Format
The shape of the product itself: medium, runtime, ratio, episode or feature — conventions that precede the first frame.
- form conventions
- reference
- form-convention
The conventions of the container: feature film versus episode versus short versus ad; runtime expectations; aspect ratio; black-and-white versus colour as an era's default; theatrical versus broadcast versus streaming delivery. Format shapes storytelling before a single creative choice is made inside it.
What to look for
What does the runtime permit or forbid? What does the ratio frame well? What assumptions does the delivery platform impose (Commerce, Control)?
Canonical cases
Psycho (1960) was shot fast in black and white by a television crew — TV-format economics producing a cinema landmark. And the strangest format shift in the wiki: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), a bruised, profane New Hollywood drama, was reformatted into Alice (CBS, 1976–85), a laugh-tracked sitcom — same diner, different container, opposite meaning.
Sources
Rebello on the TV-unit shoot; Criterion — At Home in the World on Alice's afterlife.