How come directors prefer to shoot in predetermined aspect ratios?

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Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
What I mean, when you watch a movie nowadays, directors always seem to want to shoot in aspect ratios that have already been created. It's usually either 1.85:1 or 2.39:1, but some director's prefer to shoot in 2.76:1 like for The Hateful Eight or Rogue One, or one director chose to go back to 2.20:1 for Tomorrowland.

These aspect ratios were already created for movies of the past, going back to the 60s. But why do directors still follow those same aspect ratios, when they can just make up their own to shoot in, whatever they think is best to tell their story?

Why are they still choosing to shoot in traditional ones all the time?



You've asked a similar question to this already.


It's industry standards.
Lenses, screens, film, digital recordings, all of it, are all set to a standard rectangle... give or take a little leeway in height and width, but there's a standard that matches all ratios.


If someone decided to make up a random ratio, say, making an image super tall and only an inch wide, no cinema screen or television would be able to fit it.



If the question is more why aren't there different aspect ratios invented today I would suggest perhaps because you have such a large system of multiplex's setup to operate in a certain fashion as well as home TV's.

Often the choices these days seem to depend on relation to older films such as Edwards shooting Rogue One in the equivalent of Super Panavision the same as Lawrence of Arabia



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Oh okay, I thought Lawrence of Arabia was shot in 2.20:1 though.

The reason why I asked is because I wanted to make my own short films, and I also asked in film school and they said I could shoot in whatever aspect ratio I wanted and it's the filmmakers choice, as long as I don't get too wild of course. But wonder if that's actually true, and maybe their are standard ones I need to abide by. I asked some film festivals as well, and they said they weren't sure as they are just so use to 16:9, 1.85:1 and 2.39:1, but they are not sure on any other format.



Your right actually Rogue One was shot with Ultra Panavision lenses although again your talking a legacy of films like Khartoum exploiting the very wide format exploiting similar kinds of landscapes.