Ratio of screen width to height — 1.85:1 or 2.39:1 standard. Format determines what composition reveals or hides.
Screen Aspect Ratio
The screen aspect ratio determines which slice of the world you show the viewer — and this is a creative decision that must be made long before shooting. While photography often thinks in square or portrait formats, cinema always works in landscape. The standard in commercial cinema is between 1.85:1 (the American standard format) and 2.39:1 (the so-called Scope or Anamorphic format). In between, there's also 1.78:1, which is 16:9, the television format — but streaming platforms are also using this now. The choice radically determines your composition: in the wide 2.39:1 format, you have a lot of space on the sides, which is valuable for landscapes, chase scenes, or spatially complex scenes. In the narrower 1.85:1, you work closer to the subject, the composition becomes more intimate.
On set, the format plays its first practical role: the camera must be calibrated for it, and in pre-production (storyboards, previsualization), you already calculate where light, set, and actors will be placed. Many cinematographers deliberately shoot with overscan — you film slightly wider than the final format — so that you have room to maneuver in the edit. This gives you flexibility if the composition needs to be readjusted in the cutting room. Some films even consciously switch formats: early scenes in 1.85:1, later flashbacks or dream sequences in 4:3 — this immediately creates a psychological difference for the audience.
The so-called Pillar Box effect (black bars at the top and bottom) occurs when a wide format is played on a television screen. This is an issue for the mastering phase: you need to know if your film will later be mastered for home video or streaming, and whether cropping or pillar boxing is acceptable there. Some cinematographers already film with the doubled format in mind — so that both versions can exist later without significant loss of quality. A brutal, but practical solution.
The format is not abstract — it is material. It determines how faces appear next to landscapes, how closely you frame a relationship, or how lost a character looks in their environment. You make the choice with the director early on. And in the camera viewfinder, you see daily whether you are reading it correctly.