Film Mattes

On this page, you can find HD and digital cinema film mattes for download.

What is a film matte?

These film mattes are basically just transparent PNG files with black bars in exactly the right places to crop one motion picture format into another format.

Sometimes it is necessary to shoot a film or video production in one aspect ratio, knowing that you’re going to crop it to a different format later during editing or final delivery. It is also not uncommon to shoot and edit a production in one format, knowing that it will also need to be adapted to another format for wider distribution.

As an example, the image above is from a short film called Written On Your Face that we shot in the 1.78 aspect ratio, but cropped to 2.40 for release. The black bars are from the film matte, and the visible image is showing through the clear part of the film matte.

Obviously if you shoot in one aspect ratio and release in another, you have to plan for this from the beginning, and compose your shots accordingly.

Available Formats and Sizes

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