Large Format/"Premium" Theaters (IMAX 15/70, Digital IMAX, XD, ETX, RPX, etc.)

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

So anyone get a chance to see WW at Udvar for it's 420(?) last showing before that Mummy movie took over?

yes ... why?

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

yes ... why?

How was the presentation?
Was it still crowded ?

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by Riddhi2011

This was a TFA IMAX still released back then.

Attachment 172332

Well, it turns out that it's actually a composit of 2 different shots. -

1.
Attachment 172333

2.
Attachment 172334

Here's a rough comp -

Attachment 172335

If you look at the image titled "1" there's more image at the right side than the IMAX still. Which indeed means that the IMAX version was cropped from 1.66:1 and the scope version has more image at the sides in some scenes at least.

Damn....you know what? Something felt a *little* off about that shot, and I couldn't tell until now. It's amazing how all these motion tracking and compositing software have advanced.

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

How was the presentation?
Was it still crowded ?

I thought it was a pointless 3D conversion / presentation - even with the tremendous light output.

LFE was powerful, but the mixing in 12-channel sound was sub par, use of the ceiling speakers were practically non-existent.

I'd say maybe 25 people - not crowded at all.

[Visionist]

The truck flip scene in TDK isn't as impressive as it might be in 15/70 because the truck doesn't fill the screen top to bottom as it goes over. It's shot too far away. This could have been fixed by cutting off information on the sides for the IMAX version and keeping it there for the regular versions.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by Visionist

The truck flip scene in TDK isn't as impressive as it might be in 15/70 because the truck doesn't fill the screen top to bottom as it goes over. It's shot too far away. This could have been fixed by cutting off information on the sides for the IMAX version and keeping it there for the regular versions.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Riddhi2011

This was a TFA IMAX still released back then.

If you look at the image titled "1" there's more image at the right side than the IMAX still. Which indeed means that the IMAX version was cropped from 1.66:1 and the scope version has more image at the sides in some scenes at least.

Where's the extra height coming from in the 'IMAX' shot then? I find it hard to believe that they would've gone to the trouble of adding some fake vignetting from the lens (see the very top left corner) just to maintain the 'illusion'. And you know why there's more at the sides in your image titled "1"? Because they've literally spliced two frames together for the 'IMAX' still. It's a very fast moving shot, and so therefore the different background & explosion behind Finn has been comped in along with him and cropped to match the dimensions of the still.

That 'IMAX' promo shot itself is a frankensteined still, that's some geninely good detective work there, but it's not a smoking gun that the IMAX scenes were finished in anything less than 1.44.

[ITDEFX101]

This is how I am starting to feel with these Imax LIES!!!

[Show spoiler]

In other news I utilized my 10 dollars off imax regal ticket and bought a ticket for that IMAX Prime Time showing next week.

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

I thought it was a pointless 3D conversion / presentation - even with the tremendous light output.

LFE was powerful, but the mixing in 12-channel sound was sub par, use of the ceiling speakers were practically non-existent.

I'd say maybe 25 people - not crowded at all.

Ahhh.......

Ok thanks

[ArrestedDevelopment]

Imax To Cut 14% Of Workforce Following Attendance Disappointments


After four consecutive quarters of declining per-screen attendance — and a fifth one likely — Imax CEO Rich Gelfond pulled the trigger today on a plan to cut 100 full-time positions, about 14% of the global workforce for Imax and Imax China.

The company says it will take a $15 million restructuring and impairment charge for the move, including $11 million to be recorded in the Q2 earnings. Financial benefits from the layoffs, estimated at $20 million a year, should start to show in Q3.

Gelfond warned Wall Street at a gathering last month that he planned to cut outlays. Last week, Benchmark Co’s Mike Hickey, in downgrading his recommendation for Imax shares to “hold” from “buy,” said he anticipated “a headcount reduction of at least 10% as part of a cost reduction plan.”

Imax shares have lost nearly 23.6% of their value so far in 2017.

But while delivering pink slips to employees, Gelfond hopes to please investors: Along with the job loss announcement, the large-screen exhibition company says it has authorized a $200 million share repurchase plan.

This will follow a $200 million authorization from 2014 that concludes this month. It cut the number of outstanding shares by 4%.

“A more streamlined cost structure will enable us to scale our business with increased efficiency and facilitate operating leverage during both strong and weak periods of box office,” Gelfond says. “It also affords us the bandwidth to pursue important new initiatives, including original content and virtual reality.”

Hickey said last week that he suspects “the elevated enthusiasm movie goers have for recliner installations has shifted share away from Imax.”

