Would you pay full price to see half a movie? Probably not, but that's what millions of people do every day when they see a wide-screen movie like "The Terminator," "Ghostbusters" or "Top Gun" on videocassette.
Movie studios have long reasoned that, when it comes to TV, people want their entire screen filled, even if it means sacrificing as much as 43 percent of the filmed image.What happens is this: A film director makes a movie in a wide-screen process like Panavision, CinemaScope or Cinerama as a way to create a larger-than-life image with a screen that's more than twice as wide as it is high.
But television has a screen that's more square than rectangular, with an "aspect ratio" of about 1.34 to 1. So a computer process known as "panning and scanning" is used to transfer only the action in the center of the wide screen to television.
It can result in filmic chaos: entire characters are missing, cuts and camera pans appear where they're not supposed to and the picture seems too large.
"It makes a different movie," says Robert Wise, the Academy Award-winning director of wide-screen classics like "The Sound of Music," "West Side Story" and "The Andromeda Strain."
"There's nothing more annoying than people being chopped off at the sides of the screen," Wise says. "We'd all like movies to be seen in the process they were shot in, but that's not always possible."
To compensate, many directors have begun to fight for their films to be "letterboxed" whenever possible. Letterboxing uses black bars on the top and bottom of the screen so the wide-screen image appears intact - even though it takes up only a portion of the TV screen.
"Of course, I always prefer people to see films for the first time in the movie house," Wise says. "But there are more and more films being put on in letterbox format, and that's very encour-aging."
Nevertheless, video dealers claim consumers have a sharp negative reaction to letterboxing because viewers feel they're missing something since the picture doesn't fill the entire screen.
"Most customers don't like it, and it's an interesting situation," says Ron Castell, senior vice president for programming and communications at Blockbuster Video. "The letterbox version gives you more of what was on the screen . . . but most people are used to a full screen on television."
Castell recalls a discussion with a man who had purchased a letterboxed copy of the 1955 Cinema-Scope classic, "Picnic."
"He told me it was defective," Castell said. "I told him you're getting more of the movie than you would on a pan-and-scan. But, still, nobody wants those bands at the top and bottom of the screen."
Maybe not nobody. A majority of new releases on laser disc are released in letterboxed versions (and are priced cheaper than tapes) and older titles like "Alien," "Chinatown" and "The Poseidon Adventure" - long available only in pan-and-scan versions - are being re-released in the letterbox format.
"Laser people tend to be heavily into the product, heavily into quality and they want to replicate the theatrical experience," Castell says, explaining why discs often are letterboxed but tapes are not.
As restorations and theatrical re-releases of movies like "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Spartacus" continue to prove popular and profitable, director Wise says moviegoers may realize what they're missing on a 25-inch TV screen and begin seeking out letterboxed versions to watch at home.
In the meantime, if you don't want to get stuck with a tape that's missing up to 43 percent of the original movie image, look on the tape packages to see if the movie is letterboxed. If it's not, ask if a letterboxed version is available - often film studios release two versions, though rental stores only pick up on the pan-and-scan.
The credits on tape packages also help tell the story: If the words "CinemaScope" or "Panavision" are listed in the credits, you'll know you've chosen a movie that's been lopped off on the sides.
When you watch your first letterboxed movie, the experience will take some getting used to, says Blockbuster's Castell. "But the fact of the matter is, if it's a good movie, after about 15 or 20 minutes you forget about the black bands and it doesn't matter anyway."VIDEO QUESTION
Q: I have an uncle in Ireland. A tape I made with my camcorder over there would not play on his VCR. When I got home, I had a two-hour tape "transferred" at a cost of $100 by a Philadelphia studio. Do you know of any outfits that are cheaper?
A: Television in Ireland uses the PAL electronic standard, which is different from the NTSC standard used here. The equipment and lab time needed to convert a tape from one to the other are expensive, and such studios are usually geared for high-volume work. I doubt you would find a much lower price for converting a single tape. - Andy Wickstrom (Knight-Ridder)