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

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by Dubstar

I have a beef with Regal in how they choose which RPX auditoriums get the Dolby Atmos systems, predominantly they are 7.1, but a few nationwide have the full blown immersive Atmos systems. From a personal experience, I don't have any negative things to say about Regal's Kingstowne (Alexandria, Virginia) Atmos/3D/RPX system.

From what I could remember the Salisbury, MD Regal RPX screen seems to have Atmos as I was blown away by the Transformers: AOE presentation a few years ago.

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by blackwidowavenger1964

Going to see Ghost in the Shell at Regal RPX in real D 3D. This will be my first time. Any tips? Any reviews of RPX?

Tips for seeing a movie on an RPX screen? Ummm...yeah sit down, turn off your cell phone and DON'T TALK during the movie! LOL

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner330

Pretty sure the HD digital copies that come with those Blu-rays are cropped.

I have a 2.35:1 screen and my new projector lets me crop (masking) all that AR shift right out.

Yes, the digital HDs on VUDU for Dark Knight, Rises, and Interstellar are all scope.

Though I don't think 2:35 masking on the Blu will get you intended scope framing, since I recall comparing some Blu/DVD shots of Rises and it wasn't just adding the same amount of information on the top and bottom to each shot (for instance in some shots seemingly all the bottom information would be on the DVD, and the added information was all on the top).

[Geoff D]

Correct, just whacking borders over the top isn't the correct 'scope framing.

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Correct, just whacking borders over the top isn't the correct 'scope framing.

I think on TDKR and Interstellar, and now seemingly Dunkirk, Nolan was/is just barely paying attention to that 2.40 frame anyway. I've heard Interstellar in 2.40 in particular just entirely changes the visual effect and makes it kinda odd.

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

I think on TDKR and Interstellar, and now seemingly Dunkirk, Nolan was/is just barely paying attention to that 2.40 frame anyway. I've heard Interstellar in 2.40 in particular just entirely changes the visual effect and makes it kinda odd.

I saw them both twice theatrically, one of those times outside of IMAX and the framing seemed to work perfectly fine (albeit 2.20 in the case of Interstellar), though I did enjoy the IMAX version the most in both cases.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

I think on TDKR and Interstellar, and now seemingly Dunkirk, Nolan was/is just barely paying attention to that 2.40 frame anyway. I've heard Interstellar in 2.40 in particular just entirely changes the visual effect and makes it kinda odd.

I dunno Spike, they've got the frame lines on the viewfinders/monitors so they know what they're doing as far as keeping it safe for the widescreen extraction, and for my money they actually do a bit more than that (see 2nd para below). And in Interstellar the space exteriors are naturally set against a dark black background, being space and all, so the the feeling of height is somewhat negated in several shots. Even when I watching the 15/70 version I was thinking "man, the letterboxed version isn't going to suffer much here".

As well as the IMAX I also saw Interstellar in fixed 2.40 in the cinema (plus the DVD, I'm hardcore like that) and there are several compositions that look far more beautiful to me in 2.40 than the 1.44 or 1.78 version, e.g. that shot of Brandt right at the end of the film for one. With the mountains behind her they make for a lovely effect parallel to the 2.40 framing, but in the taller version you get more of her suit and the ground and the composition is thrown off completely. There's a similar kinda one at the start of TDKR too, when the camera tilts down onto Aidan Gillen and his guys standing in front of the airplane. The length of the 'plane fills the 2.40 frame, but the taller versions show more legs and feet and again the effect is greatly unbalanced by the extra height.

All purely IMO, of course. I just don't see Nolan's 2.40 extractions as being as ill-thought-out and/or as sacrilegious as some folks do, whereas I'd sell all your souls to get a 1.78/2.40 UHD of Catching Fire because I can't stand all the tilt-and-scanning that's going on for the 2.40 extraction of the arena scene, owing to them really utilising the height of the squarer frame in the first place.

[Geoff D]

A while ago I did some 2.40 crops of the IMAX 1.78 Blu-ray shots according to the framing on the DVD, here's the one of Brandt. See what you think!

reframed 2.40:



original 1.78 Blu-ray:

[Geoff D]

For me the IMAX ^ shot not only loses that parallel nature of the framing of the background but it also removes some of the emphasis on Brandt's face, the width of the shots has not changed at all yet the 2.40 seems wider and more intimate at the same time.

Point being, on a giant IMAX (or indeed 8 foot, you know who you are) screen you can't usually focus on everything at once and directors like Nolan and Brad Bird know this. So when they frame up for IMAX much of the image is given over to 'empty' space that will otherwise fill the peripheral vision of the viewer, creating that sense of immersion even if those peripheral details are not crucial to the composition of the image.

That's great for a giant screen, it's what it's intended for, but for a home video version it really does end up looking like so much empty space IMO. And when it comes to the 2.40 extraction they really do want to frame it up as best they can for that particular format, and whether it's more by luck than judgement (YMMV) I think Nolan's films actually work better in 2.40 for the home viewing environment.

