Am I correct with the following assertions

A Standard fullscreen movie takes a widescreen and crops the sides and remains central of the widescreen image

Pan & scan takes the same 4:3 image but will shift within the widescreen frame to keep the action relatively centered within the frame.


Either way, they are both a cropped widescreen image.

Is this correct?

And if so, is there a definitive source to find out the true nature of a 4:3 image?

Movies can be shot in several ways. If they have a 1.85 aspect ratio, they are shot a 1.37, then the top and bottom of the image are matted out when they are projected. A fullscreen version will just show the whole image. In certain shots, they will probably zoom in for various reasons. This could be to keep the shot from being too wide, to cover up stuff they don't want you to see, like maybe Jim Henson's arm.

If a movie is 2.35 it may be shot with anamorphic lenses, which squeeze the 2.35 image onto a 1.37 piece of film, then are unsqueezed at projection. There is no more image to open up, so for a fullscreen version, you have to just choose which part of the frame you want to show, and you are limited to about half. This is the infamous pan and scan and produces the worst results.

It also may be shot super 35, where the shoot like a 1.85 movie, but matte out more of the image. This gives you some freedom in how you do the fullscreen. You normally do some combination of cropping off the sides and showing more image on the top and bottom.

Quoting CharlieM:

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I guess what I am getting at,

If it was shot in widescreen then cropped, does not necessarily make it pan & scan.  Is this correct.

No, not really. Almost any transfer will have some cropping from time to time, but if cropping (rather than opening up) is how they converted, it is pan & scan. No one does a straight center extraction. Exception: TV shows that were shown in both wide and 4:3. Those are generally center extractions.

Quoting CharlieM:

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Is there a definitive source to find out what method was used?

Unfortunately not, no.

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

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As a general rule, if the OAR is 1.85, it's fullscreen. If it's 2.35, 2.20 or one of those other really wide ARs, it's pan & scan.

Where can you find the OAR?

Modern animated films won't always follow this pattern.  Some companies, Pixar is one, will re-render the film for 4:3 transfers.

The reason, I brought this up.

There are a number of contributions, that are changing from FS to P&S, and the reason given is

"It was originally widescreen then it was cropped".

I do not know much about the formatting of a 4:3 frame from a WS frame, and this reason didn't seem to hold water with me.

If this is the only reason given, should the appropriate vote be "NO", unless he provides better info?

Quoting CharlieM:

Quote:
The reason, I brought this up.

There are a number of contributions, that are changing from FS to P&S, and the reason given is

"It was originally widescreen then it was cropped".

I do not know much about the formatting of a 4:3 frame from a WS frame, and this reason didn't seem to hold water with me.

If this is the only reason given, should the appropriate vote be "NO", unless he provides better info?

Some screen shots to prove that it was cropped rather than opened up would be nice, or some other source that confirms this. If this can't be provided, I would vote no. Any changes need to be documented.