Red Riding: formats

There is some confusion over the broadcast formats of the the three Red Riding films, so I’ve taken a screen grab from each film and measured each image in terms of the pixel matrix to calculate the aspect ratio.

Andrew Garfield as the young reporter in Red Riding: 1974

I calculated this image to be 1086 x 608 pixels on my computer screen (it’s scaled down here) and that equates to a screen ratio of 1.79:1. I may be one or two pixels out given the way I use the grabbing software, but no more than that, so I’m fairly confident that the Channel 4 image is 1.78:1 , i.e. the standard 16:9 of the modern widescreen TV set.

Paddy Considine as Peter Hunter in Red Riding: 1980

The interview of the 'Wrong Man', Michael Myshkin in Red Riding: 1983

Using the same procedure on the grabs from 1980 and 1983, these came out as 1086 x 476, equating to a screen ratio of 2.28:1, which is slightly less than the cinema projection standard for CinemaScope of 2.35:1. I find this a bit strange. No doubt Channel 4 alienated a small proportion of viewers by showing the films in ‘Scope (especially given how murky 1980 becomes). But why compromise on 2.28? Why not 2:1 or the full 2.35? Is this in any way related to the use of Super 16 or the Red One digital camera? Or is this just Channel 4 ‘house style’? Of course, it could also be an issue to do with how the TV signal is broadcast or received. Mine came via cable, set to letterbox for my 4:3 TV set.

Zinedine Zidane: A Twenty-First Century Portrait

This is 90 minutes (of course) of sheer hell when I saw it – even for my football (if Burnley counts) consultant who I took with me – so boring, at times, that a collective gnawing of arms seemed tempting to suggest. However, it was interesting in its attempt to profile an iconic modern footballer (its release almost as fantastically timed as his head-butt to generate useful publicity).

The film-makers have art/arthouse credentials, and there is an intense focus on his every move, following throughout the match (Real Madrid/Villareal). He obliges the directors by being sent off near the end – but even this has a strangely passive quality that infects all the action, since he gets randomly involved in someone else’s argument.

It’s coming round to The Cornerhouse on 29th September. I’m definitely going to send any of my students who are thinking of doing the Sport and the Media research option (OCR, similar to AQA’s Independent Study) – not because I don’t like them (!) but because I think it has enormous potential for discussion as far as sport and celebrity is concerned. Having seen Sam Taylor-Wood’s portrait of Beckham in National Gallery (a really, far superior analysis of sports celebrities AND our relationship to them), the Zidane film is limited in its own ‘intelligence’ but something they can use as a case study.

I notice on imdb that it’s compared to ‘Football as Never before’ about George Best – I wonder whether there are any other useful companion pieces this new film could be put with?