You see more of the ship sinking. You see more of the grand staircase. You see the ocean spray above the characters' heads. It is a completely different visual experience—and for many, a superior one. Here is the modern conflict. Studios hate releasing Open Matte versions because they break the "framing." A director framed that close-up to put the actor’s eye exactly one third of the way down the screen. If you open the matte, suddenly the actor is in the middle of nowhere.
You might just find the secret version of the film the director never intended you to see—but that the camera saw anyway. Have you ever spotted a boom mic or a stunt wire because the matte was opened? Let me know in the comments.
To fix this, the projectionist puts a physical or digital (a black bar) over the top and bottom of the film strip. They "mask" the image. You only see the slice in the middle. open matte
But , when a 4K Blu-ray is mastered, sometimes the studio is lazy. They take the Open Matte digital intermediate (the master file before the bars were added) and just slap black bars on it.
Christopher Nolan loves this. When you watch The Dark Knight or Dune: Part Two in IMAX, the screen literally expands vertically. You aren't zooming in; you are unmasking the frame. You see the sweat on Batman’s brow and the floor beneath his feet. It is immersive. It is stunning. It is intentional Open Matte. You see more of the ship sinking
Watching Pacific Rim in Open Matte is a religious experience. The Jaegers (giant robots) actually look taller than the skyscrapers because you can see the scale from ground to sky. Sometimes, Open Matte ruins the magic. You see the boom mic. You see the edge of the set. The composition looks sloppy.
If you love movies, you need to know about this. Because once you see an Open Matte version of a film, you might never want to watch the "official" version again. Let’s do a quick science lesson. When a director shoots a movie, the camera sensor captures a massive square-ish image (usually a ratio of 1.33:1 or 1.37:1—basically, the shape of an old CRT television). It is a completely different visual experience—and for
is what happens when you remove those black bars. You are seeing the full camera negative. The whole enchilada. The "Heavenly" Shot vs. The TV Compromise Open Matte usually appears in two specific, contradictory scenarios: