Reasons to add cinematic bars?

[southwestform]

I use an A7S2 and an iPhone to shoot 4K and 1080p video intended for Youtube, so all of my footage is 16x9.

1. When would you add cinematic bars to the top and bottom of the video? Is this just for aesthetic purposes to make the video look more cinematic OR is there some technical reason for doing this?

2. Do you add the bars if you want to reposition the clip up or down to avoid the empty spots created from moving the footage?

Thanks.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Those black bars appear only if the material was framed and composed for Scope (widescreen) delivery.  You shoot it that way, so you deliver it that way.

If you didn't shoot it that way, you don't add them willy nilly.

[Meg The Dog]

Other than the belief that adding black bars to the top and bottom to imitate letterboxing makes the image appear more "cinematic", it will allow you to reframe the video vertically.

MtD

[southwestform]

What is the pixel size of the bars that should display at top and bottom if I want to make footage appear more cinematic?

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

It would depend on which Cinematic format you wanted to emulate.

From Resolution + Aspect Ratio Cheat Sheet for Most Used Film Formats – Film Storyboards

here is a list of current aspects in use, and their retained image pixel dimensions for 1080P letterboxing:

1.33:1 (4:3) / 1920×1440

1.66:1 (5:3) / 1920×1152

1.77:1 (16:9) / 1920×1080

1.85:1 / 1920×1038

2.35:1 / 1920×817

2.37:1 (RED Wide) / 1920×810

2.39:1 (referred to as 2.40) / 1920×803

2.40:1 (Blu-Ray) / 1920×800

2.44 / 1920×787

So if wanted to achieve a wide screen Panavision look, you would want to use 2.35:1 aspect ratio and mask out 1080 - 817= 263 pixels. You divide the 263 by 2 (top and bottom) and get 131.5 - so mask of the top 132 pixels and the bottom 132 pixels.

Although - you don't need to be that precise. You need to play around and get the look you want.

MtD