Prisoner of Azkaban

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As no fullscreen edition of the Prisoner of Azkaban has been released on DVD here in the UK, in December 2004 I put together a page of screen captures from the widescreen version and some comments on it. My thanks to Joshua from Widescreen Advocate who has now (end of March 2005) provided me with them. Nothing could prepare me for the shock when I started browsing through Joshua's work.

Although movie reference sites like the Internet Movie Database say that, like the first two Harry Potter films, Prisoner of Azkaban had been filmed in Super 35 (which means that the fullscreen version could have extra information on the top and bottom of the image to maintain some integrity), the fullscreen version of this movie indicates that this is not the case, because no extra material appears at any point in the fullscreen version. In fact, the fullscreen version doesn't even include the full height of the widescreen release!

Each picture below is an unedited genuine shot from the widescreen DVD, in chronological order. In a blue box within each image is the equivalent shot from the fullscreen version. To make it even more obvious, the fullscreen image is brighter than the widescreen image surrounding it. You'll also notice that in some cases, the images aren't perfectly superimposed because the two screen shots were taken microseconds apart.

Each picture is introduced with the time (in hours:minutes:seconds) at which it appears in the movie, followed by the comments I wrote in December (in italics), and a few more words now that I've actually seen the fullscreen version. Not all the original shots have made it to this updated version of the page.

