30.7.11

Be Careful When Framing Your Shots

This isn't advice that's incredibly useful any more - the primacy of widescreen televisions has largely eliminated the need for panning and scanning. Still, it's interesting to see examples of a time when people didn't think too long or hard about what was going to show up in the frame when the conversion was made from widescreen to fullscreen.

Let's use Jason Goes to Hell as an illustrative example, shall we?



This is Jason tossing a hero aside like so much refuse. Note the distance between Jason and that bush to his left. Moments after this occurs, a heroine uses the bush as a springboard to jump onto Jason's back.




Notice that the bush is now both closer to Jason, and concealing a stepladder. Something else has been added to the scene, however-



A big crash mat! This allows Jason to violently throw her off, without injuring the actress at all!



This expanded frame also creates a fun little continuity error that wasn't present in the original version. While the film shows the heroine being tossed into the dirt-



A cut back to Jason reveals that no-



She remained on her comfortable blue mat during the whole ordeal.

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