Loved this piece Raquel! For book club I recently read Ted Chiang's short story collection Exhalation. One of the stories, The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, is about a world in which humans wear a camera at all times, creating a "lifelog" that they can refer back to. The piece discusses how this technology changes how people view themselves and their lives, how they communicate and how the concept of memory has changed and may continue to change. The story left me with the same sense of dread that reading the "mmrse" anecdote did.
ah that sounds fantastic and also reminds me of that black mirror episode where people can watch back their memories in place of experiencing any new ones!
I commented on your TikTok but: As someone who has worked in post for years and cropped shows into 9:16 for phones etc. this piece is so important! Loved your thoughts on this.
And to answer your question: There are definitely folks cropping shows into all sorts of formats. Even feature films made today need to do what's called a "Pan and Scan", an antiquated term for sitting with an editor and cropping a widescreen film down to 4:3 or another aspect ratio for international delivery etc. Most major distributors require that -- yes, even in 2024!
Conversely, most TV shows in the 2000s were filmed wide and "pan & scanned" down to 4:3 for tv distribution. By the year 2000, everyone knew that widescreen would be coming down the pike. This is why shows like Gilmore Girls are streaming in widescreen, but originally aired in 4:3. The showrunners were aware and involved in making sure they shot for different aspect ratios.
Friends, however, started in the 90s, when they weren't sure if the show was ever going to be seen widescreen. They shot widescreen but, likely, the camera operators literally taped their monitors so they couldn't see the sides that were going to be cropped out. All in all, when they were shooting the show, there was no intention of Friends ever being shown in widescreen. In terms of versioning, what's even more insane to me is that Friends appears to have multiple DIFFERENT CUTS of the show floating around: Syndicated, non-syndicated, archival network editions, potentially more. People on the internet have found instances where Pheobe is saying the same line in the same episode but hitting completely different marks or having a different hairstyle etc.
To me, part of the delight of having popular TV shows and films is having a "shorthand" with others. I can say, "like Joey in Friends..." and many people will know what I mean. But if there are so many different versions of the show floating around.... do they really?
Not at all, this is FASCINATING and I so appreciate your comment! So eye-opening into the impact of ratios and how we can’t be sure we’re actually all watching and experiencing the same work in the same way.
Linked to the mrms story, one thing about social media that's really weighing on me is the earlier and earlier awareness of "audience" for these kids. How performative life and the awareness of being perceived on a wider scale than you or I were (growing up pre-instagram stories) will shape their actions at younger ages then ever before.
I’ve been aware of people using AI to mess around with classic artworks, but had no idea that studios/streamers were messing around with aspect ratios - that’s insane! would just love for everybody to accept a work of art as it is, rather than optimize it into oblivion
Loved this piece Raquel! For book club I recently read Ted Chiang's short story collection Exhalation. One of the stories, The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, is about a world in which humans wear a camera at all times, creating a "lifelog" that they can refer back to. The piece discusses how this technology changes how people view themselves and their lives, how they communicate and how the concept of memory has changed and may continue to change. The story left me with the same sense of dread that reading the "mmrse" anecdote did.
ah that sounds fantastic and also reminds me of that black mirror episode where people can watch back their memories in place of experiencing any new ones!
I commented on your TikTok but: As someone who has worked in post for years and cropped shows into 9:16 for phones etc. this piece is so important! Loved your thoughts on this.
And to answer your question: There are definitely folks cropping shows into all sorts of formats. Even feature films made today need to do what's called a "Pan and Scan", an antiquated term for sitting with an editor and cropping a widescreen film down to 4:3 or another aspect ratio for international delivery etc. Most major distributors require that -- yes, even in 2024!
Conversely, most TV shows in the 2000s were filmed wide and "pan & scanned" down to 4:3 for tv distribution. By the year 2000, everyone knew that widescreen would be coming down the pike. This is why shows like Gilmore Girls are streaming in widescreen, but originally aired in 4:3. The showrunners were aware and involved in making sure they shot for different aspect ratios.
Friends, however, started in the 90s, when they weren't sure if the show was ever going to be seen widescreen. They shot widescreen but, likely, the camera operators literally taped their monitors so they couldn't see the sides that were going to be cropped out. All in all, when they were shooting the show, there was no intention of Friends ever being shown in widescreen. In terms of versioning, what's even more insane to me is that Friends appears to have multiple DIFFERENT CUTS of the show floating around: Syndicated, non-syndicated, archival network editions, potentially more. People on the internet have found instances where Pheobe is saying the same line in the same episode but hitting completely different marks or having a different hairstyle etc.
To me, part of the delight of having popular TV shows and films is having a "shorthand" with others. I can say, "like Joey in Friends..." and many people will know what I mean. But if there are so many different versions of the show floating around.... do they really?
Wow, apologies for the wall of text. I could talk about this forever, clearly!
Not at all, this is FASCINATING and I so appreciate your comment! So eye-opening into the impact of ratios and how we can’t be sure we’re actually all watching and experiencing the same work in the same way.
Linked to the mrms story, one thing about social media that's really weighing on me is the earlier and earlier awareness of "audience" for these kids. How performative life and the awareness of being perceived on a wider scale than you or I were (growing up pre-instagram stories) will shape their actions at younger ages then ever before.
absolutely, and that shaping will happen both on their minds and on their media over time!
mrms!!! that is frightening
This was so informative!! Thank you for doing all this research and presenting it in such a digestible way!
I’ve been aware of people using AI to mess around with classic artworks, but had no idea that studios/streamers were messing around with aspect ratios - that’s insane! would just love for everybody to accept a work of art as it is, rather than optimize it into oblivion
totally, and then we’ll nostalgically look back in 50 years at how things looked before they were so smoothed out!