Widescreen vs. Full Screen

I have to thank TCM for teaching me about the difference between widescreen and full screen.

I learned about a year ago something I never paid much attention to.

We all see on tv the screen turn black with a message before the movie starts saying "this movie has been formatted to fit your television".

I never quite understood what that meant...I always assumed they would take the movie and just make it the size for televisions without editing it at all.

Boy, was i wrong....

As it turns out, there is something called Pan and Scan.

In an attempt to make it formatted to fit your screen, they actually cut parts of a scene out, and just focus in on the more important parts. Most of us don't really notice it though because its not important.

Here are some examples of pan and scan.

Here is the TCM Pan and Scan video


I used to be crazy for full screen. I used to DESPISE widescreen version...but now I am starting to have an appreciation for it.

So thank you TCM for showing that short clip that was about Pan and Scan.