Last night we watched The Dark Knight on Apple TV (it’s just as good the second time around), and noticed something new -- the aspect ratio occasionally switched from 2.4:1 (classic widescreen with the black bars) to 1.78:1 (which filled the entire display). Turns out that the 1.78:1 shots (mostly action sequences) were filmed with IMAX cameras, and for the home video release (at least on Blu-Ray and AppleTV) they kept the aspect ratio intact for those scenes. I guess we should have seen the movie in IMAX to begin with.
There’s a long and involved thread at AV Science Forum about the aspect ratio switch on the BluRay release, complete with a poll (“Should studios release movies with inconsistent aspect ratio switching?”). (My take? Yes. It totally worked.) And I’m sure this won’t be the last time we see this in action — Slashfilm had an item recently about Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan saying that he would love to shoot an entire feature with IMAX cameras.
When you rewatch this, note what they do with the sound when the aspect ratio switches. The way that the audio transitions take precedence over the visual transitions is a smart mind hack. I only noticed the second time we saw it - jammed towards the front of an IMAX theater.
Posted by: David Jacobs | Jan 02, 2009 at 03:31 PM
I'm still bummed I didn't see this in IMAX.
Posted by: finn | Jan 02, 2009 at 06:18 PM
Me too. And the thing about IMAX is that I doubt there will be revival houses or community IMAX theaters that show older releases and serve beer and pizza.
Posted by: Michael Sippey | Jan 02, 2009 at 09:12 PM
The movie is re-releasing in IMAX on Jan 23 (probably to generate some more timely oscar buzz). I saw it in IMAX the first time around and can't wait to see it again.
Posted by: Rahul | Jan 04, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Holy large screen, Batman! That's so great. Let's go see it.
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