panning and scanning

Verb

pan and scan (third-person singular simple present pans and scans, present participle panning and scanning, simple past and past participle panned and scanned)

1. (transitive) To adjust widescreen film images so that they can be shown with standard television aspect ratios by cropping the original image, i.e. using pan and scan methods.
2. (transitive) To crop out (a character or object) when performing the pan and scan process, resulting in the deletion of a character or object.
   • In the full-screen version of Star Wars Episode II, only Anakin and Obi-Wan appear in the scene because Padmé was panned and scanned out.

See all 5 meanings of pan and scan