NH
Nice one, Katherine!
Must admit I didn't notice and cropped witches or warlocks!
Nick Harvey
Founding member
Katherine posted:
Don't you mean sacrilege?
Nice one, Katherine!
Must admit I didn't notice and cropped witches or warlocks!
SE
Square Eyes
Founding member
I thought Hymagumba had misspelt that short lived pop group which was the product of ITV1's Popstars. 
PE
I do actually, serves me right for having too many injokes about certain local people.
Anyhow, did they miss the end of as well? It seemed a bit short.
I do not recall this pop group - they can't have been very good
Pete
Founding member
Katherine posted:
Don't you mean sacrilege?
I do actually, serves me right for having too many injokes about certain local people.
Anyhow, did they miss the end of as well? It seemed a bit short.
Square Eyes posted:
I thought Hymagumba had misspelt that short lived pop group which was the product of ITV1's Popstars.
I do not recall this pop group - they can't have been very good
NJ
I came on to enquire about this but since you've started this thread I may as well post in here.
Good to see I wasn't wrong about cropping thoughts when I caught The Snowman on Channel 4 during a round of channel flicking. The classic cartoon was shown in deep letterbox mode on terrestrial telly! My goodness, it was awful to watch, the number of times the kid was chopped off the bottom of the frame and the snowman had half his head chopped off at the top of the frame. The scene before they fly off (where the snowman's in the freezer in the garage and looks at the postcard) was particularly bad. And as for one of the flying scenes - it'd have chopped the two flyers off altogether if they'd gone any higher on the screen!
A quick Google reveals that the programme had a widescreen "conversion" for its 20th anniversary last year. Which usuall means that some bright spark at the production company decided it needed cropping to make it widescreen. I very much doubt Raymond Briggs had anything to do with it though. Don't think we can lay the blame at Channel 4 for this one if they're given an already cropped (badly at that) version to show.
I dare say they did, its the 20th anniversary edition which means its cropped and was probably also shown last year as well.
Have they given the other spin-off, Father Christmas, the same treatment? Its the one from the same makers I believe that shows what Santa does on the other 364 days and also usually turns up on Channel 4.
Neil Jones
Founding member
Hymagumba posted:
Sorry to come accross a bit * but this is not on. How DARE Channel 4 crop a classic show like this when there is no need for it at all. It adds nothing to the programme and if anything makes it look cheap and nasty.
I came on to enquire about this but since you've started this thread I may as well post in here.
Good to see I wasn't wrong about cropping thoughts when I caught The Snowman on Channel 4 during a round of channel flicking. The classic cartoon was shown in deep letterbox mode on terrestrial telly! My goodness, it was awful to watch, the number of times the kid was chopped off the bottom of the frame and the snowman had half his head chopped off at the top of the frame. The scene before they fly off (where the snowman's in the freezer in the garage and looks at the postcard) was particularly bad. And as for one of the flying scenes - it'd have chopped the two flyers off altogether if they'd gone any higher on the screen!
A quick Google reveals that the programme had a widescreen "conversion" for its 20th anniversary last year. Which usuall means that some bright spark at the production company decided it needed cropping to make it widescreen. I very much doubt Raymond Briggs had anything to do with it though. Don't think we can lay the blame at Channel 4 for this one if they're given an already cropped (badly at that) version to show.
Quote:
Not impressed.
Did they do this last year as well?
Did they do this last year as well?
I dare say they did, its the 20th anniversary edition which means its cropped and was probably also shown last year as well.
Have they given the other spin-off, Father Christmas, the same treatment? Its the one from the same makers I believe that shows what Santa does on the other 364 days and also usually turns up on Channel 4.
BB
This is one of my favorourite programmes at Christmas, and has been ever since I was young and started showing it on Channel 4. I have always tuned in to watch and have missed it during the past two years or so because they have moved it around the schedules so much.
The last time I tuned in to watch which was a few years ago (1998/1999 I think) it was shown its proper format of 4:3 before the broadcasters thought up their stupid "everything must be widescreen" policy and started cropping most 4:3 material to 14:9 or even worse 16:9. Then it looked good - not everything was being cut off regardless of what kind of set you watched it on. But this year I tuned in (and decided to digitally capture a copy to burn to CD) and boy was I in for a surprise compared to the previous years - it was in widescreen, or rather the top and bottom of the picture were hacked off to make it widescreen.
I find it absolutely disgraceful what they have done to this classic cartoon. Fair enough this is the 21st century, but why the hell do they need to make everything widescreen? Can't they learn to bloody well leave everything as it is?!
Also, is The Bear in true widescreen, or has it been subjected to the "everything must be widescreen" policy?
Not impressed.
