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Topic: Off-Center Prints
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Robin Cook
Junior
Posts: 2
From: Newark
Registered: Sep 2007
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posted August 12, 2008 04:27 PM
I have read all of the posts so far and I feel I must tell you what I know about the black borders. In 1990, I bought a 16mm copy of "Easy Street" (Charlie chaplin Mutual) and it had a square image with black borders. I thought that's how it should be but in 1992,I met David Shepard at the Sons of the Desert Laurel and Hardy/Our Gang convention. I had pre-ordered some 16mm films from him and on his stall, he was showing "Cat, Dog & Co." (Our Gang) on a B&H 1695 16mm projector. I noticed it had a square picture with black borders with the edge of the subtitles on the left side cut off. I asked him why it had the borders. He said a soundtrack had been on the preprint material so the left hand side of the picture was missing. He went on to say that some of the Mutual Charlie Chaplins were like it such as "The Immigrant" "The Cure" etc. but they were much better picture quality than the full framed versions that they had. He said he could make them 1:1.33 but it would crop the picture and he wanted to preserve the full frame of what was left. Blackhawk did also crop some of the picture in order to make a full frame version (which looks like what they have done on those scans of "The Cure"). In 1988, I saw a 35mm print of "Perfect Day" (Laurel and Hardy) and noticed I could see MUCH more picture at the top of the screen. I went home thinking how much was missing off my super-8 and video copies. In the early 1990s, I found out that the early talking L&Hs up until 1931 were filmed with the full silent frame and with a soundtrack cropping the left of the frame which we're not supposed to see in this case, anyway. That explained why I saw more of the picture than I was used to in "Perfect Day" and I then realised you're not supposed to see the whole frame all at once. The operator hadn't got the framing right. Those scans of Bill Brandenstein's are an excellent example of what I mean. The 35mm cartoon shows how much you're supposed to see, and the frames with the train show a square image (is it shown as a mirror image?)that you aren't supposed to see all at once (in sound films). If it's a silent frame, 1:1.33 is 3 units by 4 so it isn't a square frame as shown in the cropped Blackhawk films. I've since seen full framed versions of the Charlie Chaplin Mutuals which show that we can see more than the cropped versions.
Robin.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted August 12, 2008 10:52 PM
I have to say, having looked at the two shots from the Chaplin film, and the restored version, I don't see a lot of difference.
I do see that one has better contrast to the print, but while one shows more of the feet, the other also gives more of the top.
When your dealing with a flat image from a flat master, I don't believe that your really missing two much and, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter so much that I would buy a print that's a "perfect square".
Now, I HAVE noticed that many DVD's will have a letterboxed or "widescreen" version of a movie, (Tender Mercies, for instance), not only have I noticed that the full flat image is better on the film print, there is actually also more information on the left and right hand side as well.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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