If theaters respond by reducing the number of seats in Imax venues to accommodate recliners, then it could create a “predicament” for the company, the analyst added. Although it would respond to the competitive threat, it also “could have a detrimental and lasting negative impact on [per screen attendance].”

http://deadline.com/2017/06/imax-cut...es-1202112062/

The last time I went to an IMAX showing was in September 2016 to watch Independence Day: Resurgence in 3D. I've gone to the theaters 29 times since then and I've always watched movies in 2D but IMAX/studios/theaters rarely seem to offer the option. May if IMAX 3D wasn't shoved down our throats and there were more options to watch films in IMAX 2D there would be better turnouts.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by ArrestedDevelopment

http://deadline.com/2017/06/imax-cut...es-1202112062/

The last time I went to an IMAX showing was in September 2016 to watch Independence Day: Resurgence in 3D. I've gone to the theaters 29 times since then and I've always watched movies in 2D but IMAX/studios/theaters rarely seem to offer the option. May if IMAX 3D wasn't shoved down our throats and there were more options to watch films in IMAX 2D there would be better turnouts.

Unlikely.

It's more likely the ear-splitting sound levels.

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Unlikely.

It's more likely the ear-splitting sound levels.

It can easily be both. 3D is a huge turnoff for many people and so is ear-splitting sound.

[ITDEFX101]

For me I barely notice the 3d effects. The closer you are and center you are to the screen, it kinda gets noticeable. They just need to do more Frame Breaking then it will work fine in any location.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Unlikely.

It's more likely the ear-splitting sound levels.

Seems less like a volume issue than a speaker issue. IMAX should be playing pretty fricken' loud. Nothing sucks the life out of a movie like seeing a 60-foot talking head whose dialogue is in competition for your attention with a whisperer (not a word) a row away.

Having said that, a lot of IMAX theaters just have speakers that seemingly can't fill their space properly. The higher they get cranked up the more unpleasant they sound and then that piercing sharp nasty sensation sets in. It's not the volume per say, it's more that the projectionist is asking the speakers to fill the room like they ought to, but they can't (hence why IMAX speakers get blown out all the time).

I dunno. Big auditoriums are difficult to get good sound in to start with (can't remember the last time I heard proper dialogue levels in a big theater), even more so in an IMAX where you have to have sound levels proportional to the image size.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

Seems less like a volume issue than a speaker issue. IMAX should be playing pretty fricken' loud. Nothing sucks the life out of a movie like seeing a 60-foot talking head whose dialogue is in competition for your attention with a whisperer (not a word) a row away.

Having said that, a lot of IMAX theaters just have speakers that seemingly can't fill their space properly. The higher they get cranked up the more unpleasant they sound and then that piercing sharp nasty sensation sets in. It's not the volume per say, it's more that the projectionist is asking the speakers to fill the room like they ought to, but they can't (hence why IMAX speakers get blown out all the time).

I dunno. Big auditoriums are difficult to get good sound in to start with (can't remember the last time I heard proper dialogue levels in a big theater), even more so in an IMAX where you have to have sound levels proportional to the image size.

No, the problem is the opposite. When someone on the screen is whispering or speaking softly or in a normal conversation and it seems like they're screaming at you and that's the lowest level in the movie. Directors have forgotten what dynamic range means and how it should be used, probably because they grew up listening to badly mixed music and badly mixed movies with virtually no dynamic range.

You don't create emotion by making everything incredibly loud. You create emotion by the difference between silence or low-level sounds and sudden high-level sounds, like a door slam or gunshot or explosion. A perfect example of the great use of dynamic range is in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" near the end of the movie when the glass explodes in the viewing tower. The whole audience freaked out when I saw the original version of this film in 70mm at the Ziegfeld in NYC.

I've been to movies where the levels (IMO) are beyond the threshold of pain. There's no reason for that. If I have to hold my ears or wear hearing protection during a movie, that's distracting me from the story. Movie sound should fill the theatre. It should be both warm and crisp at the same time and be well balanced across the entire frequency range. The film should not be "screaming" at me. In addition, when the levels are too high, there's distortion and the dialog becomes unintelligible. I could barely understand a word Tom Hardy said in "The Dark Knight Rises" and much of that was because of the over-loud and therefore distorted sound levels.

One of the problems is that levels are set based upon a full theater and it's amazing how much sound is absorbed by "soft" human bodies. So if you go during the week and there's only 20-30 people in a 300 seat theater, the levels are much too loud. And the trailers are generally even louder than the feature even though Dolby tried to set standards for trailer levels years ago.

But having said all that, when I saw "Gravity" in IMAX, the levels were fine and the overall sound quality was quite good.

[xbs2034]

This is another weekend with IMAX doing three releases in different theaters. Some are hanging onto Mummy, but looks like most are going back to Wonder Woman, and some are doing Cars 3- which is an IMAX 2D only release (wonder if that's the new standard for animated films after Lego Batman was the same).

