the dark knight and changing aspect ratios
Last night we watched The Dark Knight on Apple TV (it’s just as good the second time around), and noticed something new – the aspect ratio occasionally switched from 2.4:1 (classic widescreen with the black bars) to 1.78:1 (which filled the entire display). Turns out that the 1.78:1 shots (mostly action sequences) were filmed with IMAX cameras, and for the home video release (at least on Blu-Ray and AppleTV) they kept the aspect ratio intact for those scenes. I guess we should have seen the movie in IMAX to begin with.
There’s a long and involved thread at AV Science Forum about the aspect ratio switch on the BluRay release, complete with a poll (“Should studios release movies with inconsistent aspect ratio switching?”). (My take? Yes. It totally worked.) And I’m sure this won’t be the last time we see this in action — Slashfilm had an item recently about Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan saying that he would love to shoot an entire feature with IMAX cameras.