S ince the Venoms films were particularly shot in anamorphic and are rectangular, and the television is basically square - there are a couple of ways to handle the transfer.

Notice how Full Frame stretches up and squeezes in the image.

Letterbox:
The first way and certainly the most preferred way. This version retains the entire image on the television screen by means of using the black bars on the top and bottom of the picture (at a ratio of 2.35:1 or 1.85:1). This is called "Letterbox" because it reminded some engineer years ago of looking through a mail slot.

You can tell without dialogue that you get some sense of the relationships and drama in the scene. That's just basic visual storytelling preserved by letterboxing the image. But there are some people who think the black bars indicate that they are losing picture or that it is somehow preferable to somehow have the image fill their TV screen. So in order to do that, we have to first zoom in on the film, to fill the top and bottom, which consequently crops off huge chunks of picture on the sides.

Colored Center is all you actually see in Full Frame.

Pan and Scan (Center Scanning):
The picture is blown up to full frame (1.33:1) and the film runs down the center of the scan. The problem we might have here is when the action is off to the left and right side of the picture. As a solution we need to do something called "Panning and Scanning" in order to follow the action.

"Panning and Scanning" is adding an artificial camera move that the director never intended. The scan makes a compromise in trying to follow the action. By doing so, you've actually ruined the director and cinematographer's original composition (What Chang Cheh officially defined as "Shawscope") in order that the audience doesn't lose the story of the movie. So in order to follow the action and the dialogue, we need to do some artificial "Panning and Scanning".

Place mouse over image to see "Pan and Scan" example.

Conclusion:
L ooking at the letterbox format, you can see how you don't feel uncomfortably close to the characters and action as you do in the Pan and Scan version. The wider frame is also aesthetically pleasing - allowing the audience to see how the characters and action move and relate within the scene. Moreover, when you enlarge the film to full screen, you lose half the image resolution and increase the grain in the film. So you can see how maintaining the aspect ratio of the film as it was originally shot has a major impact on the integrity and value of the film.

Finale Sequence in "Avenging Warriors" butchered to hell.

-VenomsFan
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