2.35 widescreen letterboxing

[Greg Popp]

I've come over recently from FCP 7 and so far, so good!  Really happy I made this choice.  One thing I could do easily before was add a premade, 2.35 widescreen filter over clips in my sequence for a 16:9 letterboxed presentation.  I felt secure additionally that a 1920 x 816 output would perfectly eliminate those bars for web/file based delivery. 

So far in Premiere Pro I can't figure out how to do the same.  There is a matte in the title tool that others advise would work, but I can't be certain of the dimensions or if this is the best way to proceed.  Any thoughts?  Many thanks in advance.  This is my first question, and I'm eager to see how it goes...

[Ann Bens]

You need to make a new matte in the Titler or Photoshop. Each black bar should be 132 pixels in height.

[Jim_Simon]

Here's a formula for 'letterboxing' any footage into any desired aspect ratio.

1. Do the math on the ratio for the footage you have, in this case 16 divided by 9 = 1.7777

2. Take that ratio and divide it by the ratio you want, in this case 2.35*, which comes out to be .7565

3. Multiply that number by 100 for a percentage, in this case it rounds out to 76%.

4. Subtract that percentage from 100%, you get 24%.

5. Divide that percentage in half, here it would be 12%.

6. Apply a Top and Bottom Crop using that percentage.

*On a side note, the theatrical standard has actually been 2.39:1 since the early 70s, even though people often still call it 2.35.

[dimakop1]

That's a really convoluted way to do that.

This is easier:

Take the DAR (display aspect ratio) and divide it by 2.35

4096 / 2.35 = 1742.

So actual visible area would be 4096x1742.

Then minus 1742 from 2160 (height of 4k) to get what is left of black pixels.

Divide that number by 2 to get the top and bottom numbers evenly.