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

[antovolk]

Originally Posted by ManBeast

Did they have the 'I Saw Dunkirk' T-shirts?

I'm not going until next Friday so even if they do I doubt they will last until then.

Yeah, only 500 in total - so all went at the 7am show and then some at the 10am.

Originally Posted by MrsMiniver

Yes .If you have seen Interstellar, the small IMAX clip at the beginning of the 15/70 was what they had. Same thing for Interstellar digital IMAX. No countdown.

Yeah this is the norm for Nolan films, to only have the short IMAX logo with the old jingle.

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

I wonder how squashed things are in the standard theater presentations?

I saw it in 70mm which is the standard 2.20 presentation along with the DCP and the framing fit perfectly as far as I could tell. Nolan definitely protects for his wide release formats, and has some shots which stand out with unnecessary headroom in IMAX

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by antovolk

Yeah this is the norm for Nolan films, to only have the short IMAX logo with the old jingle.

And that's how I like it. Short, sweet, and immediately throws you to the movie.

Originally Posted by xbs2034

I saw it in 70mm which is the standard 2.20 presentation along with the DCP and the framing fit perfectly as far as I could tell. Nolan definitely protects for his wide release formats, and has some shots which stand out with unnecessary headroom in IMAX

Thank heavens for the 1.78:1 aspect ratio for the Blu-ray releases (assuming the VAR will be preserved). It's a perfect compromise for framing the expanded images while giving you enough headroom.

[Geoff D]

David Keighley of IMAX has already said that the Blu will be in 1.78/2.20 VAR, and one assumes this will carry over to the 4K UHD which I'm already salivating over.

[antovolk]

Deakins on the celluloid trailers for BR2049:

I have been timing all the trailers but I didn't know there was anything being shown on celluloid. I see little reason to release anything on film anymore. I guess I have gone to the 'dark side' as I now find even the flicker of film projection distracting.

https://www.rogerdeakins.com/film-ta...max-70mm-film/

[ghornett]

Saw Dunkirk in the same room that showed H8ful. It's an old school Regal room so no nice seats and the weird car mural on the walls. Presentation was flawless. 5 perf got Blade Runner and Justice League trailers. No pre trailer ads was nice. It was packed.

[GLaDOS]

As much as it is highly unlikely, I'd love to see Blade Runner 2049 on film projection. There were no trailers attached on my Dunkirk 15/70 showing, so I was a bit bummed.

[CelluloidPal]

Originally Posted by ghornett

Saw Dunkirk in the same room that showed H8ful. It's an old school Regal room so no nice seats and the weird car mural on the walls. Presentation was flawless. 5 perf got Blade Runner and Justice League trailers. No pre trailer ads was nice. It was packed.

I'm curious to see that in a regular neighborhood theater in 70mm. I'll wind up seeing this again due to lack of quality choices this weekend.

[Poya]

Originally Posted by antovolk

Deakins on the celluloid trailers for BR2049:

https://www.rogerdeakins.com/film-ta...max-70mm-film/

Before anyone harps on Deakins for his opinion, Lubezki also shares it:

I don't miss film projecting. I always hated it. The [film] negative is great but the positive, the material that we printed on, was very bad. It doesn't have the same dynamic range as the negative.

[Geoff D]

Heh. After having seen Dunkirk on 15/70 at the BFI IMAX, they're not wrong about print stocks and dynamic range these days. More on that in a second, but first impressions:

Holy shitsnacks there's nothing like 15/70 for detail, the sense of depth and sharpness is just unreal (when they nail the focus that is, several shots had trouble with it) and it's amazing how even large format 5/65mm looks like ****ing 16mm when intercut with the proper 15-perf IMAX stuff. But I really appreciated how Nolan didn't keep bouncing the ratio back and forth, he used the 5-perf for certain dialogue scenes exactly as he said he would and didn't keep flip-flopping between the two in the same scene. Once he switched it stayed switched until it changed back, which I really appreciated.

The colour timing was interesting, it was almost strange to see such obvious cyan-tinted hues for the night scenes seeing as everyone keeps saying teal and orange only arrived with the advent of the DI, although that might've helped in this case as there was some obvious mismatching during the shots of James D'Arcy walking along the beach at dusk as the soldiers are washed ashore. The shots of him had a purpley lilac kinda look whereas the cutaways to his POV were cyan as mentioned, I'm surprised they let something like that creep through but then this is photochemical timing, not a magic wand.

