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Originally posted by: Arnie.d
Isn't every film shot in widescreen?
Actually not really. The most common type of film stocks are in the essentially 4:3 ratio. Take for instance 35mm film stock- there is no difference (other than audio tracks) between 35mm *movie* stock and 35mm *still* stock. What filmmakers generally do is only compose their shots in the center area of the frame. Some cameras physically block the top and bottom of the screen and others shoot the whole image only to be cropped later. In the latter case when a film is composed for widescreen there might be things off-frame that the director does not want to be seen (there's a bit in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure in which he pulls a unrealistically but humourously long chain out of his bicycle's cargo box- shown in widescreen the effect works but the 'fullscreen' version allows you to see that the bottom of the box is hollow and the chain is being pulled up from off camera, thus ruining thr image.) OAR traditionally was a matter of *choice* rather than size of film stock. In fact as rare as it is, some film directors actually *choose* to use the whole film frame for composition even though they know that in theaters some of the image will be lost! Stanly Kubrick did just that in 'The Shining'. That is why the director-authorized DVD of 'The Shining' is 4:3... Kubrick uses the entire frame effectively to convey mood instead of just leaving useless space at the top and bottom.
Of course there are a gazillion exceptions to what I've said, as I'm sure many people will point out.
The nutshell is that the Ewok movies were probably shot 35mm (or at least no more than 70mm) and in that UK theartical run the image would have been cropped down to fit the cinema screen. Sorta the same but opposite of how we understand Pan and Scan and fullscreen movie releases.
