Week 16-Widescreen 16:9 mm

Where is 16×9?

So we’ve seen the original silent ratio of 1.33 or 4×3, Academy ratio of 1.37, Cinerama with 2.59, Cinescope with 2.35, VistaVision with 1.85, Todd AO with 2.20 and even Ben Hur and MGM 65 with 2.76.
Where did 16×9 or 1.77 come in?
For that answer we have to turn back to Film’s little brother Television. In the late 1980s, when the plans where being drawn up for the HDTV standard, Kerns H. Powers, a SMPTE engineer suggested this new aspect ratio as a compromise. 16×9 was the geometic mean between 4×3 and the 2.35 the two most common extremes in terms of aspect ratio. This means that a images of either aspect ratio would have relatively the same screen area when properly formatted in 16×9 with letter boxes.

And so, out of a compromise, the 16×9 aspect ratio was born and it would become the default widescreen aspect ratio for all video products from DVDs to the new UltraHD “4K”
From William Dickson’s original 4×3 image conceived in Thomas Edison’s lab to the widescreen explosion of the 1950s starting with Cinerama to the digital compromise of 16×9, it’s fascinating how aspect ratios have shifted and practically defined our memories of these films. It’s only a shape – a canvas on which you draw your story. But the canvas does matter… How you draw it, makes all the difference – so use it to make something great.