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Topic: Tarantino to shoot ant release next movie in 70mm in 2015
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-05-2014 05:57 AM
Leo is dead on...long-term, the problem will be keeping such a niche market going. The cost of 70mm parts were always vastly more expensive than 35mm due to far fewer quantities associated with 70mm.
Its great if you can show 70mm...but what if you damage that intermittent sprocket? Will that shut you down forever? Can you hold your head high and book a 70mm run knowing that you are just one failure away (of most anything) from not being able to recover?
I know on our installations in recent years for venues that were to run film indefinitely, they were backed up pretty substantially with spares just for this purpose. The more "special" the part, the more likely that there is spare of it on site. This, however required a substantial investment by the theatre to prepare for that day.
As for labs, I'm 99% sure Fotokem still handles 70mm. We have a customer that moved their negative there and still gets prints from them after the lab in California shut down (I thought it was Technicolor).
Unlike with vinyl, film is just way too small a market to have a sustainable niche. A couple 100 world wide systems is just too small to support. And of those 200 or so operating systems, you are going to have a mix of probably 4-5 brands/models...further diluting the potential for a person to manufacture a part to recover their costs.
As for DTS/Datasat. They will still repair 70mm readers and at the likely level of 70mm releases, that shouldn't need to happen very often at all! What are we talking about? Maybe, on a good year, with a good title, 2 months of use? That reader should last almost indefinitely. We have one site that "consumes" 70mm reader life but it runs 70mm 7-days a week. And they only need approximately 1 LED/year or perhaps a bit less. Furthermore, one isn't dependent on Datasat for the LED though the rest of the reader does wear too. That said, it isn't the trickiest of machining to duplicate. Love it or hate it, DTS kept their reader design pretty simple. I suspect that all of the readers that ever need to be made for 70mm have already been made. It may just be a matter of pair those that are running the format with existing readers that have not managed to be thrown away. If there was a market, I'd suspect that Datasat would make them but I think there is simply no market at this time.
And lets not kid ourselves...this will only be a niche that will become increasingly less received. Film is not coming back.
That said, I hope 70mm has as long a run as possible. 5/70 remains my most favorite format.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-05-2014 01:56 PM
quote:
BANG! Die you little six-legged fuckers! DIE!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
It even was funny before I managed to read the entire title of this topic ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Getting back to the possibility of a 70mm revival...
The problem probably isn't just parts, it's also the lack of knowledge of the format. If you switched your whole operation to digital and got rid of all your projectionist in the process, are you going to hire one back just for a few limited shows?
Maybe someone like Christopher Nolan could ditch 15/70 IMAX and start embracing 5/70? Because 15/70 IMAX is going nowhere in the future, as awesome as that format is, it has so many issues that it will never will go anywhere close to mainstream. Besides that, I don't think it's the best format for feature films anyway. But 5/70 has been a proven format for feature films over the years. Getting someone like Nolan "aboard", would at least get one extra big name committed to this format.
I know it's probably wishful thinking, but a few great names in the industry could really make a dent and revive 5/70 as a premium format. This format still has much more resolution than any digital technology now available. Also, there are still sufficient directors out there, that embrace film as the only medium to shoot on.
Maybe DATASAT or some other company could also work out a way to modernize the sound for this format. Why couldn't you redesign the timecode reader to feed into your standard DCI Server and deliver uncompressed sound as a digital package, maybe even a DCP, synced to the movie for example? It would require some software updates on that server obviously, but if a 486 processor could do it back in the 80s, a modern cinema server should be able to handle it nowadays.
It's probably hard to get a critical mass rolling, but that's true for "new technology" too. So, maybe the key is, to not brand this as a revival, but as something totally new and shiny? Who cares if it's being done with decades old equipment?
But yeah, I'll stop dreaming now...
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-05-2014 06:35 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
It would require some software updates on that server obviously, but if a 486 processor could do it back in the 80s, a modern cinema server should be able to handle it nowadays.
I have to correct a stupid typo here, it was obviously in the 90s and not in the 80s.
quote: Buck Wilson
Now that digital is the new norm, 35mm has kind of 'gotten out of the way' if you will.
I would also say that 4K, if done right, actually is an improvement to 35mm in general... Yeah, I said it, shoot me . Although it is very hard to compare both, in terms of resolution, I would say that 4K comes pretty close. It has also the added benefit of better image stability and isn't prone to film damage after repeated runs. Also, the non-compressed digital sound is a step forward. There certainly are still issues that need to be fixed, like the black levels.
So, if we really want to improve and present a premium format that exceeds 4K, something many people will get at home in the coming years, there should be some room for a super-premium better-than-4K format, or not?
And why couldn't this format be film? Yeah, we're still facing a whole bunch of issues, but on the other hand, there's currently no out-of-the-box equipment that can shoot in e.g. 8K, there is no out of the box projection system that can do it either...
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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 09-05-2014 07:07 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I would also say that 4K, if done right, actually is an improvement to 35mm in general...
I saw JAWS in 4k on Memorial day at the Alamo Drafthouse in Littleton, CO. The presentation was pretty good, except for darker images. They were very muddy. I don't remember 35mm looking that bad, when done right. But other than that, it was sharp, steady, and bright. (The screen wasn't all that huge though...
quote:
Yeah, I said it, shoot me [Wink]
Smile, you son of a bitch!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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