I bet almost all (if not all) will switch to Transformers in a few days.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

No, the problem is the opposite. When someone on the screen is whispering or speaking softly or in a normal conversation and it seems like they're screaming at you and that's the lowest level in the movie. Directors have forgotten what dynamic range means and how it should be used, probably because they grew up listening to badly mixed music and badly mixed movies with virtually no dynamic range.

You don't create emotion by making everything incredibly loud. You create emotion by the difference between silence or low-level sounds and sudden high-level sounds, like a door slam or gunshot or explosion. A perfect example of the great use of dynamic range is in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" near the end of the movie when the glass explodes in the viewing tower. The whole audience freaked out when I saw the original version of this film in 70mm at the Ziegfeld in NYC.

I've been to movies where the levels (IMO) are beyond the threshold of pain. There's no reason for that. If I have to hold my ears or wear hearing protection during a movie, that's distracting me from the story. Movie sound should fill the theatre. It should be both warm and crisp at the same time and be well balanced across the entire frequency range. The film should not be "screaming" at me. In addition, when the levels are too high, there's distortion and the dialog becomes unintelligible. I could barely understand a word Tom Hardy said in "The Dark Knight Rises" and much of that was because of the over-loud and therefore distorted sound levels.

Well, that's what I'm describing (kinda).

Distortion or clipping or any sort of thing like that happens when a speaker is being asked to do something it can't, whether the amp isn't jiving with it for various reasons or if the speaker itself just can't hit a frequency range properly at a certain volume level. That's when the unpleasant sensation sets in. It's kind of the hardware equivalent to how listening to a FLAC music file nice and loud is pleasant but listening to a low-quality MP3 at the same level might make your ears bleed. That's not to say some showings just have the volume too loud plain and simple. That happens, since projectionists are humans.

About dynamic range- I'm not a sound mixer and I don't have much beyond broad knowledge technically, but I know when I was studying for my BA in Film, that we were taught to keep our entire mix between -12db and -6db. Editing software's are set up to tell you when you're going too quiet or too loud and what actual sound mixers are using is beyond what my school had. Point being, filmmakers aren't doing sound mixes blindly or without standards. And the standards are based on... human hearing.

I think when we're talking about public viewing that it gets a little sticky, though. Moments like quiet dialogue get borderline inaudible in a space where there are 300 people all with their little quirks; ruffling a popcorn bag or moving in their seat or getting up for the bathroom or coughing or god forbid, sometimes even talking. I can't speak for how most filmmakers view this, but I know on my own mixes I tend to never let any dialogue or important sounds sit on the low end of those db guidelines. It's not because I don't like utilizing the full dynamic range, it's because I've learned the hard way that the quieter stuff gets drowned out in just about every public space I've shown one my short films, from a proper cinema to a classroom to a stage theater with a pull down screen.

[Visionist]

I distinctly remember Smaug's voice at the BFI and how silky-smooth yet deep it was, with perfectly matched bass. An experience hard to match at home without individually amped drivers I expect, not to mention securing everything down and stopping rattles.

Do speakers clip because of too little power? My fronts clip at reference volume for the loudest scenes, they're only running off the reciever as my space is limited.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by Visionist

I distinctly remember Smaug's voice at the BFI and how silky-smooth yet deep it was, with perfectly matched bass. An experience hard to match at home without individually amped drivers I expect, not to mention securing everything down and stopping rattles.

Do speakers clip because of too little power? My fronts clip at reference volume for the loudest scenes, they're only running off the reciever as my space is limited.

Yeah, underpowering a speaker can cause distortion. I used to think I was fine a dandy and in the clear of ever blowing a speaker out since my receiver only puts out 50 watts per channel and my PSB center was rated up to 300 watts. Then I blew it out.

[Riddhi2011]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Where's the extra height coming from in the 'IMAX' shot then? I find it hard to believe that they would've gone to the trouble of adding some fake vignetting from the lens (see the very top left corner) just to maintain the 'illusion'. And you know why there's more at the sides in your image titled "1"? Because they've literally spliced two frames together for the 'IMAX' still. It's a very fast moving shot, and so therefore the different background & explosion behind Finn has been comped in along with him and cropped to match the dimensions of the still.

That 'IMAX' promo shot itself is a frankensteined still, that's some geninely good detective work there, but it's not a smoking gun that the IMAX scenes were finished in anything less than 1.44.

Enlighten me, what was the point of your reply? You basically agreed with everything I said, yet you have your doubts about what exactly? I gave you enough evidence to show that it was "frankensteined" as you say.

As for the extra height in the IMAX still, keep in mind that 1.66:1 is vertically larger than 1.78:1 but the actual photography was in 1.43:1. So, the stills can have any percentage of vertical information it chooses despite cutting off horizontal info. Also, I nevr implied vignetting was artificial, though it can be done.