The structural and emotional gambits upon which cinema of the past and present is founded have their roots in a number of factors, not least of which is one curiously under appreciated cinematic element: aspect ratio. Tucked away in the further reaches of a project’s production details on IMDb or found alongside a runtime on your favorite streamer’s ‘About’ page or average Blu-Ray case, this term quite simply relays the dimensions of a displayed image in terms of the relationship between its width and height. Aspect ratios common to contemporary consumer displays include a rectangular 16:9 for most televisions, laptops, smartphones and monitors, a largely square 4:3 for older TVs and some tablets, the 3:2 ratio often seen in 2-in-1 computing devices and 21:9, which is employed on ultrawide monitors and many projector screens. Continue reading What are Aspect Ratios and Why Should We Care? →