Why 4:3 Looks So Good

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BUSINESS INQUIRES:

Thank you for watching! :)

[AESTHETICS_TV]

An essay about 4:3 format rendered in 4:3 sponsored by SquareSpace

[migsmoo]

i cannot explain how satisfying it was to have a youtube video completely fill my ipad screen

[zigzag]

I'm so glad you actually rendered in 4:3 and didn't just stick two black bars on the side of the screen, I hate it when youtubers do that because it often doesn't format right on my tv.

[ewan.cartwright]

Another important point is that 4:3 isn’t necessarily a “smaller” image, depending on the context. A film with scenes shot and viewed on IMAX will become much taller during those scenes, so that 4:3 scenes feel massive and immersive, and standard scenes short and narrow by comparison.

[jaaanai]

I really love 4:3. It feels like everything is compact, sometimes restrictive, sometimes intimate and in order.

[Wackaz]

The way Karsten creates his videos are so soothing for me. Honestly, if I need to relax and experience something therapeutic, I always come to his videos. His format is so... distinctive and heartwarming.

[yellowchino]

watching this on a 4:3 CRT monitor, it was pretty shocking to see a modern video in this aspect ratio, and I goddamn love it.

[mygetawayart]

4:3 is beautiful to look at for intimate scenes but when it comes to action, i do find widescreen to serve the purpose better. The big box narrows you down on what is on the screen, it leaves your eye no room to escape, it makes you face what is happening in a brutal and unfiltered manner. The widescreen on the other hand, offers breath, scale, openness, a sense of something bigger. Every eye is more or less susceptible to these differences, one might not care about the limitation of the square box, one might hate having big black bars on the sides, others don't even care about the difference, but for me, the two methods serve different purposes.

[thetearsoftime]

4x3 isn’t smaller. It’s just a different shape

[gardawg]

4:3 is somehow is perfect enough for human eyesight to focus directly, because every content is like packaged perfectly on one display. Widescreen is like having blurry side and kinda dizzy to focus.

[HarryRobins]

Quick correction, It wasn't technical constraints that made 4:3 the standard for film, 4:3 35mm film was already produced for still photography, and that was chosen for the first film cameras for cost reasons. Also, there were other formats available, just less so. In 1929 there was 2:1 widescreen 70mm Grandeur film

[Qjimbo]

On the DVD commentary track for Family Guy Blue Harvest, Seth McFarlane commented on how much he likes the 4:3 ratio as well.

[cacapupu]

The 4:3 aspect ratio keeps reminding me of medium format film photography

[KibblezanBitz]

"Go watch a movie in 4:3 and form your own opinion."
Great idea! Will do!
* turns on pan-n-scan version of Ben-Hur *

[playmaker.]

4:3 also enables you to view videos in full while scrolling comments in landscape mode

[fatuousinnovatorofsadness]

4:3 can create more balanced images much easier, there's a much larger relationship you can have with subjects and corners, and it allows for much more freedom to play with different ways of breaking an image down from golden ratios to perfect centering to boxes to diagonals, which is either more complex in wider formats or straight up impossible.

[diejaycee]

I like 4:3 because I feel like it resembles the aspect ratio of my sights focus area. Whenever I watch 16:9 I often look around the scene which makes it immersive, but sometimes I feel like I am missing out on some details because there is so much to see on such a wide screen.
To me personally, 4:3 feels more personal and intimate as you described.

[oliveiracaioflac]

Waiting till ultra wide 4:20 aspect ratio drops

[Knightmessenger]

I grew up with the 4x3 ratio in everything I shot with a video camera. Widescreen seemed like it often cut off people's hair or neck and I never understood that.
Im glad to see it is still considered a valid format even professionals will use.

[loogatdisdood]

As someone who shoots a lot in many different aspect ratios, i will say that the times where I shot in 4:3 made me think a lot more creatively/thoughtfully about my shot composition. ALL of a sudden every single part of the frame feels like it has to be used with more intent, and while that's still certainly true of widescreen, it feels a lot more restricting in 4:3( in a good way).