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

[NegaScott128]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

Then I pose this question, if you believe that digitally shot movies aren't supposed to have grain, why to so many add grain to them in post?

Because the directors of those movies wanted them to have grain. But George Lucas didn't want any of the prequels to have grain, hence why Episode I is a DNR-riddled mess on Blu-Ray and why Episodes II and III do not have any artificial grain. It's all about the intent of the filmmaker, as well as the limitations of the technology of the time. If a filmmaker wants their digitally-shot movie to have the texture of 35mm film, then they should be allowed to do that and that should be preserved. But if a filmmaker doesn't want their films to have grain, then we shouldn't force grain onto those films.

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

Then I pose this question, if you believe that digitally shot movies aren't supposed to have grain, why to so many add grain to them in post?

It's not a movie but has anyone noticed in some of the space scenes of the Enterprise on TNG Remastered, you not only see the film grain on the ship, but in the space background as well?!?!?!? I am wondering if they actually applied a grain filter to help blend in the ship grain with the new cg space scenes??

[NegaScott128]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

It's not a movie but has anyone noticed in some of the space scenes of the Enterprise on TNG Remastered, you not only see the film grain on the ship, but in the space background as well?!?!?!? I am wondering if they actually applied a grain filter to help blend in the ship grain with the new cg space scenes??

Yeah, they did. It's a pretty common practice when doing CGI for 35mm films to use a grain filter to make the effects blend better with the live-action footage.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

Episode 3 was completely shot in digital? So....it was compressed using whatever compression method was used back then...then if you take it to 4k, wouldn't that be adding more compression? I am thinking when the 50th anniversary of Star Wars rolls around, Disney is gonna put out a mega box set with every star wars movie out there and anything else star wars related but if the only thing not shot in digital is the original trilogy then it's just going to look *ok* in whatever standard is out there in the home market in 10 years...The original trilogy will most likely stand out and supersede the other movies in the series as all they have to do is rescan the negatives. I wish there was a way to find out what is the real status of all the negatives from the original trilogy.

It being "digital" doesn't mean that the image is compressed like we think of a DVD or Blu-ray as being compressed, in the professional realm a 10-bit 2K master takes up roughly 2 TB for the average 2 hour feature, with a 4K coming in at 8 TB. Even an older recording format like 1080p HDCAM SR has a maximum bitrate of 440 Mb/s for video (FAR in excess of even the meatiest 4K disc @ max 128 Mb/s) and is capable of 4:4:4 chroma subsampling, something still beyond the reach of consumer video formats which top out at 4:2:0 (and apparently 4:2:2 for Dolby Vision HDR delivery). So the usual "what was Lucas thinking???" Kool-aid doesn't get passed around much in casa di Geoffy.

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

I was talking about the possible 35mm film back up that was mentioned before. Lucas couldn't have shot the movie completely on digital without a film backup....the technology was still fairly new so he would have had to have shot it on film as a backup as well.

The only film elements created for those two movies are the film-outs of the final 2K digital master - literally, the digital image recorded back out to analogue intermediate stock for the purpose of creating internegatives to strike release prints from. That's it.

Heck, even Episode I finds itself in the same situation - locked to 2K digital - even though it was shot on film. Why? Because virtually every frame of the movie has some form of digital manipulation, so it exists in a finished state as data, not celluloid. Even the film elements created for the 1999 release came from the digital master - recorded out to intermediate stock as negative and colour-timed with a subsequent IP printing, then IN to print - and were not struck from any kind of conformed camera negative.

The camera original footage got developed, scanned in and that was it, the negs are otherise untouched, so to affect a full 4K rebuild of Ep I would mean quite literally scanning in the whole thing again and redoing the CG from scratch (because ILM don't run those CG rendering packages any more according to John Knoll). This is exactly why they used the 2K master files as the basis for the 3D conversion, it's a higher generation 'copy' than any film print. And even if they were able to re-render the CG in native 3D it would have been so expensive and so time-consuming to do all that that the cost would've far outweighed any potential returns...and the exact same thing applies to any 4K rebuild, as it does for most 35mm movies finished in 2K.

Sure, some will have a LOT less CG than your average Star Wars prequel but the fact remains that it's too costly a process for too little return. It's not a technical impossibility, I never said it was, but it's a question of sheer corporate will to make this stuff happen - as well as deep pockets.

