The best aspect ratio explainer you will ever see, courtesy of Sinners director Ryan Coogler

Back before the release of Oscar-winner Sinners last year, director Ryan Coogler uploaded a YouTube video about his creative choices in shooting the movie on two different aspect ratios. And it's great.

Sinners is a landmark in many ways. Yes, there were the record 16 Oscar nods, but it also became the first movie ever to shoot in two distinct formats simultaneously: Ultra Panavision 70 and IMAX.

That might sound like an odd creative choice. Certainly is sounds like an expensive one, especially as Best Cinematography Oscar winner Autumn Durald Arkapaw revealed that the project started out aiming at a 16mm shoot.

Director Ryan Coogler explains everything in the video below.

Tonal shifts

Both formats use the same 65mm film stock, but the IMAX system runs film horizontally with 15 perforations per frame, giving a nearly square 1.43:1 ratio with an enormous frame area. Ultra Panavision runs vertically with just 5 perfs per frame, producing an ultra-wide 2.76:1 — one of the widest aspect ratios in cinema history, previously seen in Ben-Hur and The Hateful Eight.

What makes this particularly striking is that the aspect ratio literally shifts mid-film if you;re watching it in the right theater. Scenes of emotional, musical, or horror intensity were shot in IMAX to let the image expand, while the wider Panavision framing dominates the rest.

What audiences actually saw on release (and are probably experiencing again as the film takes a victory lap through theaters) depended on the cinema. The majority digital screenings worldwide were limited to 2.76:1, with the full experience only coming into its own via IMAX. Coogler steps through all the options and combinations, including the IMAX 15-perf film projection, which was available in only 10 venues worldwide.

That wasn't the rarest format it screened in, however. That was 70mm film five-perf projection which only showed in five US cinemas, including the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland where he watched some of his first movies with his parents. 

"My parents were working class in Oakland, and it was the most affordable way for us to go out and have a good time and have an experience," he says. "I still believe in that communal experience of going to the movies."