History Main / PanAndScan

Because of how ubiquitous Pan and Scan was and how much of a problem it was for both videophiles and filmmakers, many directors adopted the practice of shooting movies in "Open Matte" format, in which a film is shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio but designed to be cropped to a widescreen format in the theater. Thus, movies could be screened to audiences in an intended widescreen format, but be un-cropped on both TV broadcasts and home media releases without needing to be given the Pan and Scan treatment. The most notable director to make use of this technique was Creator/StanleyKubrick, who used it for [[Film/BarryLyndon his]] [[Film/TheShining last]] [[Film/FullMetalJacket four]] [[Film/EyesWideShut movies]] (as they were produced when VHS had already become commonplace and even mandated in his will that open matte transfers be used for posthumous home media releases just to prevent any horizontal detail from being lost. Later home media releases made after the mass adoption of widescreen at home reverted back to a widescreen-friendly aspect ratio.

Pan and Scan started to decline in [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], with UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} credited with killing it off for good[[note]]Pan and Scan [=DVDs=] exist, but were only made in the early days of the format. DVD has an anamorphic widescreen mode, which is the innovation that killed Pan and Scan. The way it works is that a movie can letterboxed to 16:9 instead of 4:3, which provides more pixels to the movie and fewer to the letterbox. It is [[VisualCompression squeezed into the 720x480 resolution of the DVD]], with the player unsqueezing it for playback[[/note]] As it is with acceptance of [[AspectRatio 16:9]] screens[[note]]16:9 was chosen as a compromise ratio. 4:3 and Cinemascope, the two most common extremes in aspect ratio, will both take up 75% of the screen when {{letterbox}}ed.[[/note]] and the fact that both formats are priced the same, pan and scan has seriously declined in popularity, with letterboxing being seen as more "classy"—plus, it doesn't lop off the rest of the screen.

Because of how ubiquitous Pan and Scan was and how much of a problem it was for both videophiles and filmmakers, many directors adopted the practice of shooting movies in "Open Matte" format, in which a film is shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio but designed to be cropped to a widescreen format in the theater. Thus, movies could be screened to audiences in an intended widescreen format, but be un-cropped on home media releases without needing to be given the Pan and Scan treatment. The most notable director to make use of this technique was Creator/StanleyKubrick, who used it for [[Film/BarryLyndon his]] [[Film/TheShining last]] [[Film/FullMetalJacket four]] [[Film/EyesWideShut movies]] (as they were produced when VHS had already become commonplace and even mandated in his will that open matte transfers be used for posthumous home media releases just to prevent any horizontal detail from being lost. Later home media releases made after the mass adoption of widescreen at home reverted back to a widescreen-friendly aspect ratio.

This practice was common in TheEighties and TheNineties when movies were released on [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS and Betamax]] and [=TVs=] had smaller screens. UsefulNotes/LaserDisc used to be primarily Pan and Scan, too, but starting in the late '80s, it started releasing {{letterbox}} versions of every widescreen film available. It was seen as the premium format of movie buffs and A/V geeks. This practice is still used today for some films when shown on TV channels, though letterbox movies on TV are more common than they used to be thanks to the advent of UsefulNotes/HighDefinition.

Since the pan looks entirely unlike a camera move, it can be very jarring for the viewer. Pan and Scan also has minor troubles whenever it encounters a WidescreenShot in a movie, having to pan across it or picking one little part. With the growing acceptance of the 16:9 (or '{{letterbox}}') ratio, publishers have differentiated the formats with pan and scan being marketed as "fullscreen" while letterboxed editions are "widescreen" (though as of 2017, you'll only find fullscreen films to purchase in store discount bins for stock manufactured at least a decade ago and still not sold).

Pan and Scan started to decline in [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], with UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} credited with killing it off for good[[note]]Pan and Scan [=DVDs=] exist, but were only made in the early days of the format. DVD has an anamorphic widescreen mode, which is the innovation that killed Pan and Scan. The way it works is that a movie can letterboxed to 16:9 instead of 4:3, which provides more pixels to the movie and fewer to the letterbox. It is [[VisualCompression squeezed into the 720x480 resolution of the DVD]], with the player unsqueezing it for playback[[/note]] As it is with acceptance of [[AspectRatio 16:9]] screens[[note]]16:9 was chosen as a compromise ratio. 4:3 and Cinemascope, the two most common extremes in aspect ratio, will both take up 75% of the screen when {{letterbox}}ed.[[/note]] and the fact that both formats are priced the same, pan and scan has seriously declined in popularity, with letterboxing being seen as more "classy"—plus, it doesn't lop off the rest of the screen. More recently some widescreen films have also chosen to release "Open Matte" presentations on home video that don't crop any of the image from the theatrical aspect ratio, but rather add more image to the top and bottom.

