Arri Alexa 65 6K Camera

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

When I saw "The Master" at the Ziegfeld in NYC, not only did it have end-to-end dirt (which is the fault of the lab or theatre, not the film's makers) but none of the shots had the sharpness and depth of other films that I've seen that were shot in 65mm. Films shot in 65mm generally jumped off the screen at you and had a three-dimensional quality. The visuals had no warmth to them.

I haven't seen "The Master" on BD. If it looks great there, it's certainly possible that the problem was the print. It may be that aside from IMAX 70mm, the labs don't know how to deal with 70mm anymore.

I used to think that I only saw the screen door effect when the background of a scene was white. But I was at a local art house the other day to see "The Drop" and it was obvious the entire time not just on the feature, but on all the trailers as well and it wasn't even a very large screen - probably well under 30 feet. I found it so annoying that I took my glasses off.

When audiences were polled after "Far and Away", no one really perceived that it looked better than a film shot in 35mm and blown-up to 70mm as was common practice back then. The fact that it wasn't reviewed well didn't help either. If "Far and Away" had been a big success, other directors would have rushed to shoot their films in 65mm. That never happened. Panavision created a new camera for that film and gave the process a new name: "Panavision Super70" as opposed to the previously used "70mm Super Panavision". As I wrote, aside from IMAX, only four films have been shot in 65mm since that time in the last 22 years and one of them, "Samsara", has never been shown in 70mm.

"Far and Away" netted $28.9 million in rentals. IMDB claims it grossed $58.8 million (including the 35mm showings). That translates to about $49 million in rentals and $100.1 million gross in 2014 dollars. The budget was estimated at $60 million ($102 million in 2014 dollars), so when you add marketing, the film lost substantial money. Probably one of Ron Howard's worst showings. I actually didn't think it was all that bad. When I saw it theatrically, I knew it wasn't going to be a classic, but I enjoyed it.

I saw The Master in 70mm at the Cinerama theater in Seattle. I wasn't a big fan of the projector they were using, not as good as the one they used to have, but the image still looked spectacular. My only complaint was with the obvious and annoying stuttering in the image with some pans (a limitation of the frame rate). The rest of it looked fantastic. The Blu-ray is also a must see for video quality.

I remember seeing Far and Away in theaters though only in 35mm. I liked the film but I wasn't what one would call a videophile at the time (I was probably 15 or so). I would love to see Universal put out a Blu-ray with a high resolution capture from the original 70mm negative. I bet that would look fantastic.