How to change the aspect ratio during the film

Question

So I want to start the film with a 2.35:1, and I want it to change to 16x9 during one take.

How can I do that?

Do I put black bars on it and remove them at the right moment? Any help is much appreciated.

(my camera records at 16x9)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Putting black bars on the top and the bottom of your frame looks like you changed your aspect-ratio, but really you didn't. All you did was put black bars on top of a 16x9 video. One way of doing this is to record in 2.35:1 and slowly zoom into your footage until the left and right part is cut out. Alternatively, you can just put black bars on your footage but let me tell you from personal experience: any half-way trained eye will look at it and say yuck.

Answer 2

A proportion, 2.35:1 or 16:9 is only part of the story. The real thing is to count the pixels.

Another thing is to preview a scene on a display and another one is to actually have the proportion recorded. So, let us address the different aspects of the recording.

I do not know why you want to do it during the recording. If you want an accurate representation of the proportion, yes, you could simply add some soft sticky tape (magic scotch tape or some insulating tape that leaves no residues, and softened taping it into some cloth)

But your camera still will record on the proportion it can record. Period.

You could record at 4k and crop it later on post pro.

Or you could get some anamorphic lenses, put it on your camera, record at 16:9 but change the project settings on the editing to use rectangular pixels, so the 16:9 is then reproduced at a wider aspect ratio.