As you said Ben, that this entry and your prior entry are closely related, the one notion that kept coming to mind was that of widescreen presentations in some laserdiscs (and special VHS tapes) and DVD’s; though some releases were still pan & scan.

Does one get the same experience watching, say, Empire Strikes Back on a cropped 4:3 screen instead of it’s standard 2:35? One scene that comes to mind, as dissected by a buddy of mine, is when Leia kisses Luke in the infirmary. On the 4:3 version, you hear C3PO motioning, but you do not see him. On the letterboxed version, you get the full scope of that scene and the wonderful “reaction” by ‘3PO, mainly his gestures guided by the surprise the scene itself brought.

And what of Lawrence of Arabia?

I know most 1.85 films are nothing more than a matted 4:3, but on a scope level as the Star Wars films, you truly lose too much information that I believe inherently alters your “experience” of the film. A year ago or so, I came across an article that was discussing the initial release of the Back to the Future (BTTF) trilogy which had been plagued by matting issues, wherein the framing of the picture was incorrect. It had since been rectified, but imagine what that would be like if a) it was your first time watching any of the BTTF’s or b) having been a fan, you notice something is a miss. I never saw BTTF 2 in the theater, but one viewing that gave me such a theater-like feel was during a basketball summer camp. The coaches rolled in a 27 “square” TV and we saw the film in the gym. The natural reverb and echo of the gym’s acoustics gave a faux-surround atmosphere and helped to draw me into the film more so, even if the screen was a fraction of the gym.

Hopefully, there will be some type of preservation of actual film prints, aside from academies and institutes, to allow a younger generation the experience of the beauty and warmth from film. I took a musical class last semester and the professor would urge the students to stay for that week’s screening because they were all film prints and they probably would never see them again. He made special mention of the 3-bar Technicolor print they secured for “The Gang’s All Here” which, to this day, in my mind, makes any HD look average or “late to the party”. So rich and vivid! With a darkened theater and illumating screen, it felt as though we were invading on these people and due to the film’s direction, part of the numbers and/or movie audience for those nightclub numbers.

I don’t feel the optical disc will last much longer. With WiFi taking on such a stronger roll in everyting and iPhones/iPods that allow us to download movies, I think the disc will become a novelty. As television makers continue to develop newer technologies, such as Toshiba’s idea of adding an SD-type memory card slot for their next phase of TVs–bypassing an external video player altogether–it seems that another switch will be inevitable.

Then again, most studios bank on the home entertainment market, so, could be another decade. But I hear those licensing fees for Blu-ray discs make it hard for smaller, independent studios to output their products on the ONLY high definition standard.

While I can’t comment on Blu-Ray, as I have yet to have an experience of it myself, I do have something to say about 16mm.

This year, I’m working with Jack at Carleton as a projectionist, and have had a trial by fire learning how to project 16mm films. I absolutely think that everyone truly interested in the medium should have a hands-on experience with 16mm film. While it’s awesome to really understand what it is that you’re watching, and discover how finicky projectors are, it’s a shame that the school doesn’t have reliable machines or well-preserved films. Not to mention the shitty sound quality in the classrooms. While the opportunity to see a “real” film is there, the experience leaves something to be desired.

Anyway, hope you’re well. Keep up the interesting writing! It gives me something to actually do/learn while procrastinating!