[Riddhi2011]

Speaking of grain, 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' is being shot fully on the ALEXA 65, as per current information. Bayona shot 'A Monster Calls' on the Alexa XT and it looks quite digital. There isn't any film grain there, except in that King Kong 8mm film projection.
It'd be very odd if JW2 looks very clean and digital and does not have any grain as all the other films have grain. The cinematography can be beautiful, but it'll be bad if JW2 suddenly decides to ditch the look of all the past films that have been more or less consistent in parts, if not on the whole.

[GLaDOS]

I think the Alexa 65 is a wonderful machine capable of achieving stunning images. I'm sure they can try to retain a filmic look for the film if possible. Even Jurassic World used Arri Alexa cameras on some parts, probably for aerial shots though.

[CelluloidPal]

Originally Posted by GLaDOS

I think the Alexa 65 is a wonderful machine capable of achieving stunning images. I'm sure they can try to retain a filmic look for the film if possible. Even Jurassic World used Arri Alexa cameras on some parts, probably for aerial shots though.

Actually, Jurassic World used Red Epic Dragon cameras for the aerial shots while everything else was shot on 35mm and 65mm film.

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

Actually, Jurassic World used Red Epic Dragon cameras for the aerial shots while everything else was shot on 35mm and 65mm film.

Unless Tarantino or Nolan is the director, pretty much all film productions have some digital shooting these days. For instance Wonder Woman, where Patty Jenkins was passionate about using film and DC was all behind it as well, used digital for aerial and underwater footage.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

Actually, Jurassic World used Red Epic Dragon cameras for the aerial shots while everything else was shot on 35mm and 65mm film.

I stand corrected.

Originally Posted by xbs2034

Unless Tarantino or Nolan is the director, pretty much all film productions have some digital shooting these days. For instance Wonder Woman, where Patty Jenkins was passionate about using film and DC was all behind it as well, used digital for aerial and underwater footage.

Even Rian Johnson, with his insistence on using 35mm and even IMAX film on select sequences, used Arri Alexas for underwater footage in The Last Jedi.

[Dubstar]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

Actually, Jurassic World used Red Epic Dragon cameras for the aerial shots while everything else was shot on 35mm and 65mm film.

no wonder the aerial shots looked like shit LOL

[Riddhi2011]

Yes, the aerials shoots looked too clean and flat and didn't have any depth at all. The digital shots didn't mesh with the rest of the footage; which looked much more filmic, sharp and fine grained. Those shots looked bad in 3D as well.
I don't think Bayona will add film grain on the Alexa footage. As a result, it'll look too clean and smooth like those JW aerial shots, or 'Passengers' which was also shot entirely on the Alexa 65. Passengers looked very, very artificial. Barely any textural detail in the skin, which looked pasty anyway.

I don't know why Spielberg, who insisted on film for JW, (as indicated by John Schwartzman) allowed a fully digital acquisition for JW2, which is going to have a lot more practical stuff than JW. This isn't Tintin or BFG, where 90% or more is performance capture and animation.

If you look at 'The Mummy' (2017) and 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,' it's the same thing. The London sandstorm shot in 'The Mummy' looks quite fake and flat compared to the rest of the film which look very rich and filmic. In 'Rogue Nation' the underwater stuff does not feel as filmic as the rest of the movie. Underwater shots have been done on film before, so that cannot be an excuse. The thing is that even after adding grain, those shots do not match the grit of the celluloid footage and as a result stand out.

Still, most of the photography for the rest of those two films looked astonishingly crisp and filmic. Also, just compare the first three 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films with the later ones that were shot digitally. The later ones look much more dull and lacking in definition. Compare the first 'Night at the Museum' shot on film with the third part 'Secret of the Tomb,' acquired digitally. You'll see the digitally sourced sequels almost always look flatter and duller than their film sourced predecessors.

[CelluloidPal]

Originally Posted by Riddhi2011

Yes, the aerials shoots looked too clean and flat and didn't have any depth at all. The digital shots didn't mesh with the rest of the footage; which looked much more filmic, sharp and fine grained. Those shots looked bad in 3D as well.
I don't think Bayona will add film grain on the Alexa footage. As a result, it'll look too clean and smooth like those JW aerial shots, or 'Passengers' which was also shot entirely on the Alexa 65. Passengers looked very, very artificial. Barely any textural detail in the skin, which looked pasty anyway.

