… Long Live 4:3

In 2014, the release of Xavier Dolan’s “Mommy” became the example every article and video essay would forever use to demonstrate using an aspect ratio to tell a story. Most famously in a shot of the main character physically opening up the frame (until now captured in a claustrophobic, square 1:1 ratio) to the full frame 16:9.

16:9, by now, was the full frame that people were used to seeing. From the start of the digital cinema revolution in the late 2000’s (or earlier depending who you ask) the most popular sensor sizes were built with a 16:9 shape.

Sidenote: The earlier practice of capturing something Open-Matte and cropping in post was mostly replaced with “overscanning”, a technique where an image is captured at a higher resolution than final delivery (ex: shooting 6K for a 4K master, as in Gone Girl) and that extra real estate around the frame is used for reframing, stabilization, and/or VFX.

This new normality of a widescreen display meant the popularity of 2.35:1 was preserved, and easier to experience at home as screens grew larger and more affordable. Most recently and visibly, shows like The Mandalorian and WandaVision have used a change in aspect ratios to make a boss fight with a Krayt Dragon feel larger, or to literally tell the audience which era they’re in and which story they’re watching (50’s-00’s, general MCU, etc). WandaVision is also the most noticeable example since Grand Budapest of making an aspect ratio critical to an audiences understanding of whose point of view they are experiencing the story from.

Back to cinema, throughout the rest of the 2010’s and into the start of 2020’s, the popularization of IMAX sequences in blockbuster films found filmmakers coming up with more and more creative ways to bridge the change from the wide 2:35:1, to a full IMAX height of 1.43:1 (or thereabout):

• In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, as Katniss rises up into the arena, the black bars at the top and bottom of frame recede, bridging the change almost seamlessly.

• In The Dark Knight Rises, a gate falling and flash of light hides the transition from the 2.39:1 frame to a full IMAX (or 16:9 if you’re watching on Blu-ray)

• In Dunkirk, Nolan says fuck it and just shot 95% of the damn thing in IMAX, and used 70mm anamorphic footage for dialogue where the IMAX cameras would be too loud, most notably in this scene where he intercuts between the two ratios.

We Live In A Society… Batman.

Bringing this all back around to Snyder’s Justice League, by distributing the film in this taller frame, the idea was to make the heroes of the League feel more like monuments and gods, at least in Snyder’s view.
While the original plan to distribute the film in 2017 was to release in 1:85:1, to better bridge with the extended IMAX sequences, when Snyder began re-editing the film that had been taken from him, he decided to say "fuck it” and just adopt a more IMAX-like frame the entire time.
All previously done VFX were then redone to fit this new frame.

So what about this aspect ratio? When displayed on a big enough TV, the bars on the left and right don’t offend. When projected natively, I’m sure it looks great. With the democratization of larger screen TV’s, the actual physical area lost to letterboxing becomes less and less relevant to the audience experience.

Mommy, The Grand Budapest Hotel, First Reformed, The Lighthouse, and Mank all used 4:3 or similar. The release of Justice League has simply shown a wider audience than any of those films could ever reach alone the effect of using a non-standard aspect ratio, and what it can do to the audience. Hopefully, it emboldens filmmakers to be more experimental with their framing in general, as it can be a subtle but powerful tool in the storytelling toolbox.

Further examples of using aspect ratios in storytelling, including one of my own:

• Abigail: modern day segments of the story are cropped to a 2.35:1 anamorphic ratio, while flashback sequences to the 1940’s open up to a nearly 1.85:1 ratio.

• The Mandalorian: The Season 2 episode “The Marshal” ends with a fight with a Krayt Dragon, which opens up the frame from the shows standard 2.35:1, to the full 16:9 frame.

• Ben-Hur: This 1959 epic shoots in a frankly batshit 2.79:1 aspect ratio using 65mm film, captured with six very expensive Panavision 70mm cameras, one of which was completely trampled by a horse. While the film is only captured in one format, it’s one rarely seen since, and is pretty cool.

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