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This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Topic: Imax Digital
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-20-2008 01:01 AM
quote: Stephen Furley
it's now lasted for 38 years, which is longer than just about any other large format except possibly 65/70mm 5-perf, but that has pretty much gone and come back several times, wheras IMAX has been with us continuously since it was introduced. It's also been around for over a third of the total history of moving images on film.
Which makes it all the more sad to see it so degraded. Seems like IMAX will really be nothing more than any other digital theatre if all they will be showing Hollywood titles on a biggish screen. Their stacked 2K or combined or melded or however it is that they've got those projectors configured, isn't going to give them any more resolution than any other digital system in any other non-IMAX theatres, will it? They are starting with the same 35mm negative, so how does having 2 projectors magically give them more resolution than all the other digital prints that non-IMAX theatres will be running? Even if they used the Sony 4Ks like they originally proposed, they are STILL STARTING WITH THE SAME NEGATIVE. The laws of physics still apply -- you can't make something from nothing.
As far as I can see, the only thing left of that original, superlative company that debuted in EXPO 70, is the name. And that name soon will become indistinguishable from any other stadium seat theatre showing digital prints.
My friend said when he saw DARK NIGHT in the Louisville KY IMAX theatre, the screen was NOT an IMAX screen as he had expected it to be, driving as he did from Lexington. He expected a huge, near square wall of screen in front of him. But instead, he said it looked like any other wide screen theatre -- "It was like CinemaScope." he kept insisting, "not like IMAX."
Even the IMAX shot sequences looked indistinguishable from the rest of the movie. He thought they put him in the wrong theatre.
How fast do you think word of disappointment like that will spread? They've sealed their fate....now would be the time to sell your IMAX stock.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-20-2008 10:22 AM
The people running IMAX have definitely lost sight of the company's original mission: delivering the biggest, sharpest, most high resolution movie going experience possible.
Instead, it looks like the company is just trying to slap its brand name on as much stuff as possible in the mindset of selling stock -regardless of what that mindset does to undermine the public image of the IMAX brand. For the last few years the IMAX company has been making a series of mistakes that have been lessening the relevance of the IMAX brand.
To get something straight, a movie is only a real IMAX movie when it has been shot on 15-perf 65mm film. Anything else really isn't IMAX and should not be called IMAX. An IMAX movie presentation has to be huge.
No movie shot on 35mm or freaking digital video should ever have "The IMAX Experience" tied to its name. The Dark Knight is the only possibly worthy exception out of the bunch of DMR blow up movies only because at least some of its footage was shot in 15/65.
IMAX should have at least mandated some standards for the kinds of movies they would blow up via DMR. When they agreed to blow up HDTV quality video footage to 15/70 prints any credibility the DMR process ever could have had was lost.
All of those DMR blow ups of Hollywood feature films may have helped open a few more IMAX-branded theaters. But most of those new theaters, especially any of them tied to a commercial movie theater multiplex, are playing mostly non-IMAX quality product. It's usually just DMR blow-up content shown on a big screen -if the new IMAX theater even has a big screen.
The MPX thing was a cost cutting step down to allow smaller, cheaper structures to be built. Unfortunately that undermines the customer's initial impression when entering an IMAX theater. Full sized IMAX theaters have a scale to them unlike any commercial theater auditorium.
Now that IMAX is going "digital," I think the company could be sealing its fate or at least sealing the fate of the 15/70 film format.
They're putting pairs of 2K digital projectors into what only amounts to ordinary stadium seated auditoriums with standard shaped movie theater screens. That's not IMAX. It's just glorified d-cinema. There's little the company will have to differentiate itself from lots of regular 2K d-cinema installations. Why should customers pay a $3 to $5 ticket premium for something like that when nothing is really being added to the movie-going experience? Hell, I see digital 3D as something more worthy of a price premium than "IMAX Digital".
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