I don't know why Spielberg, who insisted on film for JW, (as indicated by John Schwartzman) allowed a fully digital acquisition for JW2, which is going to have a lot more practical stuff than JW. This isn't Tintin or BFG, where 90% or more is performance capture and animation.

If you look at 'The Mummy' (2017) and 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation,' it's the same thing. The London sandstorm shot in 'The Mummy' looks quite fake and flat compared to the rest of the film which look very rich and filmic. In 'Rogue Nation' the underwater stuff does not feel as filmic as the rest of the movie. Underwater shots have been done on film before, so that cannot be an excuse. The thing is that even after adding grain, those shots do not match the grit of the celluloid footage and as a result stand out.

Still, most of the photography for the rest of those two films looked astonishingly crisp and filmic. Also, just compare the first three 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films with the later ones that were shot digitally. The later ones look much more dull and lacking in definition. Compare the first 'Night at the Museum' shot on film with the third part 'Secret of the Tomb,' acquired digitally. You'll see the digitally sourced sequels almost always look flatter and duller than their film sourced predecessors.

I saw Jurassic World in IMAX 3D and I couldn't tell the difference between the two.
I would agree with you assessments on Passengers. It lacked and real image detail , skin tone or otherwise.
Perhaps, the decision to shoot digital for JW2 was from the higher ups. I'm not quite sure.
As for The Mummy and Rouge Nation, I saw both in IMAX and again I couldn't tell the difference between the two. But for Ghost Protocol, the difference between the 35mm footage and the IMAX footage was like night and day.

[Riddhi2011]

Originally Posted by CelluloidPal

I saw Jurassic World in IMAX 3D and I couldn't tell the difference between the two.
I would agree with you assessments on Passengers. It lacked and real image detail , skin tone or otherwise.
Perhaps, the decision to shoot digital for JW2 was from the higher ups. I'm not quite sure.
As for The Mummy and Rouge Nation, I saw both in IMAX and again I couldn't tell the difference between the two. But for Ghost Protocol, the difference between the 35mm footage and the IMAX footage was like night and day.

To me, the digital portions of 'The Mummy' (2017) were very apparent in the cinemas and I saw it in regular 2K 3D. 'Rogue Nation' a bit less so, because underwater shots, where the camera is constantly moving and not static, isn't the best judge of detail and clarity. But I've seen film shot underwater scenes in movies to be a bit more dynamic than in MI:RN.

Again, the biggest guy in the world of 'Jurassic Park' is Steven Spielberg. He is at the very top. I can't imagine Spielberg asking them to shoot digital, when he asked JW to be shot on film. He himself shoots on film (except two movies).

I think the decision was Bayona's. He shot digital on 'A Monster Calls.' Colin was desperate to get Bayona for JW2 and wrote the script with the latter's skill sets in mind. Maybe Bayona said he won't use film and would not do the movie unless he is allowed to shoot digitally. Because the filmmakers liked his work, they had to accept his demand.

Or perhaps, there was a lack of 65mm film cameras in the UK at the time of shooting. Hence, they decided on digital 65mm. It could be any of these reasons. But still, the difference in the look will be quite obvious to eagle-eyed film enthusiasts, even if they add fake film grain, which I don't think they will.

As for Rogue One (Alexa 65), they used older ultra panavision anamorphic lenses to get that cinematic look. 'JW2' is being shot flat 1.85:1. So, that anamorphic look won't be a part of it.

[ITDEFX101]

I talked about this in the Roman Esq thread.

So I was the only one seeing this movie last night while everyone else was seeing Justice League or Coco. I accidently said 4x3 but was later corrected.

The movie was presented like this. At first I thought it was the way it was filmed then later it seemed that the projectionist didn't mask off the sides resulting in this presentation. The image provided is simulated (photoshop) since I couldn't take a picture of the screen without copyright violations.


I did tell management within the first 10 minutes and the general manager came up to me and said she didn't know why that was happening but said I could come by and get a free pass but I already paid using MoviePass. The only out of pocket was the drink and that was it. I enjoyed the movie but did notice that descriptive audio was on.

I don't want to be a pain in the butt as I have gotten on their case about presentation issues before (dimming bulb in one theater, failure to start a movie on time due to technical issues causing a 20 minute delay, IMAX issues, which finally caused me to contact IMAX directly for resolution and so on).

