Memory AND because I have a VHS of the original broadcast, also watched it as it first aired.
And it is possible that they only produced the sfx in 4:3 (why on earth is beyond me), yet filmed the entire show in 16:9 to be enlarged to take up a 4:3 monitor.
Interesting fact for what I'm saying: if you watched the 4:3 full screen version of Austin Powers (1st one) you can see where some of the sfx in regards to the "Big Boy" are actually cropped (top and bottom of shots are invisibly missing), even though the image is full screen. Now if you would go and watch said scene on the widescreen version those same scenes are now cropped to 16:9 and you cannot tell anything is wrong, other than some screen information is missing on the top and bottom since you had watched it first in the full screen 4:3 image (it would now have a black bar across the top and bottom.)
I have a feeling they filmed the miniseries in wide but the sfx department ONLY produced the sfx in full 4:3, not compensating for the fact that it may be rereleased in the future in it's wide 16:9 original aspect, therefore the said scenes with the sfx needed to be "blown up" for the widescreen release. I hope your still following. Too bad we can't get someone who worked on the visual sfx to comment on this, that would be great!
reply
share