Ever since Plato's "Myth of the Cave" we are used to seeing Images in a specific space. In "Plato's Myth", prisoners are kept in a cave facing an interior wall, while behind them, at the entrance to the cave, there is a lighted fire with some people with statues and flags passing in front of the fire. At the same time, their shadows are projected onto the interior wall of the cave by fire's light. The prisoners are looking at the moving shadows in that specific area of the wall. They are watching images as a simulation, a "simulacre" of reality, not reality itself. The myth of Plato is a metaphor for the Cinema.

Since that myth, audiences have gotten used to seeing images in a specific space. The journey of visual Arts in History, which human beings have made for so long, encompasses all different styles of drawing - painting - photography, cinematography, television, etc... These styles were always determined by a specific area that allowed any visual artist to express himself on a "canvas on a specific size". This canvas determines all visual arts to be a specific form of expression, not a copy of reality.

Since the Lumiere brothers 100 years ago, a space has been framed in a very specific way, allowing any filmmakers since to think and to realize his art form through composition, a word almost forgotten in today's film industry.

Recently, any movie - no matter how big or small, successful or not - will, after a very short life on the big screen, have a much longer life on an electronic screen. Today, the answer print is made for both of these two different media. The cinematographer's work ends after having released an Interpositive for theatrical distribution, and a Digital Master for video distribution.

Having these two different media, with essentially two different aspect ratios, each of us (directors, production designers, cinematographers, camera operators, etc.) shares the nightmare of compromising the composition of the image. Looking through a viewfinder, a camera, or a monitor, we are always faced with at least two images of the same subject.

Since the cinema is a language of images, by changing the original composition of the cinematographic picture we are altering the linguistic expression, the style and indeed the film itself. It is like altering the size of an artist's painting to suit the wall where the painting is supposed to be shown. A film in any video transfer, when recorded in letterbox and in full screen versions, is without a doubt actually TWO different movies.

In the jungle of different aspect ratios in today's Cinema and Television, the upcoming advanced HIGH DEFINITION VIDEO SYSTEM will introduce yet another one, an aspect ratio of about 1: 1,79. For a while, we will have three different visual proportions, and therefore three different compositions, of the same movie...

Further information on Univisium can be obtained from
Fabrizio Storaro
Tel: 00 39 06 935 47007
E-mail: fabrizio@univisium.com