At this point I am thinking they aren't going to fix any of their problems or Regal HQ doesn't care about that theater and will let the lease expire. :\

[Riddhi2011]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

I talked about this in the Roman Esq thread.

That image looks gorgeous and very filmic. I see the movie was shot on both film and digital.

[ITDEFX101]

Originally Posted by Riddhi2011

That image looks gorgeous and very filmic. I see the movie was shot on both film and digital.

You know what? I noticed the film grain on this one. Outside shots looked like they were suppose to be...not overcast with blue/grey tones.

[Riddhi2011]

Just saw 'Justice League' in 3D, in a Premium XL screen that was previously an IMAX 15/70. The screen is now in 1.89:1, so the movie was almost "Full Screen," which was great! I liked that they retained film grain even in the 3D. Even though the 3D wasn't as strong as Thor: Ragnarok, it was good and did help the movie somewhat.

I never found Henry Cavill's moustache-removed face looking fake or CG and I was looking very hard to try and find some fault with this (having read too many complaints about that here). The movie had nothing new but somehow, it did leave a deeper impression in me after I left the theatre. It made me hopeful of the world, of people. It had a positive impact on me; as an aftertaste.

My full review can be found in the main JL thread.

[ITDEFX101]

So a follow up to my presentation experience from Roman the other night (see simulated image above). This is what the manager said.

As for auditorium #3 - I've brought this to my projection technician's attention. For some reason it's occurring with films in Flat format.

Wait a minute........So I went BACK to that same screen last night and they moved Roman to another screen and put DH2 in theater 3 and guess what? SAME PRESENTATION!! I believe that is the same screen I saw The Big Sick in over the summer and it had the same presentation. The other manager on duty explained the whole flat thing and I asked if they should mask the sides (with the curtains) and he said if they did the picture would looked zoomed in.. So in other words, out of their control and avoid that screen if possible.

I found this site and it made a great deal of sense to me.
https://imgur.com/gallery/sMNDV

When I asked about reducing the lights in their IMAX screen as it was up all the way during the main movie presentation, they said they won't turn them off to see who is drinking Alcohol......umm what???

[NegaScott128]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

So a follow up to my presentation experience from Roman the other night (see simulated image above).

[Show spoiler] This is what the manager said.

As for auditorium #3 - I've brought this to my projection technician's attention. For some reason it's occurring with films in Flat format.

Wait a minute........So I went BACK to that same screen last night and they moved Roman to another screen and put DH2 in theater 3 and guess what? SAME PRESENTATION!! I believe that is the same screen I saw The Big Sick in over the summer and it had the same presentation. The other manager on duty explained the whole flat thing and I asked if they should mask the sides (with the curtains) and he said if they did the picture would looked zoomed in.. So in other words, out of their control and avoid that screen if possible.

I found this site and it made a great deal of sense to me.
https://imgur.com/gallery/sMNDV

When I asked about reducing the lights in their IMAX screen as it was up all the way during the main movie presentation, they said they won't turn them off to see who is drinking Alcohol......umm what???

Sounds like you should stop going to that theater. If they're that incompetent, then they don't deserve your money.

[ManBeast]

Originally Posted by ITDEFX101

So a follow up to my presentation experience from Roman the other night (see simulated image above). This is what the manager said.

As for auditorium #3 - I've brought this to my projection technician's attention. For some reason it's occurring with films in Flat format.

Wait a minute........So I went BACK to that same screen last night and they moved Roman to another screen and put DH2 in theater 3 and guess what? SAME PRESENTATION!! I believe that is the same screen I saw The Big Sick in over the summer and it had the same presentation. The other manager on duty explained the whole flat thing and I asked if they should mask the sides (with the curtains) and he said if they did the picture would looked zoomed in.. So in other words, out of their control and avoid that screen if possible.

I found this site and it made a great deal of sense to me.
https://imgur.com/gallery/sMNDV

When I asked about reducing the lights in their IMAX screen as it was up all the way during the main movie presentation, they said they won't turn them off to see who is drinking Alcohol......umm what???

With the Roman Esq issue I'm wondering if the server is set to 3D mode or they have some 3D content in the playlist. Depending which server they have if they are playing 2D content using 3D settings the picture can appear to be zoomed in too far.