[Pieter V]

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN ON WHY 'DUNKIRK' IS LIKE NOTHING YOU'VE EVER SEEN BEFORE (IMAX talk)

http://www.fandango.com/movie-news/e...-before-752098

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I dunno Spike, they've got the frame lines on the viewfinders/monitors so they know what they're doing as far as keeping it safe for the widescreen extraction, and for my money they actually do a bit more than that (see 2nd para below). And in Interstellar the space exteriors are naturally set against a dark black background, being space and all, so the the feeling of height is somewhat negated in several shots. Even when I watching the 15/70 version I was thinking "man, the letterboxed version isn't going to suffer much here".

As well as the IMAX I also saw Interstellar in fixed 2.40 in the cinema (plus the DVD, I'm hardcore like that) and there are several compositions that look far more beautiful to me in 2.40 than the 1.44 or 1.78 version, e.g. that shot of Brandt right at the end of the film for one. With the mountains behind her they make for a lovely effect parallel to the 2.40 framing, but in the taller version you get more of her suit and the ground and the composition is thrown off completely. There's a similar kinda one at the start of TDKR too, when the camera tilts down onto Aidan Gillen and his guys standing in front of the airplane. The length of the 'plane fills the 2.40 frame, but the taller versions show more legs and feet and again the effect is greatly unbalanced by the extra height.

All purely IMO, of course. I just don't see Nolan's 2.40 extractions as being as ill-thought-out and/or as sacrilegious as some folks do, whereas I'd sell all your souls to get a 1.78/2.40 UHD of Catching Fire because I can't stand all the tilt-and-scanning that's going on for the 2.40 extraction of the arena scene, owing to them really utilising the height of the squarer frame in the first place.

I haven't seen a Nolan movie without IMAX framing since 2008. Not speaking from personal experience, just kind of assuming that since Nolan has publically made it clear that he only really gives s**t about what people experience in IMAX (this seemingly being especially true with Dunkirk), I think it's probably safe to say he treats the 2.40 frame as an artistic 3rd fiddle. I'm not sure he's keeping quite the same attention to it as he was in 2007, but I guess if his DP is, then all's the same?

[Geoff D]

But Nolan knows that his work is not going to be seen in IMAX by the majority, and like any other director worth their salt he'll make sure to supervise all versions to provide the maximum amount of artistic intent for those versions, e.g. colour grading the DSMs of his movies alongside actual timed prints so as to ensure the digital matches the analogue as closely as possible.

Heck, in the PR guff for Interstellar's various formats it actually states that the digital version attained "the cleanest and most stable image presentation possible", which might seem like damning with faint praise compared to the IMAX write-up ("the highest quality imaging format ever devised") but it also shows how much of a pragmatist Nolan actually is and that he'll do whatever he can to make whichever version of the theatrical experience (1.44 IMAX, 1.90 IMAX, 2.20 70mm, 2.40 35mm, 2.40 4K/2K) as valid and involving as possible.

[imsounoriginal]

How did you see Inception with IMAX framing?

[Poya]

Apparently, this new Samsung Cinema Screen (it has its own thread here) is just a giant TV. I know people have been saying digital projection is just like TV, but this?

[ITDEFX101]

Ghost in the Shell..........no FRAME BREAK!!! No IMAX Scenes! Looks like my local regal just switched to a roundish yellow 3d imax glasses that feel smaller than their square ones...grrr. It seems that the 3d seemed more noticable than other 3d movies I have seen in the past. Maybe it has something to do with the distance from the actual screen. I always sit in the back but this time I was pretty much center middle of the theater. hmmm....

Also I can tell someone f'ed up when they installed that screen as about the lower 10% of it there is nothing projected. My guess is that if they did aim the projector down, the light would hit the back of the heads of the audience. Good job idiots!

[Spike M.]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

How did you see Inception with IMAX framing?

The implication in my sentence being that I haven't seen a Nolan movie shot in IMAX without IMAX framing since 2008, lol.

[imsounoriginal]

Wasn't tryna call you out, just thought he may have formatted it differently for IMAX, like open matte or something.

[UFAlien]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

Ghost in the Shell..........no FRAME BREAK!!! No IMAX Scenes!

Ghost in the Shell is already a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. That's taller than most modern IMAX digital screens.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by imsounoriginal

Wasn't tryna call you out, just thought he may have formatted it differently for IMAX, like open matte or something.

It was shot mostly on anamorphic 35mm and 5-perf 65mm (with VistaVision for aerial shots) so there wasn't much chance for embiggening the image. Incidentally they chose 5-perf rather than 15-perf (IMAX) for the large format capture on this show because they wanted more of a looser, hand-held approach to the visuals, and after seeing tests of 65mm and 35mm cut together - using large format for the wider shots and 35 for the tighter shots - they were convinced. They also tested things like Super Dimension 70 which is a 48fps process but because it looked so much like "hyper-HD" they declined to use it.

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by UFAlien

Ghost in the Shell is already a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. That's taller than most modern IMAX digital screens.

Rupert Sanders even has said one of the big reasons he went 1.85 was because of how well it would work with IMAX, and I wouldn't expect them to do IMAX ratio and frame breaks just for the laser version (Ghostbusters did, but that's still rare and it also had 1.9 frame breaks for the digital IMAX and regular 3D versions).

Anyway, even with a bit of the bottom not filled, in the fifth row in IMAX laser it basically filled my field of view, and visually it was incredible in that format IMO.