Using premiere to decrease image size

[sbcerebus]

Wondered if anyone here could help me. Have just finished a film, edited on a combination of premiere 6.0 and 6.5. The film was shot, edited and burnt with an aspect ratio of 4:3. However there are black bars at the top and bottom to make the film 16:9. When playing the DVD back on a widescreen television i can change the mode to 'cinema' and the image is stretched to remove the black bars at top and bottom and fill the screen while maintaining exactly the right proportions (i.e. actors are not stretched or squashed). This is exactly as i intended.

My problem is this. Next friday I'm showing it at a local cinema. The digital LCD projector i am using to reproduce the image does not have a powerful enough zoom to make the image fit neatly onto the cinema screen. Instead what happens is that the image overlaps at the top and bottom. It is possible to make the image larger, but not smaller.

To get around this opaque tape can be placed on the projection room window, stopping light which would not fall on the screen from leaving the projection room. But this means that we lose some of the image. As it stands this is what we will have to do.

We could move the projector closer to the screen. But with sold out the auditorium, and i would rather not do this.

What I would like to do is using editing software, preferabley premiere, manipulate the avi. I would like to make the image smaller, and have black bars on the side and bigger bars on the top and bottom. I understand that this will increase pixelation, but remains my prefered choice, if doable. Does anyone know how this can be done.

In summary i need to ... make the image take up less screen space, have black bars on all sides, maintain an aspect ratio of 16:9 for the image, maintain the correct proportions of all images, and not lose any image.

Cheers guys, Rich.

[belovedmonster]

well firstly decide if having it 4:3 within a widescreen presentation is going to be helpful and then do that, and then to change the size more go into the motion settings and make sure it starts and ends where u want it and at the size u want.

[sbcerebus]

thanks beloved monster. will try that. just wanted to say will be offline for a while (moving house), so may not be able to reply and say thanks, but please keep suggestions flowing as i have spies who will check the board for me.

[sbcerebus]

I have worked out how to do this, and will quickly post up my solution, in case anyone ever has the same problem.

1)select the clip to be shrunk.
2)select video effects - transform - camera view.
3)drag and drop this icon into your clip on the timeline (opening a visual effects dialouge window).
4)make sure 'motion' is unselected (default).
5)increase the zoom (only a zery small increase is required. I went from 10 to 13).
6)WARNING - This will flip the image on the horizontal axis.
7)select video effects - transform - horizontal flip, and drag and drop this icon into your clip on the timeline, to restore original image.
8)WARNING - Previewing this will now take an age. I have a 1.8GHz processor, and it took 10 times the length of the clip to preview.