Post #1176467

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• @ajroach42@retro.social 2026-04-15 15:37

  @Alien_Sunset@dice.camp @beadsland@beige.party @beandreams@friendhole.social I can't recall any specific writing or studies on the psychological or sociological impacts of these choices, but from a purely mechanical perspective it was usually a result of an anamorphic widescreen print being played back without an anamorphic lens. These movies were usually made on super 16mm with a specially designed lens to compress 16:9 framing into a 4:3 frame. That works great when you project it backwards through a reciprocal lens to reproduce the 16:9 framing, and looks funny when you don't. My understanding is that a lot of television networks and VHS purveyors of the 1970s and 1980s chose to show anamorphic stuff in 4:3 instead, not as an aesthetic choice but as a practical one. It was cheaper to do that than to properly pan and scan, and didn't require the specialized lens. It became the aesthetics of cheap, of trash, of Punk. And *that* is something that I could probably point you to more scholarship about if I took some time to dig but don't have anything off hand.

  Open ##1176466