O:00:48 Vernon checks to see what's going on. He looks towards Hedwig in her cage. Either Hedwig or Harry must be cut out of the fullscreen picture to make it fit, but whichever one of them goes, makes a nonsense of the scene. Little did I realise that without the benefit of the extra detail at the top and bottom of the picture, NEITHER Harry NOR Hedwig would fit onto the screen. In fact, nothing in that entire scene indicates that Hedwig was in Harry's room at all! O:02:53 This is just one shot from a sequence of wide shots of the Dursleys' dining table and kitchen, intercut with close-ups of Harry and mid-shots of the Dursleys. Cutting Harry out of the wide shots doesn't make narrative sense, but cutting Vernon out ruins otherwise perfectly composed shots. I assume that some serious "panning" across the widesceen picture must happen in order to fit in all the narrative strands. Whilst it may not seem important to have the whole of the scene on screen, there is a definite narrative purpose for seeing the Dursleys enjoying themselves and Harry slaving away in the kitchen at the same time. Cutting from one to the other is not the same thing at all. O:10:28 Very few HP fans like the idea of the Shrunken Heads in the movie. I wonder if the DVD technicians took the opportunity to remove this one from this shot? No, they remove Stan instead... O:12:39 This shot outside the Leaky Cauldron is of particular interest to me because I saw it being filmed. I find it difficult for the point being made to come across if only half the car is on the screen, or alternatively, to leave the car in but to cut the doorway. The point of this shot is that the car's headlights were flashing (as a result of having been hit in the back by the Knight Bus); after Tom's (magical) intervention, they stop. How can you know this if you can't see the headlights? O:16:20 The only way I can imagine this scene on the landing outside Harry's room could be transferred to a fullscreen print would be for a rapid pan across the screen from the chamber maid to Harry leaving his room, ruining a perfect static shot. As expected, the fullscreen focus pans across the widescreen image and then back again, as the camera pans around following Harry's exit. This unnecessary movement is enough to to bring on a vertigo attack! O:22:46 The scene inside the train carriage is a series of "three-shots" (i.e. three people on the screen at a time), among Harry, Ron, Hermione and Lupin, except for this one of all four of them. This is just one of 15 distinct screenshots I originally took of this scene, and perhaps the most difficult one to be cropped while maintaining any idea of what's going on. Perhaps it's possible to know what's going on, but as with several other scenes in this movie, we're left in a position of characters delivering their lines from off-screen when that was far from the original intention. Something I noticed while trying to superimpose the fullscreen image on top of the widescreen one is that despite several attempts, I couldn't get anywhere close to having the images match. It eventually struck me that the fullscreen image had been horizontally compressed to fit in more of Lupin's hand. Without the compression (squeezing), the image would barely have included his knuckles! O:27:15 Either Neville or Seamus won't fit into the fullscreen version of this one, but which one of them makes it? Little did I know that both Seamus AND Dean would be cut from the shot. Seeing as both these boys got very little screentime, cutting them out from the scenes where they DO appear seems particularly cruel. O:33:48 No comment. O:35:33 No comment. O:37:03 I couldn't help myself. I had to include this shot, cheesy as it is. Does the fullscreen image manage to fit in a full arm-span? Nowhere close! O:39:44 Another opportunity for a prize-winning mess... ... and to get rid of Seamus! O:41:21 Dean, I expect, gets the chop yet again. ...! O:42:40 Another of the movie's seminal moments (and beautiful compositions) wrecked by pan & scan. It may seem unimportant, but the tension in the scene requires us to know that the Snape-Boggart is still there. How else are we to know? (Not to mention disappointing all of Alan Rickman's fans...) O:47:13 This scene was all about the interplay between silent Harry and reflective Lupin. The scene works very differently if you only see one of them! 1:04:10 Once more, I am extremely curious just how they manage to cut out half of this shot while retaining any of its significance (Harry had been standing between Ron and Hermione in the previous shot) My curiosity may be satisfied, but that doesn't mean I'm pleased. This shot (or rather, the combination of this shot and the one which preceeded it) is completely pointless and meaningless, because we don't get to see Harry present and then suddenly not there any more. 1:14:39 How on earth does the fullscreen version of this shot get across the fact that Pettigrew is VERY close to Harry on the map (and getting closer)? To answer my own question, I need to go into more detail and depart from the way this page is structured, so I've set up a separate page just about this image here (that page will allow you to return to this spot once you've seen what I have to say). 1:34:16 I took over 20 shots like this one in the Shrieking Shack, where I'm sure that the fullscreen version doesn't make it clear who's pointing what at whom and who's looking in whose direction. I rest my case. 1:38:46 Seeing Lupin and Pettigrew scuffle as they leave the tunnel might not be the most important thing to see, but it should be there! The three pairings on screen (Harry/Sirius; Lupin/Pettigrew and Ron/Hermione) are there for a reason, however subtle, and being limited to just one of them changes the dynamic of the scene. 1:46:00 Considering Ron's speaking, he should perhaps be on screen. But is he, in the fullscreen version? Nope. Nowhere close. In fact, he may as well not have shown up. 1:49:25 The first of three scenes of Time-Turned Harry and Hermione which depend on our seeing both them and their "previous selves" on-screen at the same time. Do we? Of course not! 1:52:29 The second... (Although the fullscreen version has the time to pan across towards Harry and Hermione behind the tree and back again, interrupting what had been a natural, slow camera movement to the left with one to the right.) 1:53:39 What is Harry supposed to be pulling? The original widescreen shot pans towards the right, while the fullscreen focus pans towards the left. Does this make sense? 2:01:34 Note Harry and Sirius on the far left, and Patronus-casting-Harry on the far right... ... and only half of the Dementors! 2:09:48 What better shot with which to end this review but the beginning of the end credits? How much of that wonderful graphic made it to the fullscreen version? Actually, all of it. I suppose I half-expected this, but considering the kind of person who's likely to be prepared to buy a butchered edition of a modern cinema movie is unlikely to be interested in the end credits, the fullscreen DVD edition displays the end credits in widescreen! With black bars, as you can see here. This exemplifies something about fullscreen releases of widescreen movies which makes me angry. There is a requirement in the movie industry that the end credits must be included in their entirety on DVD or video releases. In cases like this one, where there are so many names, and the list meanders down, left, right and up at times, the only way to display all the names is to include the full width of the original widescreen design, which requires the inclusion of the dreaded "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen. My issue is this: if it is considered important that all the people who worked on the movie get the recognition they rightly deserve (and which I certainly don't begrudge them), why does the movie industry allow their work to be decimated and degraded the way this movie does? It makes them look at best incompetent, and at worst fools! Conclusions The fullscreen version of Prisoner of Azkaban is an utter travesty. This is an example of panning and scanning at its very worst. I would suggest that anyone who has bought this version of this movie takes it back to the shop where they bought it and demand a refund on the basis of having been sold a defective product. Certainly, anyone who has only ever seen this movie in this format (and not, for instance, in a cinema) has not seen the same movie the rest of us saw. Some people say that the "widescreen debate" is an issue only for movie buffs and arty-farty conversation, that it's not relevant to action or "children's movies". In some cases, this may be true, but in this instance, seeing only half the image means that you're only seeing half the story, and I submit that some scenes in the fullscreen version actually don't make sense! The only way around this is for consumers to demand proper widescreen releases of widescreen movies, and it seems to me that the main way this can come about is if we educate ourselves about the reasons for this. And that's the only reason I have taken the trouble to create this page. If I have managed to persuade a single person to change their mind, and to buy the widescreen edition rather than the fullscreen one, I will consider the time and effort well spent!

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