The Beatles - Yellow Submarine (Open Matte LaserDisc)

[Eric_Manchester]

If they bothered to draw and colour the full 4:3 picture then clearly it was intended to be seen by someone. Otherwise they would have saved a lot of time and just drawn a 16:9 frame.

If you've followed the windingly torturous and crazily fast production of YELLOW SUBMARINE, it's not hard to believe that those who drew, inked, and painted the cels might not know exactly what would end up on film, or how the images would be framed by the rostrum camera operator.

Another part of this is the idea that the 4x3 versions people see on video are the entire full frame of 35mm film. In many cases, that's not true. I hope at some point to illustrate that for YELLOW SUBMARINE, but work and family needs have kept me from it.

YELLOW SUBMARINE has some sequences that fill the 35mm frame, like the one linked to by Venny. Some others don't. In them, you can see the edges of the animation cels, and read the set-up information on them. In some cases you can also see where the drawing ends and the the paint and outlines just sort of blob out on the cel. It would depend on who directed the sequence, and how the shots were framed and photographed.

The 4x3 video transfer (made for no reason but to fill a 4x3 TV screen) may show the entire frame, or it may zoom in a bit and catch whatever complete image there is top-to-bottom, cutting off image on the sides to maintain the 4x3 ratio.

The movie was made and intended to be shown in theaters at 1.66:1. I posted an image in another thread that showed that the distributor, United Artists, itself says that. (16x9 wasn't an aspect ratio that existed at that time.) Television would not have been a contributing factor in how the movie was made, because it would be years before it would be shown on TV, and the monetary return on TV sales was a pittance compared to theatrical.

Many people are looking at the issue through eyes influenced by decades of massive home video sales and viewing. That wasn't anything people who made movies thought about until the early eighties, at best. Before that, TV and non-theatrical markets were a very minor part of it all.

I totally understand the desire to see and hear as much as possible. It's just that the movie was composed and edited to look right at a particular aspect ratio. Many people have seen them the wrong way for so long that that's what feels right to them.

[Eric_Manchester]

Just because the full film frame on a movie is exposed, it doesn't mean it was intended to be exhibited that way. Here's an example of a live-action film that's composed for 1.85, but the entire frame has been exposed, since the makers knew it would be properly cropped for projection. Notice how much unused space there is at the top of the frame.

(The yellow line indicates 1.66, and the blue is 1.85.)



Here are some images from YELLOW SUBMARINE that show the same thing. In the first, the green line is 1.37, the yellow is 1.66, and the blue is 1.85.



I think the 1.37 comes uncomfortably close to showing the edge of the animation cel at the bottom of the frame.

The live action segment at the end is also composed for wide screen:



Again, look at the expanse of unused space at the top of screen, above Ringo:



This shows that the titles have been carefully kept inside a 1.66 area. If you check 1.37 movies, you'll find that's almost never the case. They spread out over the full frame.

[powerPC]

I totally understand the desire to see and hear as much as possible. It's just that the movie was composed and edited to look right at a particular aspect ratio. Many people have seen them the wrong way for so long that that's what feels right to them.

Well said Eric Manchester

[Venny]

Just because the full film frame on a movie is exposed, it doesn't mean it was intended to be exhibited that way. Here's an example of a live-action film that's composed for 1.85, but the entire frame has been exposed, since the makers knew it would be properly cropped for projection. Notice how much unused space there is at the top of the frame.

(The yellow line indicates 1.66, and the blue is 1.85.)



Here are some images from YELLOW SUBMARINE that show the same thing. In the first, the green line is 1.37, the yellow is 1.66, and the blue is 1.85.



I think the 1.37 comes uncomfortably close to showing the edge of the animation cel at the bottom of the frame.

The live action segment at the end is also composed for wide screen:



Again, look at the expanse of unused space at the top of screen, above Ringo:



This shows that the titles have been carefully kept inside a 1.66 area. If you check 1.37 movies, you'll find that's almost never the case. They spread out over the full frame.

