SparkForward: Films with Multiple Aspect Ratios

The frame is a canvas.  “A canvas on which you draw your story.  The canvas does matter but how you draw it makes all the difference” – John P. Hess

What is Aspect Ratio

Let’s get some math out of the way.  Aspect ratio is the relationship between the width and height of an image, often expressed as a ratio.  For example an aspect ratio of 1:1 defines a square, one of 16:9 defines the rectangular shape of a modern television screen where the width of a screen is roughly 1.78 times the height.

Multiple Aspect Ratios within the Same Film

Filmmakers select an aspect ratio for their film based on a variety of factors—whether the story focuses on individuals, relationships between individuals told through close-ups, whether wide landscapes feature in the story, or practical considerations like the cameras or film stocks available, for example.  

In the world of photo-chemical film, a specific aspect ratio is something a filmmaker is essentially locked into, especially once a production has started rolling.  Of course there are rare exceptions.  In the digital or hybrid analog-digital world, this is much more fluid and the aspect ratio itself can be used as a narrative device, sometimes even within the same scene.  

I’d like to discuss cases where multiple aspect ratios are used within the same film and I have arbitrarily divided these instances into three different categories.

1. Aspect Ratio changed out of necessity
2. Aspect Ratio changed as a visual cue
3. Aspect Radio change itself used as a narrative element

Aspect Ratio Changed Out of Necessity

IMAX🇨🇦 film is a high resolution large format medium that is popular among an expanding class of top-tier filmmakers.  It is expensive, the cameras are heavy and difficult to manage handheld (unless you are cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who wields one around like Thor’s hammer). They are also quite noisy, and this will make it necessary to use ADR for any dialogue in scenes shot on IMAX film.  But the image is gorgeous and if you have the chance, check out a film shot and projected on IMAX 15/70 film if you can.  

IMAX film has a native aspect ratio of 1.43:1.  Movies like The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Interstellar combine scenes shot on IMAX film with those shot on 35mm film and sometimes digital.  Filmmakers can choose to crop all of these formats so that they match or switch aspect ratios as they combine scenes shot in different formats. 

Some films have entire sequences that are shot in IMAX (e.g. the opening) and others mix and match segments shot on IMAX and other format within the same scene or sequence. The transition can be on a simple cut or done gradually as a transition with a narrative motivation. 

Here’s an example of a gradual transition to the area scene from Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Here there stadium sequences are shot in IMAX and a transition to them is made gradually as Katniss Everdeen (and the audience) enters the arena.

Aspect Ratio Change Used as a Visual Cue

Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel begins with a woman visiting the shrine of a renowned writer, reading his most-cherished book, written in 1985. The author writes about his 1968 vacation at the hotel, where he meets the owner Zero. Zero recounts his rags-to-riches story over dinner. Zero’s story is set in 1932.

That paragraph and its timeline was confusing enough to type out. Anderson brilliantly employs three different aspect ratios: 1.37:1, 2.35:1 and 1.85:1 to delineate these different timelines in the film, just like other films may use specific looks or image grading as markers. He also ties the aspect into the cinematic history during the respective period that it depicts—1.37 (academy ratio) for the 1930s, 2.35 (cinemascope) for the 1960s and 1.85 for the 1980s (flat).

Aspect Ratio Change Itself Used as a Narrative Element

Mommy, Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s film about a mother raising a teenage son, is a great example where the aspect ratio and changes in aspect ratio is as a element in his storytelling. 

Most of the film is shot in 1:1.  The story is personal and features interactions between twos and threes, and this aspect ratio forces the audience to focus on faces in tight close-ups.  This framing also evokes nostalgia, mimicking the look of an LP cover.  The precise framing is even more evident if you watch the film without subtitles.  The mood is restrictive and claustrophobic at times.  It mirrors the state of mind of the main character.  At one point, the frame is physically stretched by the main character, Steve, as he moves into happier times.  The expansion feels like a breath of fresh air as the audience feels the same release.

Conclusion

I’ll end with another quote.

“In Cinema, it’s a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” — Martin Scorsese

Altering your frame within a movie, whether it’s out of necessity or as a narrative choice, changes a viewer’s perspective and when it comes to film, isn’t it all about perspective?

Post Script

Thanks and a shout-out to Alvin for the discussion that inspired this post, and for the example from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

I remember seeing The Dark Knight Rises on 15/70 IMAX film at what was then called the Museum of Civilization in Hull.  I still remember when it felt like the floor fell out to the full IMAX height during the HALO jump scene.  Also the feeling of getting punched by an IMAX subwoofer. I think this was one of the last commercial films projected in IMAX film there before the system was replaced with a digital projector.

In 2024 I caught the 10th anniversary theatrical re-releases Mommy and Interstellar, both projected digitally, the latter in IMAX digital at the Landmark Cinema in Kanata.  It was my first experience of my favourite film, Interstellar, in IMAX, and it is something that will stick with me for a long time.  I hope to see it in IMAX 15/70 some day (soon 🤞🏽).

I would be remiss if I didn’t use a discussion of multiple aspect ratios as an excuse to post a clip from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar—hard cuts here to move between 35mm film and IMAX film footage mixed in the same sequence in what I consider a really good edit.