Folks who keep an eye on my forums ramblings may recount me mentioning that prints are usually mega dense in terms of blacks (which is what makes them so unsuitable for home video transfer) and this was no exception. If the BD/UHD ends up having what looks like crushed blacks with no detail in them and someone says to me "but it wasn't like that on the IMAX version!" I'm gonna laugh in their face because the blacks were super crushed, any time there was a hint of shadow detail it was just obliterated to nothingness, like on Fionn Whitehead's hair in that shot when he's cowering on the beach as the bombs go off behind him, or when Cillian Murphy does his "I'm not going back" bit with the ship's cabin in the background, the shadows suck up all the shadow detail in the cabin. There are numerous other examples, people's hair just becomes a solid mass of black in most of the darker shots. That said there are a few shots which seemed to deliberately try to lighten up the darkest parts of the image, a couple of night shots but mostly some interiors on the Moonstone which looked really milky and odd, they may have been overexposed and needed pulling to eke out whatever shadow detail was left.

And after seeing certain IMAX 15/70 shots used so much in the publicity (kudos to anton for getting his IMAX format guide up on the IMAX screen itself!) I was surprised to see that the framing was noticeably tighter, e.g. the shot of the Mole stretching into the distance lost a fair bit of the horizon on the print I just saw, assuming it's the same take in the publicity still as was used in the film. It looked even tighter than what Riddhi posited the framing to be earlier in the thread: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...7#post13845967

So, yeah. An absolutely absorbing cinematic spectacle but not without its presentational foibles. I got a look at the three 15/70 trailers too, Star Wars and Blade Runner looked kinda bleh (very close to outright posterisation on the latter) but Justice League was muy interesante because it almost filled the screen!! Given how I poo-pooed the idea of these trailers meaning anything re: the possible IMAX presentation I must now eat humble pie. There were definitely small borders top and bottom, yes, but it looked taller than 1.85 to me. I'd say it was something like what I knocked together below, I set a 1.44 frame and then put in what I thought the framing was without checking the measurements, upon checking it's almost exactly 1.66. Whether it was cropped out of the 1.85 or embiggened vertically I don't know, but having just rewatched the trailer on youtube I definitely got a sense of less headroom so make of that what you will.

[ITDEFX101]

Hey I forgot to ask, but did those shaky/out of focused in plane shots make it to the final cut?

[Spike M.]

Geoff, those crushed blacks were in digital IMAX, too. I actually turned around to make sure a projector hadn't gone out when Cillian was talking inside that boat cabin, haha.

[NegaScott128]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Folks who keep an eye on my forums ramblings may recount me mentioning that prints are usually mega dense in terms of blacks (which is what makes them so unsuitable for home video transfer) and this was no exception. If the BD/UHD ends up having what looks like crushed blacks with no detail in them and someone says to me "but it wasn't like that on the IMAX version!" I'm gonna laugh in their face because the blacks were super crushed, any time there was a hint of shadow detail it was just obliterated to nothingness, like on Fionn Whitehead's hair in that shot when he's cowering on the beach as the bombs go off behind him, or when Cillian Murphy does his "I'm not going back" bit with the ship's cabin in the background, the shadows suck up all the shadow detail in the cabin. There are numerous other examples, people's hair just becomes a solid mass of black in most of the darker shots. That said there are a few shots which seemed to deliberately try to lighten up the darkest parts of the image, a couple of night shots but mostly some interiors on the Moonstone which looked really milky and odd, they may have been overexposed and needed pulling to eke out whatever shadow detail was left.

Black levels were also really overbearing in my 2K digital screening too. Perhaps it's a deliberate choice on Nolan's part? It definitely seemed darker than the trailers were. But since they also showed the 1.85 DCP on a scope screen completely uncropped, leaving the movie windowboxed, I wouldn't be surprised if they just f#cked up the black levels too. Maybe they left the 3D filter on the lens or something.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Spike M.

Geoff, those crushed blacks were in digital IMAX, too. I actually turned around to make sure a projector hadn't gone out when Cillian was talking inside that boat cabin, haha.

I'm not surprised, seeing as Nolan times his digital stuff to ape the film version as we know. The highlights were blown out too, like when the fella on the Moonstone locks Cillian Murphy in the back cabin (not a major spoiler folks, don't sweat it) and the image of Mark Rylance behind him on deck was almost completely nuked out.

