Tenet DCP

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

C-220 with an anamorphic lens has an issue...available anamorphic lenses for DCInema are 1.25...you don't have enough pixels to magnify the height (you'd need to have a 2328 tall chip...not exactly off-the-shelf.

Not at all off-the-shelf. I was just making the point that in terms of resolution, what you suggested would be more detailed (and more bright), and a full chip would be even more so. My point was purely hypothetical and didn't have any practical significance, other than to underline that readily configured presets(/implementations) are standing between uncommon F-220, to not yet considered (C-220) and finally to never to be considered (C + Anamorphic that is already as an idea banned by DCI).
It was just to consequently recognise that Frank's suggestion (not the use of an anamorphic lens), has its merits.

Last year, I had to screen two documentaries on that format. "Apollo 11" and "For Sama".
When I asked for a 2.20 test patern for "Apollo 11", the distributors involved suggested to just zoom on the movie, "as other cinemas did..." and I felt quite a fool to need to explain why that would lead to an out of focus presentation.
We reached middle ground on providing me the "Dunkirk" test patern that was available and I kept the preset on each projector since and used it for "For Sama", for which AR 2.20 is still a mystery to me.
That did make me reflect on the fact that there are more obvious problems on using such aspect ratios and less obvious ones. And on top of that, not all productions are thorough (or expensive) enough to support their aspect ratio choice fairly.

[Gunnar Asgeirsson]

Creating custom lens preset is possible but sometimes it is just not the only thing that will fix everything.
If the DCP contains subtitle then the xml subtitle file must include custom placement so it won't be be displayed on the bottom black bar in the flat container.
If that is not taked care of then the subtitle is very likely cropped off with this custom lens preset.

I did thought about this when I saw Dunkirk in cinema (DCP)
It would have been much easier to create the DCP in regular scope container and make the image fit vertically (with black bars on the site)
That way the film would just have been screened everywhere in regular scope and at least without black borders on top and bottom.
But I guess the reason for why the dcp was instead in flat container is to use as much of the available resolution.

[Steve Guttag]

Did the Dunkirk DCP put subtitles in the black bar? If so, that would be in very bad form. Subtitles are to be in the image to avoid having to look down/up during the show. Furthermore, there is a safe title area of 20% within the image where text, like subtitles should go. The only time I see subtitles in the letterbox area is for consumer release where the image is so small that the vertical offset is of no consequence.

Be forewarned...this movie is LOUD and is loud for sustained periods of time. Hopefully your sound systems are up to the task as well as your customers!

[Mark Strube]

Be forewarned...this movie is LOUD and is loud for sustained periods of time. Hopefully your sound systems are up to the task as well as your customers!

Oh yes. I usually run our Ovation fader around 6.0 - 6.5 for the feature. I have Tenet at 5.0 and it still seems LOUD. Like, it's still shaking the lobby loud. (Our house is also at 30% capacity due to COVID so there's less sound absorption happening.) We're over-spec'd so I think our system should be up to the task.

Regarding subtitles, it appears the US version of Tenet has them properly inside the image. Anyone know if they're burned in?

[Steve Guttag]

I don't think the subwoofers EVER turn off in this movie. It reminds me of an old warped vinyl record where there is this constant, sub-audible, but makes you feel uneasy feeling. I was working in the booth getting a TMS up and going and configuring a new server while some dry runs were going on in other screen and it was just hammering into the booth. Every frikin meter was darn near "pegged"...stage, surround, subs...you name it! Nothing was clipped as the system was designed to handle such things but normally a movie gives you a break...this one doesn't and I haven't seen it...just heard it!

Word has it that the dialog is relatively low in level so if you turn the movie down to prevent hearing loss, you won't be able to understand the dialog.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I've seen it twice now and I'm glad there were subtitles, because I needed them quite a few times... The dialog is really hard to comprehend in a lot of places. It either gets drowned out by the extremely loud soundtrack or all the stuff happening on screen. Some people wearing oxygen masks isn't really helping much too... It's not the first Nolan movie with sound issues and it seems to be one of the primary complaints about the movie.

[Frank Cox]

So is it actually any good as a movie? I've seen a few statements here and there that it's not, and if the sound is also un-intelligible, then what do we have here? This was supposed to be the great white horse riding to the rescue of the movie industry; is it a dud?

Er, that wouldn't be good....

[Marcel Birgelen]

I was planning on writing a review, but I wanted to have it seen twice first... yeah, it's that kind of a movie. It's probably good for repeat ticket sales, because due to all the stuff going on, it's hard to get it all in one sitting...

Is it really a good movie? Some movies need to mature, but to be entirely honest, I didn't have that immediate "wow" feeling after seeing this. Is it a bad movie? No, I don't think so. Is it a real crowdpleaser? Most definitely not.

[Carsten Kurz]

It may not meet all expectations, but it definitely gathers huge crowds here in germany. None of the recent Nolan movies qualified for 'Blockbuster', but they were definitely having their place in the cinema industry.

It is of course not realistic to expect anything close to the numbers we had before the crisis.

- Carsten

[Marco Giustini]

I have mixed feeling on this 2:20 debacle to be honest. While I understand why it is NOT a good idea to deviate from industry-standard Flat and Scope, this is not 35mm anymore, we do not need to purchase a new lens and file a different aperture plate to accommodate for the new format. With Digital it takes very little to create a new format. And this is not the first movie released in 2.20 btw,

It is disappointing to see what Cinema has become, where even turning the fader level up or down is now a major issue which may require an engineers on site. Unfortunately this is not just the cinema industry though.

[Ian Puffenberger]

I must give credit where credit is due: I saw Tenet last night in the Big Show at Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbridge, VA; it was perfectly framed at 2.2:1 on that massive side-masked screen. Everything in the trailer package appeared to be in scope containers with the actual scope content cropped at the side edges. The sound level also seemed just about perfect, it was suitably loud but not punishingly so. The sound mix definitely has some flaws when it comes to dialogue, though it wasn't as bad as I feared from what I'd read previously. But overall I think Alamo's presentation was about as perfect as the film would allow.

[Mike Blakesley]

Our screen is 2:1, so we have a few different settings: regular Scope, which makes a slightly windowboxed picture; flat, which makes a pillarboxed picture; "Full Screen Scope" which fills the screen but crops the image to 2:1. (This is the way all Scope movies were shown here during the film era.)

I experimented with Tenet quite a bit and finally decided to play it on the Full Screen Scope setting. This way we're getting the full height of the image with the sides cropped a little. I won't play it Flat, which (as Steve notes on the previous page) produces a windowboxed picture which looks small and awful.

As far as the movie itself..... this movie confirmed every single fear I had about it. It's too long, it's too loud (like many, we're running the sound a bit lower than normal), it's confusing, it's hard to understand a lot of the dialogue (what does Chris Nolan have against intelligible dialogue, anyway?), and it's going to be a turnoff for a lot of moviegoers who were hoping for a good popcorn flick. I wish we'd been able to open with something more mainstream. A good half of our crowd last night walked out with that "what the fuck was THAT?" look on their faces and said "well, that was different!" (which is code for "Well, that sucked.") I have a feeling the reporters are already polishing up their "Tenet not the savior Hollywood was hoping for" stories for the next week or two. I hope I'm wrong about that, but at least around here, it's gonna be a long 3 weeks.

[Mark Strube]

After seeing the film last night, our owners have decided that all shows of Tenet are to run with open captions. It wouldn't surprise me if other theaters start doing this. I am already noticing more specialty OCAP screenings of this title than usual from some other theaters.

(My gripe is that there isn't a "subtitles" option. Every sound effect is described on-screen which I find distracting.)