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Topic: Director Michael Bay Goes on 3D Offensive
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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi
Posts: 215
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 06-22-2011 04:35 PM
Director Michael Bay Goes on 3D Offensive
Source: hollywoodreporter.com
quote:
NEW YORK - Transformers franchise director Michael Bay has gone on the offensive amid recent criticism of 3D films and their outlook, urging CEOs of movie theater groups to show Transformers: Dark of the Moon in a specific way that makes 3D look brighter, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
His attempt to get the word out before the June 29 theatrical release that people will not regret paying an additional $3 to $5 for seeing the movie in 3D comes after such recent films as Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides have done weaker 3D business than expected and stocks of companies with a 3D tie-in, such as DreamWorks Animation and 3D film technology provider RealD, have been on the decline.
Last week, Bay called the CEOs of exhibitors to urge them to show Dark of the Moon, whose budget hit $195 million, "in a way that burns out projector bulbs more quickly but makes 3D look brighter and sharper," the Times said.
"If this was having my name on it, I was determined to make it technically perfect," Bay told the Times. "We’ve spent an enormous amount of time making sure the eye is transitioned from shot to shot."
Bay had originally dismissed 3D as a "gimmick" and a bad fit for his fast-moving filmmaking style, but recently told the Hollywood Reporter that his old friend James Cameron changed his mind.
"We’re putting all of our resources into this," said Brad Grey, who heads up Viacom's Paramount Pictures, which is releasing the movie. "It's the most spectacular visual experience I have ever seen."
Rob Moore, Paramount’s vice chairman, told the paper: "With Transformers people are going to leave saying, ‘You absolutely must see this in 3-D'.”
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-23-2011 12:30 AM
I think you are right, Vic. I would assume that since these 3D installs are fairly new, that they should be running close to spec or if not, then it shouldn't be too hard to bring them back. So also assuming they were sized correctly for 3D to begin with, how is it that there now is this crisis about 3D not being able to meet the picture brightness spec? Were the vast majority of 3D installs done incorrectly? And if so, no futzing with the bulb amperage is going to fix it. Like you said, I would guess that messing with the lamp brightness so it's not matching the color correction settings is going adversely effect the overal color saturation.
Or maybe Paramount is scared this picture isn't going to do well and they want to set up a save-face excuse afterwards by blaming the exhibitors (who else?!). "It didn't do as well as we expected because the cheap exhibitors wouldn't put new, bright bulbs in their 3D projectors but used old, nearly burned out bulbs and they tried to save electricity by cutting back the power to the bulbs." And for good measure, they'll throw in, "We think the picture suffered because it was leaked to the internet via copies made in theatres where films are pirated."
Yah, yah....we know that song and dance.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-23-2011 06:50 AM
Jonathan, where did the 6.2fL "spec" come from? Do you all have silver screens on your 3D (Real-D, MasterImage)? If so, then you will still not be as bright as you could/should be but it is a step in the right direction.
Frank, not to worry on the digital projectors running lamps too high. All of them have a list of approved lamps and by selecting that, you set the range it will operate. Now you can certainly choose the wrong lamp to defeat that but I doubt many exhibitors would do that to appease Mr. Bay since it would A) void the warranty on the lamp to run it over-current and B) cost the exhibitor more money (note that A) ultimately opens the exhibitor to paying more money in damages.
Now Christie does allow their lamps to run over 100% however it would be hard for Christie to hold the exhibitor responsible when their own software not only allows it, if the LightLoc option is set, will do it all on its own.
NEC, on the large projectors, has an "over drive" feature for some lamps but with that also comes a reduced lifespan that is also factored in.
Barco pretty rigidly sets their lamp operating range.
I've been doing quite a bit of testing on the light of various gains of screens. The higher the gain and the flatter the screen, the higher the center-brightness must be in order for the entire image to be perceived as not-dark nor overly bright (washed out, no blacks...etc). If your reference screen is a flat, matte-white for spectral distribution, then to have a flat silver screen to have a similar average brightness (taking into account the light over the entire screen), you need to set the center brightnes closer to 7.7fL...that will still have your corners in the 2.5fL range. 7.7fL should not have any particular ghosting issues on the various 3Ds either. The data is still coming in as I measure various screen surfaces and curvatures (the more data I get, the better the average results will be).
Now, I'm finding that a matte-white screen "exceeds" SMPTE specs (which the DCI spec references) in that SMPTE calls for the sides and corners to be at 85% of center. A proper matte-white is going to be closer to 90-95% (and if the screen was a perfect matte-white and the light/lens...etc were also perfect, it should be 100% everywhere...but the real world does not work that way). A screen that most closely matches SMPTE/DCI specs is a Stewart Ultramatte 130 (1.3 gain). A screen that most exhibitors will not pay for (think of what you pay for a typical screen, multiply by 4 or 5). Most pearl or 1.4 gain screens offered by the typical suspects do not have anywhere near the uniformity that the Ultramatte 130 has. You'll be lucky to get 75% of center brightness on the sides on those. Anyway...if you use a screen more closely to the SMPTE/DCI ideal (and it doesn't exactly meet it in the corners), then the 3D light level in the center on a silver screen should be set to about 7.0fL
Personally, I think the matte-white should remain the reference. With film machines, one could not necessarily raise the center brightness to compensate for gain distribution for fear of having obnoxious pulsations due to the typical shutter (2-wing, 48Hz flash). This is not the case on digital. For 3D, the two factors of real concern are ghosting (Real-D, in particular) and washout since it was timed for a nominal 5.0fL image.
If you have one of those "1:20" curves that Schneider was touting, then you can go down to about 7.5fL on a silver to have a similar light level as a matte screen would at 5.0. The deeper the curve, the less light needed in the center. However, measuring a screen with a deeper curve than most (R approx 2/3 Throw), the center brightness needed to be 6.2fL to have the same average light as a pearl screen curved to the same radius. The pearl screen had side brightness within .5fL of the Center at 14fL.
-Steve
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