The last time I tuned in to watch which was a few years ago (1998/1999 I think) it was shown its proper format of 4:3 before the broadcasters thought up their stupid "everything must be widescreen" policy and started cropping most 4:3 material to 14:9 or even worse 16:9. Then it looked good - not everything was being cut off regardless of what kind of set you watched it on. But this year I tuned in (and decided to digitally capture a copy to burn to CD) and boy was I in for a surprise compared to the previous years - it was in widescreen, or rather the top and bottom of the picture were hacked off to make it widescreen.
I find it absolutely disgraceful what they have done to this classic cartoon. Fair enough this is the 21st century, but why the hell do they need to make everything widescreen? Can't they learn to bloody well leave everything as it is?!
Also, is The Bear in true widescreen, or has it been subjected to the "everything must be widescreen" policy?
Not impressed.
JA
james2001
Founding member
I think, rather than sit moaning about it on here, email channel 4. I'm not sure what the address is, but it can't be hard to find out. Also, tell other people to do it as well, also post on channel 4's message borards, anything. The more of us do it, the more we will get through to channel 4 and the more likely they will be to show the proper 4:3 verison, not the butchered 16:9 version. Do it, it's the only way anything will happen. It probabally won't hurt for us to get into contact with the people responsible for The Snowman as well, let them know our objections. If anyone known the email addresses to contact, post them here.
Remember though- the proper 4:3 snowman is out on DVD. It's on the DVD paired with Father Christmas. Do NOT buy the special edition DVD- that's the cropporama version.
I'm wondering how much more classic film & TV is going to suffer from the "everything must be widescreen" disease (sp?) before some bright spark finally sees sense and realises how stupid it is. When I was looking at Christmas Presents, one of the things I looked at for my Mum was Queen's greatest hits on DVD to replace out VHS Box of Flix, but one of the first things I saw on the box was "all music videos have been remastered to 16:9 widescreen". The second I saw that I knew exactally what it meant, and didn't buy it. I almost certinally would have bought it if they were in proper 4:3. It's an insult to everyone involved, from the people who made the music videos, through to Freddy Mercury's memory and to everyone who bought it, expecting to get more but instead getting a lot less.
Remember though- the proper 4:3 snowman is out on DVD. It's on the DVD paired with Father Christmas. Do NOT buy the special edition DVD- that's the cropporama version.
I'm wondering how much more classic film & TV is going to suffer from the "everything must be widescreen" disease (sp?) before some bright spark finally sees sense and realises how stupid it is. When I was looking at Christmas Presents, one of the things I looked at for my Mum was Queen's greatest hits on DVD to replace out VHS Box of Flix, but one of the first things I saw on the box was "all music videos have been remastered to 16:9 widescreen". The second I saw that I knew exactally what it meant, and didn't buy it. I almost certinally would have bought it if they were in proper 4:3. It's an insult to everyone involved, from the people who made the music videos, through to Freddy Mercury's memory and to everyone who bought it, expecting to get more but instead getting a lot less.
BB
Just to see how much they have hacked off, I decided to visit the Crimewatch website to see if they had any images of the original cells that were stolen (and in 4:3) sometime earlier this year.
I found this - the "original" cell - used in the 4:3, version and one of those that was stolen from their London offices.
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/original.jpg
And this was the 4:3 centre cut out version of pretty much the same frame on the "widescreen" version I recorded yesterday off Channel 4 - as you can see a hell of a lot of the picture appears to have been hacked off.
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/cropped_copy1.jpg
All images are © Snowman Enterprises
I found this - the "original" cell - used in the 4:3, version and one of those that was stolen from their London offices.
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/original.jpg
And this was the 4:3 centre cut out version of pretty much the same frame on the "widescreen" version I recorded yesterday off Channel 4 - as you can see a hell of a lot of the picture appears to have been hacked off.
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/cropped_copy1.jpg
All images are © Snowman Enterprises
JA
james2001
Founding member
It might not be THAT much, as chances are the full cell wasn't in the 4:3 frame. Though whatever there is in the original 4:3 frame, there is a hell of a lot of pciture missing.
The problem is, plenty of people think cropping is OK as long as nothing important is cut off, though whether anything improtant is lost or not is beyond the point. Even if nothing important is cut off, 9 times out of 10 it screws up the framing and makes it look wrong. Look at the Snowman example above- nothing important is lost as you can still see the boy & the snowman but the framing is all wrong. It looks horribly zoomed in and very cramped, I doubt it looks much better in the 16:9 version.
The problem is, plenty of people think cropping is OK as long as nothing important is cut off, though whether anything improtant is lost or not is beyond the point. Even if nothing important is cut off, 9 times out of 10 it screws up the framing and makes it look wrong. Look at the Snowman example above- nothing important is lost as you can still see the boy & the snowman but the framing is all wrong. It looks horribly zoomed in and very cramped, I doubt it looks much better in the 16:9 version.