While I agree that most live-action films should be shown exclusively in their intended aspect ratios I think animation if shot on 35mm that exposes more than the 1:66:1 aspect ratio then a 4:3 alternate should be something included. Take for example Transformers The Movie released by Shout Factory. Despite the movie being intended to be shown in 1:85:1 was given an alternate Full Frame disc. This is because the movie was viewed by so many people in the 1:33:1 format that most people find viewing ideal since it was so common for home video viewing in the 80s-90s. Yellow Submarine never had a true 1:66:1 format release until 1999 when the DVD/LD re-release came out. Most people experienced the film on TV in 1:33:1 or in 1:33:1 on VHS. It's why I think for animated features releasing an alternate "full-frame" version is a great alternate viewing experience because it not only offers newcomers to a movie an alternate framing, but for those who grew up in the VHS and 4:3 era you get to experience the nostalgia of viewing a formatted version of a movie.

[Eric_Manchester]

Exactly. In some ways it's more a nostalgia thing, or the desire to see what's familiar after decades of watching improperly transferred open-matte versions. This also reflects the pervasive home-video-centered view that I think a lot of people fall into, maybe without realizing it. The reality is that when YELLOW SUBMARINE was released in 1968, most people experienced the film in its proper 1.66 (or maybe 1.85, if the cinema wasn't properly equipped).

As I noted in this post:

viewtopic.php?p=27460#p27460

YELLOW SUBMARINE was first shown on television in the United States on 29 October 1972. It didn't show on TV in the UK until 15 April 1974. Even then, it would be some time, often years, before it would run on television again. (I watched that 1972 broadcast, and recall just how special and rare it was.)

How movies would look on television was simply not a concern for those making them in those years. At the time, the way most people would see a movie, from original release and for the foreseeable future, was in a cinema. Television was a minor consideration, only of interest to the distibutor as a small additional source of revenue.

Later in the mid-eighties, after a robust home video market developed, and after new cable channels arose that ran movies on television, the makers of movies began to consider framing non-anamorphic movies in a way that they would look acceptable with an open-matte transfer. Even then, a bunch of movies were still made that totally don't work with open-matte. Open-matte releases persisted because it was thought that people wouldn't understand letterboxing, and would complain if their TV screens weren't completely filled with picture. I've been involved with many movies that had a contractual requirement to deliver a 4x3 version for home video and other TV use, regardless of the theatrical versions preferred by the makers of the movies. Over the years, that's gone away, thankfully.

The example of the TRANSFORMERS movie is a good one. It was developed as a television property in 1984, well into the era of widespread distribution of movies on cable and videocassette. It would make sense for a movie made in 1986, widely expected to have a strong post-cinema life (and an extension of a TV property), to be composed to also work on 4x3 TV screens. The 4x3 version of the movie was released in 1987 to home video when letterboxing was virtually unknown.

It's only after the massive spread of home video that the open-matte version of YELLOW SUBMARINE was widely seen. The fact that it took until 1999 for it to be released in the form it was originally intended doesn't mean that the 4x3 release was correct before that. As I said above, people got so used to seeing it incorrectly that they felt that was right, and that they were being cheated of something when the proper presentation was finally being done on home video. In cinemas, it had always been shown as it was intended.

It's always fun to see (and hear) more, but do it with the understanding that full-frame is not how the people who made it intended audiences to experience it. You're not seeing more of what they wanted you to see, you're just seeing more. It can be revealing sometimes, in interesting ways. We shouldn't be upset when the official video release is at the intended aspect ratio, any more than we'd be upset that re-issues of the albums don't include count-downs and between-take chat.

(I'm not saying that you're upset, but I've seen others get that way regarding more recent, properly-transferred video releases.)

[Eric_Manchester]

As a little side note, there was also a very small non-theatrical market, in which people could rent 16mm copies of movies to screen for organizations or at home. Those would have been full-frame reduction prints, and shown full-frame, since 16mm didn't have the ability to properly mask prints for projection. Audiences watching those would have seen the full frame. If anyone has the Philip Di Franco book of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, I strongly suspect the stills reproduced there came from a 16mm print. Published in 1977, it was an indispensable volume in the days before home video. It may also have contributed to the idea that the movie was 4x3, though.

[AllTogetherNow]

Amazing, really amazing.

Would you by chance have the ISBN number of that 77 publication awailable.

Regards
ATN

[thewarpedvinyljunkie]

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140047867
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140047868

And you might want to see this:

[AllTogetherNow]

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140047867
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140047868

And you might want to see this:

Thanks

Regards
ATN

[rainy]

Thank you Venny for this version. I will enjoy rewatching this asap. Is there a problem with my download? This should have sound shouldn't it?
The picture is fine but i can't see any way to get sound. It takes me a long time to download a file this size so maybe something went wrong?