I'm looking for a timeline of aspect ratios used in US films. For
instance, what ratio were most silent films shot in, and during what
time? Early talkies? Pre-Cinemascope films? Etc.?

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Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 01 Feb 2006 14:42 PST

Hi!


I wasn't able to find a graphical timeline but I did find resources
about the history of aspect ratios.

Will this be ok with you?

Thanks!

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Clarification of Question by moxie_cinema-ga on 01 Feb 2006 17:00 PST

I don't need anything "graphical" persay... more like this:

Silent films (1908 to 1919) - 1:1.33
Talkies (1920 to 1936) - 1:1.40

So on and so for... going through all the major "eras" of film. My two
examples are completely fabricated, by the way.

Hi! Thanks for the question.

Here is a history of aspect ratios that became popular in different
eras of film making.

Era                                  : Aspect Ratio  

Late 1800s to films before the 1950s : 1.33:1
Early 50s                            : 2.35:1
1992 European PalPlus and DVD Era    : 1.85:1


However, there is more to the discussion of aspect ratios than the
eras made above. Methods and techniques for example on how the 1:33:1
was improved so as to make bigger screens must also be discussed.

Please read the sources below. 

Sources:
"Understanding Aspect Ratios"
http://www.cinemasource.com/articles/aspect_ratios.pdf

"Matted Versus Anamorphic Widescreen DVD"
http://www.audiolinks.nl/anamorphic/anamorphic.htm

"How Video Formatting Works"
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/video-format.htm/printable

"Europe: HD Ready?"
http://www.videsignline.com/howto/marketresearch/163102011


Now our next link is a table to an extensive list of different aspect
ratios for different years. Please take note of the detail here and I
hope this will be  of great use to you.

"The Ultimate Table of Formats-- Aspect Ratios"
http://www.film-center.com/formats.html


Search terms used:
"aspect ratios" history  
European PAL-Plus history

I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.
                                                          
                              
Regards,                              
Easterangel-ga                              
Google Answers Researcher

That's what I was looking for. Thanks a million, easterangel!

Thank you for the kind words, the 5 stars and for the generous tip! :)

Looking at the films listed in the Internet Movie Database,
it looks like earlier films were 1.37:1 not 1.33:1 (isn't 1.33:1 a TV ratio?)

For example, if you look at King Kong (1933) in imdb, under technical
specs, it says 1.37:1

Also, recent cinema films often 2.35:1 for big sci-fi type films, and
1:85:1 for Comedies.

The information presented was OK, but it missed some in details.

For example, silent films were projected at 1.33:1, but when sound
came in in 1926, the soundtrack reduced the films' width to 1.1:1.  In
1931, the Motion Picture Acadmy shrunk the image height to widen the
picture to 1.375:1.

Various film formats and anamorphic lenses were experimented with in
the 1930s and 1940s, but to compete with TV in the 1950s, Fox
introduced "The Robe" in 1952 in CinemaScope at a whopping 2.55:1
ratio by running the sound on separate reels of film played in sync
with the picture.  In 1956, it moved the sound to magnetic strips on
the release print and shrunk the width to 2.347:1, which Panavision
also adopted.  In 1971, the Academy changed reduced the height of the
filmed image slightly to hide the film splices that were sometimes
visible at the bottom of the screen, which made the image ratio
2.394:1 where it stands today for wide-screen releases.

In the 1950s, the Motion Picture Academy instituted the use of "masks"
to be inserted in theater projecters to widen the image of standard
motion picture film to 1.85:1.  In most cases, the full height of the
film continues to be exposed, but the extreme top and bottom is cut
off by the mask in the projector.  When standard-width films are
transfered to video, the extra image information can be used so the
picture isn't cropped.  If you see a microphone over someone's head in
a movie, it usually means the mask isn't properly in place.

Other film formats include Cinerama, which used three separate
projectors running at 26 frames per second to project three sesparate
reels of film at the same time to create an 3:1 image on specially
cruved screens, and 70 mm which uses a 2.05:1 ratio.  (If you saw
"Star Wars" in it's original 70 mm four-channel Dolby release, you
missed a little picture information from the edges that were apparent
in the later Panavision release prints.)

There was also Paramount's VistaVision format, which ran 35 mm film
through the projector sideways as a stepping stone between 35 mm and
70 mm.  (George Lucas used it to film the special effects for the
first three Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies because of its higher
quality image.) It was projected at a 1.5:1 ratio.

In Europe, filmmakers have used 1.66:1 and 1.75:1 masks for their
movies.  In fact, Steven Spielberg requested a 1.66 mask be used to
project "E.T." and Tim Burton asked for a 1.75:1 mask to project
"Batman."

Newer specialty formats have come on the scene such as IMAX, OmniMAX
and Showscan, and now we have digital projectors which mimic the
Academy standard and widescreen formats, but which are all about
pixels than film.

Maybe this is a little more detail than you need, but I thought I'd
set the record straight, especially since Sherlockh brought up the
fact that IMDB lists different ratios than one in the original answer.

Wow! Thanks dan1315-ga! That's even more to the point of what I was searching for.