For many directors, this is something of a minor (or major) BerserkButton, since this means a technician has to, according to some, redirect the film, and will frequently lose either important details, or the ambiance of a scene or a whole movie. Creator/TurnerClassicMovies (TCM) made a quick [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m1-pP1-5K8 documentary]] with several famous directors talking about the downside of pan and scan (it's only 5 minutes, give it a watch).

Pan and Scan started to decline in [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], with UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} credited with killing it off for good[[note]]Pan and Scan [=DVDs=] exist, but were only made in the early days of the format. DVD has an anamorphic widescreen mode, which is the innovation that killed Pan and Scan. The way it works is that a movie can letterboxed to 16:9 instead of 4:3, which provides more pixels to the movie and fewer to the letterbox. It is [[VisualCompression squeezed into the 720x480 resolution of the DVD]], with the player unsqueezing it for playback[[/note]] As it is with acceptance of [[AspectRatio 16:9]] screens[[note]]16:9 was chosen as a compromise ratio. 4:3 and Cinemascope, the two most common extremes in aspect ratio, will both take up 75% of the screen when {{letterbox}}ed.[[/note]] and the fact that both formats are priced the same, pan and scan has seriously declined in popularity, with letterboxing being seen as more "classy"—plus, it doesn't lop off the rest of the screen. More recently some widescreen films have also chosen to release "OpenMatte" presentations on home video that don't crop any of the image from the theatrical aspect ratio, but rather add more image to the top and bottom.

Contrast {{Letterbox}}, OpenMatte, VisualCompression, and WidescreenShot.

Pan and Scan started to decline in [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000s]], with UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} credited with killing it off for good[[note]]Pan and Scan [=DVDs=] exist, but were only made in the early days of the format. DVD has an anamorphic widescreen mode, which is the innovation that killed Pan and Scan. The way it works is that a movie can letterboxed to 16:9 instead of 4:3, which provides more pixels to the movie and fewer to the letterbox. It is [[VisualCompression squeezed into the 720x480 resolution of the DVD]], with the player unsqueezing it for playback[[/note]] As it is with acceptance of [[AspectRatio 16:9]] screens[[note]]16:9 was chosen as a compromise ratio. 4:3 and Cinemascope, the two most common extremes in aspect ratio, will both take up 75% of the screen when {{letterbox}}ed.[[/note]] and the fact that both formats are priced the same, pan and scan has seriously declined in popularity, with letterboxing being seen as more "classy"—plus, it doesn't lop off the rest of the screen. More recently some widescreen films have also chosen to release "open matte" presentations on home video that don't crop any of the image from the theatrical aspect ratio, but rather add more image to the top and bottom.

Contrast {{Letterbox}}, VisualCompression, WidescreenShot.

* The Fullscreen DVD of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' shows the IMAX scenes in open matte, while the scenes filmed in 35mm are pan and scan.

* Some scenes in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' were filmed in anamorphic widescreen and intentionally panned and scanned for their TV presentations. They include shots in which special effects couldn't be rendered on a moving camera shot, and one scene in ''[[StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E16IfWishesWereHorses If Wishes Were Horses]]'' in which Dax interacts with her ''Main/{{Doppelganger}}'', to make it look more convincing.

* The HD remasters of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil Remake'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' use vertical cropping and tilt & scan in their widescreen modes, which can obscure important objects. Luckily, the original 4:3 display is still available.

This practice was common in TheEighties and TheNineties when movies were released on [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS and Betamax]] and [=TVs=] had smaller screens. UsefulNotes/LaserDisc used to be primarily Pan and Scan, too, but starting in the '90s, it started releasing {{letterbox}} versions of every widescreen film available. It was seen as the premium format of movie buffs and A/V geeks. This practice is still used today for some films when shown on TV channels, though letterbox movies on TV are more common than they used to be thanks to the advent of UsefulNotes/HighDefinition.

