Letterboxing on purpose

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Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Animated » Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:07 pm

So, here's the deal... I'm planning on making an amv that's... more like a story, rather than a music video. So, to get a more cinematographic look, i plan on adding black borders. I know that letterboxing is a forced technique due to different aspect ratios between the screen and the movie itself, but hey... we grew up watching movies that way, and that's the feeling i want to give to my project. So... does it sound as a good idea or will it seem like a beginner's mistake?

The fact that it's the Year of the Shark pushed me to write all this. :dino:
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Enigma » Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:08 pm

do it.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Castor Troy » Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:15 pm

Enigma wrote:do it.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Animated » Mon Jan 03, 2011 6:43 pm

Ok, i'm convinced. Now the fact is that i've tried numerous resolutions and aspect ratios and... none of them seem to work. What would you recommend for HD footages?
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Enigma » Mon Jan 03, 2011 7:09 pm

try using Addborders?
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Animated » Mon Jan 03, 2011 7:32 pm

Hah, such an obvious answer. Thanks, seriously |:>
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Phantasmagoriat » Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:14 am

If this was your original:
Red = edge of monitor
Yellow-Green = edge of frame
0.)
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= 848/480 = 1.766 ~ 16/9 = WideScreen

You've got 3 options:
1.)
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crop(0,60,0,-60)
= 848/360 = 2.355 ~ 2.35/1 = CinemaScope (aka x-wide)

2.)
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crop(0,60,0,-60)
addborders(0,60,0,60)
= 848/480 = 1.766 ~ 16/9 = WideScreen
(Although the picture is Scope, the frame itself is WideScreen so it fills the entire monitor)

3.)
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addborders(0,78,0,78)
= 848/636 = 1.333 = 4/3 = FullScreen
(oh the irony of FullScreen videos on WideScreen monitors...)

There is a big difference between Borders and Letterboxes. Borders add black around the perimeter of your image. Letterboxes turn the edges of your image black. Assuming most people have widescreen monitors these days, if you simply add Borders to the top and bottom, you'll just end up with the appearance of a rectangle in the middle of the screen (like #3), and I'm not sure if that's the look you are after. However, Letterboxes effectively do the same thing as cropping then adding borders equal to what was cropped off (#2). While this does do what you are looking for, it is pointless since it looks the same as cropping, so you might as well just crop to CinemaScope (#1) which is about as cinematographic as it gets. I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for when they made The Animatrix (example)

But it's unlikely your footage is scope to begin with, so you'll have to crop to 2.35:1 or something close to it (like #1). That way the blank space looks like you've got black letterboxes (#2), without actually encoding them into your video. As an added bonus, your file sizes could be as much as 25% smaller. It might help if you edit at 16:9, but overlay letterboxes in your editor so you can see what parts will get cut off. You'll have more control this way. And if you want to actually use the letterboxes for something (like text), at least you'll have them. You can always crop them later.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby godix » Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:27 am

You know, if I watch an AMV in full screen, or it gets projected at a con, then it is automatically letterboxed without the letterboxing being hard encoded. I could see, perhaps, letterboxing to make the preview have letterboxing, but it seems to be a wasted effort with a distro version.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby EvaFan » Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:56 am

You could achieve a cinematographic look through other means. If all you plan on doing is adding borders than I really don't see the point cause I doubt that alone would give me the "cinematographic" look your talking about, but thats just me.

If your story and editing is strong enough, it should achieve what your wanting it to regardless of adding borders. Assuming you use FX and whatnot that relates to cinematography. I for one don't know much about cinematography but I thought it related more to lighting, colors, and tone of the video more so than the borders.

I remember discussing on the old donators forum about how I hated the fact that movies kept changing their aspect ratios but someone, I think prodigy said something along the lines of the aspect ratio being chosen for movies suitably to major scenes to maximize their effect. So I guess what I'm getting at here is, if you plan on adding borders or changing the viewing portions, try to rationalize it to your major scene/story ideas instead of just throwing certain borders in there.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Animated » Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:27 am

godix wrote:You know, if I watch an AMV in full screen, or it gets projected at a con, then it is automatically letterboxed without the letterboxing being hard encoded.

Yes, this happened when i watched amvs in my old 4:3 screen... I guess you have a 4:3 one too?

Phantasmagoriat wrote:Tons of advice :awesome:

Thanks a lot for all this, totally helpful since i've been looking for avisynth tutorials (again) all night Most Helpful 2011? :D

EvaFan wrote:You could achieve a cinematographic look through other means. If all you plan on doing is adding borders than I really don't see the point cause I doubt that alone would give me the "cinematographic" look your talking about, but thats just me.

I'm planning to use more than borders, such as altering the framerate, slow motions, colour corrections etc... I've already written down the storyline and other simple ideas, so... |:>
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby ZephyrStar » Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:29 am

Do it :3

Just create your project in 2:1 aspect. If you need to add actual borders to bump it up to HD, you could do that, but just doing say a 1280x640 comp and using that for your video should be fine.
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby godix » Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:30 pm

Animated wrote:
godix wrote:You know, if I watch an AMV in full screen, or it gets projected at a con, then it is automatically letterboxed without the letterboxing being hard encoded.

Yes, this happened when i watched amvs in my old 4:3 screen... I guess you have a 4:3 one too?

No, I have 16:10 like most people. So even 16:9 vids will be letterboxed in fullscreen, although the borders are thin
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Phantasmagoriat » Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:59 pm

I should probably note that there are a lot of other ways to achieve a cinematic look, but a wider aspect is still used in film because it works along the same lines as photographic Framing (in the sense that it emphasizes what's important in the shot; and you have more control over what's in the frame and what's not). Not only that, but the viewer really gets the sense that they are on the outside looking in, which reinforces the feeling of storytelling. So black bars on the top and bottom are very intentional, whether hard-encoded or not.

While most film tricks have already been [seamlessly] incorporated into the animation for you, I would still recommend googling for Cinematic Techniques, and try to steal ideas from Photography, Art and [believe it or not] ComicBooks/Anime/Manga Techniques as well. Even simple things like Rule of Thirds (amazingly useful for timing/sync), Negative Space (great for shifting attention), Minimalism (great for story telling) etc... can have a huge impact on the viewers perception of an AMV.

Perhaps I should note that I'm not really into the Arts, but I took an elective on Visual Literacy once, and it was effing awesome. Beware that learning stuff like this will change the way you look at things... and if you get hung up on all the details, your amv's will take ten times longer to make...
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Re: Letterboxing on purpose

Postby Bauzi » Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:54 pm

Do it.

I would go for letterboxes which would make my video look like a 20:11 (one cinema format) movie. Most people will probably watch it on a 16:10 or 16:9 display (beside con viewings and stuff) so 20:11 would still give it the illusion of a super wide cinema movie.

The rest: What Phantasmagoriat said. You could also try to recreate some shallow depth of field look and bookehs.
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