The HDR on the 4K UHD this one is gonna be a great test of just how Nolan wants to approach it: will he be tempted to draw out significant amounts of shadow/highlight detail that's simply not there on the film versions (and digital cinema derivations thereof), or stick to that visual ethos all the way through and just use the HDR 2020 container more for the wider colour gamut than anything?

Heck, the Dolby Vision HDR cinema screenings would be a good place to start but there's still not a single such cinema in the UK. It makes the three 15/70 & two 4K Laser IMAX locations in the UK look like an embarassment of riches in comparison.

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

Hey I forgot to ask, but did those shaky/out of focused in plane shots make it to the final cut?

Yes, but it's not especially prevalent. I noticed more focus problems when they were on the boats TBH.

[singhcr]

Yeah, some of the color in the night time scenes looked a bit strange sometimes but overall I thought the color was spectacular. Very rich and saturated yet natural looking. When you get stellar color like that it just adds to the detail. Any shot of the beach was fun to see especially with the excellent framing.

I can list most any daytime scene but a few that stuck out a lot was

[Show spoiler]the French bunker early on with the sandbags contrasting with the whites of the brick and the pilot trying to get out of his sinking Spitfire. Holy crap is that water blue!

On that note,

[Show spoiler]the burning Spitfire at the end had extremely vivid orange flames that really caught my eye. Seeing that shot with Hardy standing in front of the wreck was really well done.

Also wonderful to see a bit of film grain in those long shots of the Moonstone where the frame is predominantly white.

All in all it's a simply gorgeous movie and I honestly wish everyone could see it in 15/70 like I did. I made a plea on Facebook for my friends to do so as they are at most an hour away from our one film IMAX theater. If I catch them seeing it on a 2K DCP.... I don't know, man. I think this friendship is over because I can't respect you anymore.

I must say as an American I was a bit confused as to what was going on. I imagine all this is common knowledge to the Brits so there was no need for such exposition. I knew the jist of the operation from what I've learned on the History Channel and the like but I wasn't sure what "The Mole" was and honestly had difficulty hearing when the army and navy officers were talking to each other. I was asking myself:

[Show spoiler]Where are the large ships? Why were the few that were there just floating nearby and not going back to the UK? Were they not full of soldiers or not wanting to go without escorts like a destroyer?
Where was the air support?
Were the French protecting the Brits on the coast? How did they not get overrun?
Were these soldiers abandoned and civilians enlisted to help, or did the battle turn so unexpectedly that there were no provisions to leave by sea at all?

When my brain is asking questions like that it's hard to concentrate and fully envelop myself in the film. That and the dude next to me apparently wasn't wowed by 15/70 film as he kept checking his phone and talking to his friend until I had to kindly remind him a few times to stop. I think a bit of research is in order and then I want to see it again. As much as I enjoy my TV at home, nothing and I mean nothing is going to match what I can see in IMAX and I will most likely never be able to see it again like this once they stop showing the print.

[Geoff D]

Aye, I noticed that straight away too, that white was truly white. And yes, that shot of [redacted] at the end was truly splendiferous.

[GLaDOS]

All hail IMAX 15/70. May it live on in our hearts.

Hoo boy, I haven't seen water that blue and beautiful since The Master.

[singhcr]

*sniff* Indeed, GLaDOS, indeed.

[CelluloidPal]

Originally Posted by Poya

Before anyone harps on Deakins for his opinion, Lubezki also shares it:



It was on a cinematography magazine. Possibly American Cinematographer.

The absolute best quality will always be in the negative.
Robert Rodriguez even mentioned it as well when he did Once Upon A Time in Mexico back when the Sony F900 was gaining momentum after Attack of the Clones.

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by Depwop

Are you In Houston? If so any idea if/when they will upgrade the Edwards Marq'e IMAX to laser?

I'm not in Houston, but I grew up in the area and saw TDK/M:I4/TDKR in 70mm IMAX at Edwards Marquee. Very disappointed in their decision to become a giant LieMAX with the 2k projector. I would guess they keep that 2k projector as long as possible. If most audiences are not complaining, then they have no incentive to upgrade.

Bob Bullock Museum IMAX in Austin is incredible. It's taller than Edwards Marquee and the 4k Laser projection is top notch, plus the sound is probably better than the 70mm IMAX locations. This is the best location in Texas to see Dunkirk for anyone who is either in the area or willing to make the drive.