** In the 1980s and 1990s, many directors and directors of photography avoided pan-and-scan by shooting in the Super 35 format, which exposed a large non-anamorphic 4:3 image on the film, and the theatrical 2.35 print was created by cropping the top and bottom of the frame. The camera negative was still 4:3 though and was (mostly) well-composed, so creating a version for TV was as easily as simply not cropping the original image.
*** One side effect of Super 35 is a precipitous increase in {{visible boom mic}}s and matte boxes in television airings of 80s films; boom mics that had been framed-out on the 2.35 print suddenly became visible when the frame was embiggened. The Creator/{{BBC}}'s broadcasts of ''Film/JawsTheRevenge'' in the late-1990s/early-2000s led to some especially bad {{Special Effect Failure}}s; in the scene where the shark chases after Michael, audiences can now clearly see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbv9IybXyKQ a pole sticking out of the beast's chest in every other shot!]]

* Inverted with most of the earlier animated films by Creator/{{Pixar}} (later films, such as ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' are all shown only in widescreen): Rather than cropping the edges and showing only the major elements of their films, they actually moved certain characters and objects either toward the center of the screen or off to the side in order to preserve the film's original quality.

* The Spanish Blu-Ray of ''Film/HighlanderTheSource'' proves that this trope lives on in the HD era, cropping the 2.35:1 image to 1.78:1, on top of heavy compression that would be unforgivable for a single-layer DVD.

* The DVD release of ''FIlm/{{Spaceballs}}'' is a "flipper" disc with the original widescreen version on one side and the pan-and-scanned 4:3 version on the other. It includes a paper insert that educates the viewer on the difference and implores them to watch the widescreen version, using a screenshot of the characters skipping four abreast in a visual ShoutOut to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' as an example of the sort of gag that's ruined when the two characters on either side are cropped out of the picture. All widescreen [=DVDs=] released by Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer during this time have similar inserts.

* Some scenes in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' were filmed in anamorphic widescreen and intentionally panned for their TV presentations. They include shots in which special effects couldn't be rendered on a moving camera shot, and one scene in ''[[StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E16IfWishesWereHorses If Wishes Were Horses]]'' in which Dax interacts with her ''Main/{{Doppelganger}}'', to make it look more convincing.

Since the pan looks entirely unlike a camera move, it can be very jarring for the viewer. With the growing acceptance of the 16:9 (or '{{letterbox}}') ratio, publishers have differentiated the formats with pan and scan being marketed as "fullscreen" while letterboxed editions are "widescreen" (though as of 2017, you'll only find fullscreen films to purchase in store discount bins for stock manufactured at least a decade ago and still not sold).

As it is with acceptance of more rectangle-proportioned screens and the fact that both formats are priced the same, pan and scan has seriously declined in popularity, with letterboxing being seen as more "classy"—plus, it doesn't lop off the rest of the screen. More recently some widescreen films have also chosen to release "open matte" presentations on home video that don't crop any of the image from the theatrical aspect ratio, but rather add more image to the top and bottom.

* The initial home video release of ''Film/TheBlackHole'' was pan-and-scanned to anamorphic 1.85:1 as opposed to 1.33:1, leaving small black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' has a particularly annoying case of this in its DVD release, especially because it touted its letterbox format and beautiful, sweeping panorama-esque sets as something of a selling point. The worst case of this is a couple of dialogue scenes, for example the discussion between Rourke and Helga discuss the difference to the plan to sell the Heart of Atlantis, where the camera has to very awkwardly cut back-and-forth between two people ''standing right next to each other''.

* Played straight with most Disney animated films, but inverted in ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'' where the film actually starts out in fullscreen, but switches to widescreen just right after Kenai turns into a bear.

** Creator/CartoonNetwork's mid-to-late 2000s shows were made this way except most reruns, [=DVD=]s and streaming services keep the 4:3 version making it hard to find the original 16:9 version. Most of those shows that are available on Creator/HBOMax made in HD are presented in the original format.

