I visited my roommate at work on Thrusday as I was coming back from picking up my final paycheck from my last job. While waiting for him to finish so we could go home, I perused the cheap video rack at the front of the store. There I found a most remarkable item.

The original cut of "Blade Runner"--voiceover & all--on VHS for only $8.

Pan & Scan is where they fill the screen, but they can't just leave it like that. If they do, action might occasionally take place off the edge of the screen. If this happens, the camera "pans" across to make sure the action is always visible. Sometimes, a scene with two people on the edges will have "cuts" put in it, so the camera will cut form person to person as they talk.

For example, The American President. The first widescreen release of it was 1.85:1 (in other words, 1.85 units of measure long for every unit of measure tall). Now, this was both widescreen AND pan & scan, because The American President was filmed in 2.35:1, and was later released in that aspect ratio on VHS and DVD (couldn't tell ya' about LD, tho).

Now, for another oddity, Air Force One was filmed in 1.85:1, yet was letterboxed at 2.35:1. Don't ask me how they figured that one out ... Bad Boys was filmed at 1.33:1 (the same aspect ratio as a TV, BTW) and was letterboxed at 1.85:1. So in many cases, you've got cropping of the film itself (w/out any p&s) to make a film either letterboxed, or more so than it should be.

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: Jeff The Card ]

Are you sure about that Shik? All the mid-eighties films I've seen have bene pan scanned. To use an example people might get, watch ST II when the Reliant first approaches the Enterprise, you see the Reliant on the left hand side of the screen, and as the Enterprise comes into shot on the right, the camera "pans" across to get it fully into frame.

The second thing is really uncommon. In fact, the only instance I've heard of it is in Japanese Anime movies, which are filmed (drawn I suppose), to fit a 4:3 TV ratio, but have their tops and bottoms chopped off for thier initial cinema showing.

Their is a hybrid version, that applies to shows like Buffy, B5, and the X-Files. They are filmed in widescreen, but they are not filmed to be shown primarily in widescreen. That is, all the action takes place in the middle of the screen. That means that when it's shown at a 4:3 ratio they just chop of the sides, and nothing important is lost. When they show it in widescreen, we just see a bit more at the sides, but nothing vital. They are not pan & scanned, because they are essentially filmed at 4:3 films, with extra bits at the side, whereas widescreen films are filmed to be shown in widescreen, and have to be altered to make sense on TV.