i think i might be one of 'those young kids... with their drugs, cameraphones, 
crazy lingo' being referred to (i'm probably a little older than your students, 
though). 

i'd put forward the idea that the automatic bias against 4:3 is for one reason, 
and one reason only: DV. 

as a filmmaker i'm fine with 4:3 when it's super8 or 16, but for video... no 
way! (i'm excluding slightly more unusual things like film scans, or purely 
artificial digital formats like square video frames or HD 4:3, which vimeo 
shows but no camera can shoot)

if you grew up in the 80s/90s, and weren't working with analogue film, then 4:3 
means DV. it looks like shit because it is shit... it's so shit that it even 
crosses any kind of analogue/digital debate divide. no-one who raves about 
digital ever seems to stick up for pointlessly-slightly-anamorphised pixels, 
interlacing, having about three stops of latitude, not to mention the truly 
awesome array of 'effects' in DV editing packages - they seem to prefer HD 16:9 
for some reason. 

i always used to use 16:9 anamorphic, deinterlaced DV when i used those 
cameras, as it's a sort of halfway house (a nod to the fact that you don't want 
to be using DV, but you're a broke teenager). basically though, it's pretty 
terrible. nowadays when i use it, i like to make use of all the shittiness 
(ramp up the blocking, make use of the interlacing, get some bleeding and 
artifacting going on). maybe the argument to be had with the kids is that that 
stuff is now retro and therefore COOL. make them watch some early bike videos 
(or experimental skate or surf videos!) and they'll surely agree. i'd have 
thought this was the only line to pursue really, as they're all gonna have 
cameraphones/home video that shoots HD 16:9 anyway

edwin


oh... the one technical thing that was ever any good about DV was the sound, of 
course. 4-channel 48khz and no compression - amazing! HD camcorders and DSLRs 
are shockingly poor in comparison



Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:33:24 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Frameworks] 16:9 vs 4:3


Rob, I'm suprised at you! Ridiculous question! All paintings should obviously 
be A4 as is the standard, or A3 for larger works at a push!

Anything else and it's just going to be incompatible with the photocopiers!

love

Freya


                                          
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