** Creator/CartoonNetwork's mid-to-late 2000s shows were made this way except most reruns, DVDs and streaming services keep the 4:3 version making it hard to find the original 16:9 version. Most of those shows that are available on Creator/HBOMax made in HD are presented in the original format.

* Creator/WarnerBrosAnimation's shows from the 2000s were made specifically to avert this. The animation team had monitors with 4:3 and 16:9 safe areas so they wouldn't crop off important elements like characters. When most television networks started using HD feeds, the team switched to monitors without 4:3 safe areas effectively getting rid of the old monitors by TheNewTens. Recent reruns of some of the shows (mainly shows like ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' and the earlier ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' and ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' [[WesternAnimation/TomAndJerryDirectToVideoFilmSeries DTV]] [[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooDirectToVideoFilmSeries Films]]) are in the original 16:9 aspect ratio, as are the Blu-ray releases and the versions on streaming services.

* Creator/WarnerBrosAnimation's shows from the 2000s were made specifically to avert this. They had monitors with 4:3 and 16:9 safe areas so they wouldn't crop off important elements like characters or visual gags.

* Sadly, upon 16:9 [=TVs=] coming into popular use, some presentations of material originally filmed for 4:3 sets is now being cropped ''the other way'' on HDTV channels (tilt and scan). Victims of this process for UsefulNotes/BluRay include ''Series/{{Thunderbirds}}'' and at least one edition of the classic documentary series ''The World at War'' (a subsequent release restored the 4:3 ratio). Justified for movies that premiered in theaters with mattes covering the top and bottom of the picture, such as ''Film/{{Shane}}'' and ''Disney/TheJungleBook''. Creator/TheCriterionCollection's ''Film/OnTheWaterfront'' DVD and Blu-ray sets include the option to watch the movie in either matted widescreen or 4:3, and a "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-aMi4Rr-4 visual essay]]" comparing them.

* Played straight with most Disney animated films, but inverted in ''Disney/BrotherBear'' where the film actually starts out in fullscreen, but switches to widescreen just right after Kenai turns into a bear.

* ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' has a particularly annoying case of this in its DVD release, especially because it touted its letterbox format and beautiful, sweeping panorama-esque sets as something of a selling point. The worst case of this is a couple of dialogue scenes, for example the discussion between Rourke and Helga discuss the difference to the plan to sell the Heart of Atlantis, where the camera has to very awkwardly cut back-and-forth between two people ''standing right next to each other''.

*** Inverted regarding widescreen releases of the classic ''Dragon Ball'' films: while they were originally animated in 4:3 for TV broadcasts, they were composed to still work when cropped to a widescreen aspect ratio, which is how they were screened in cinemas. Toei did the same for the ''Anime/SailorMoon R'' and ''Sailor Moon S'' movies.

** Starting in the late 1950s, and proceeding through at least the '70s, movies that premiered in 1.37:1 became re-released in theaters with the top and bottom cropped to simulate a widescreen picture.

* The [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]] Cinema Classics MadeOnDemand DVD service has made an unpleasantly surprising effort to revive this practice. DVD Talk gives automatic "[[http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list.php?adviceStart=5&adviceEnd=5&orderBy=Date&reviewType=All&searchText=fox+cinema+archives&movieStart=0&movieEnd=0&NReviews=50&___rd=1 Skip It]]" ratings to most of these discs, insisting that no good reason exists for a DVD released in TheNewTens to have its widescreen picture cropped to 1.33:1.

* Sadly, upon 16:9 [=TVs=] coming into popular use, some presentations of material originally filmed for 4:3 sets is now being cropped ''the other way'' on HDTV channels (pan and tilt). Victims of this process for UsefulNotes/BluRay include ''Series/{{Thunderbirds}}'' and at least one edition of the classic documentary series ''The World at War'' (a subsequent release restored the 4:3 ratio). Justified for movies that premiered in theaters with mattes covering the top and bottom of the picture, such as ''Film/{{Shane}}'' and ''Disney/TheJungleBook''. Creator/TheCriterionCollection's ''Film/OnTheWaterfront'' DVD and Blu-ray sets include the option to watch the movie in either matted widescreen or 4:3, and a "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-aMi4Rr-4 visual essay]]" comparing them.

* The HD remasters of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil Remake'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' use vertical cropping and pan & tilt in their widescreen modes, which can obscure important objects.