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Topic: 70 vs. DC starring Larry Myres
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-10-2006 03:56 PM
quote:
There is no question in my mind that 70mm is the best format for projection, but the argument (albeit a good one) to return to it just doesn't hold water.
As an advertising gimmick, 70mm is hard to sell these days.
As a method of projecting movies onto giant screens more than 60' in width, 70mm is the only method available that can do it correctly.
The averge viewer may not know about 70mm or even care at all if he saw a big 1980's style logo on the marquee. But it is a fact most moviegoers do enjoy movies shown on really huge screens. The bigger the better. That's why companies like Warren Theatres and Harkins are building new multiplex sites with really huge screens.
I'm not convinced a 7000 watt bulb in a custom 35mm lamphouse can show an adequately bright image (especially when some projectionists have told me you can only get about 4000 watts worth of real light out of such a lamphouse and anything extra is mostly bled away as heat).
I'm also not convinced a 6000 watt lamp in a new 2K 3-chip DLP video projector will do an adequate job of delivering properly bright images on giant sized screens either.
70mm is the only choice in that regard. Movie theater companies are building new theaters with screens that seem to get larger and larger. 60' is huge. But some circuits have to top that with a 70' screen, or 80'.
Are these movie theater companies acting irresponsibly by building such huge screens? I'm not sure. But they need to at least support the capability for showing 70mm in such theaters by installing the basic infrastructure for it (35mm/70mm projectors, DTS 70mm readers, etc.). As long as they build the theaters as 35mm only, they give every distributor an easy way out not to support 70mm.
The whole thing has degenerated into a chicken versus egg scenario. Distributors won't make any 5/70 prints because there's hardly any 70mm equippped theaters anymore. Exhibitors won't install 70mm capable projectors because distributors aren't making any 5/70 prints. Yet these big theaters are getting built with little capability for showing film done right in rooms of that size.
Basically, do they intend to solve the problem -or will they just stop building such huge theater screens? I'm hoping for the former not the latter. But I'm not very optimistic.
quote: Larry Myers
Well if something is vastly superior but still not good enough then I am at a loss.
It does seem obvious you don't understand the concept of a standards bar being raised on everything, not just one particular item. What passes for good or great is usually a constantly moving target rising higher and higher over the years.
You can keep bringing up some new 35mm print stock offered by Kodak. We can keep reminding you how Kodak can offer that same new emulsion on a film strip twice as wide. For some stupid reason you think 70mm is stuck with only 1960's technology.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 03-10-2006 09:17 PM
quote: Rick Raskin
If I remember correctly, it took "Star Wars" to get the dust off of the balcony seats at the Uptown. It was an event movie that everyone had to see and it was initially showing (in the DC area) only at that theatre. Also, I remember the initial release was 35mm FLAT, but that didn't seem to matter. Folks came out in droves. What's needed today? As Steve said, you have to give them an experience they can't get at home.
You remember incorrectly...it was shown 35mm "true scope" (I think that was on the marquee ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ) The balcony in the Uptown has routinely been filled throughout its life...it is a special theatre.
However, when they received a 70mm print it got a resurgance in business like it was a new film again ("Now in 70mm" I believe the newspaper ads ran).
quote: Larry Myers
Well if something is vastly superior but still not good enough then I am at a loss.
Yes you are at a loss. Lets take it to something like special effects. Compare the effects of say the Buck Rogers serials and then on Star Wars...the Star Wars effects were VASTLY superior but by 1980, they were "not good enough." The quality was improved to allow the asteriod sequence to be the experience it was as well as many other effects.
When ones quality standards are raised, what was once good enough is no more. Your quality standards seem to be stuck a level 40-years ago. The quality available in 2006 is much higher that that. What kind of gas milage did you get in 1960? I'll bet it is vastly superior now but in terms of how much to run a car today, it is not good enough.
Bobby...running a 7KW lamp on 35mm is certainly doable with the right equipment...glass reflector and IR filters. We've done it many times without damage. In fact, we've run 5KW on 16mm without damage.
The problem with the smaller gauge films is that they are not efficient enough and almost by definition if you are in that wattage range, the picture won't look very good on 35mm...it is not good enough. For me, 35mm loses its edge once the picture gets to about 30-feet wide sitting about 2-screen heights back.
quote: Ron Curran
3. Give studio heads a ticket to see their latest movie on the biggest screen in the country instead of in a private screening room.
This is certainly key. Most of my Hollywood friends do live in the bubble of not seeing their films as they look in a conventional theatre...the EK prints and small screens shield them from their final results. If they saw their films in a conventional theatre they would most likely rethink the value of 70mm, especially for blow-ups....just to retain the look they saw when they approved the film.
quote: Larry Myers
So 70mm is still 3 times the area but only 1.7320508 times the resolution vs 35mm ture scope.
You are correct only as far as the negative is concerned...for resolution you are wrong. It is closer to 3 for the positive print and more like 9 times better for a release print and closer to 16 times steadier once the factors of projection/printing are taken into account.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 03-11-2006 03:32 AM
Resolution is like air density - the amount of water particles per given square measured area of air.
If a full size airplane, single engine and piston powered with a two bladed prop diameter of 6 feet attached to the engine, the engine needs the propeller to swing around close to 2000 RPM to that airplane's speed of a little over 80mph on takeoff - on a calm morning.
Then, we take that same airplane, make a radio controlled version of this same airplane, put on a 10cc, two-stroke engine, spinning that same two bladed propeller, which is now reduced to 5 inches in diameter, the engine needs to swing that propeller around almost 5000 to 7000 RPM to pull that RC airplane off the ground at almost the same 80mph takeoff.
All of this is due to the size of one of the propeller's blade - 3ft against 2.5 inches, which is cutting through the set amount of water particles in the air to give something for the blades to work on to pull the aircraft through the air.
.
Going back to our computer CRT monitors: which looked good when displaying a picture with the display factor of the simple 640x480 pixels - a 15inch .39 pitch monitor, or a 15inch .26 pitch monitor.
-Monte
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 03-11-2006 09:39 AM
quote: Larry Myers
Believing that 70mm is 9 times better or 16 times steadier then 35mm is like believing the earth is flat. With image quality, it matters not if it's a negative, print, projected or viewed, it's all the same.
Ah, now we are getting somewhere...that statement is so wrong.
Each piece of film along the way has the same resolving power within it, yes but what can be resolved through the printing and projection process is not the same. To believe so is to stick ones head in the sand and presume a perfect world.
Any slippage on the contact printer, any mis-registration on the step printer, any unsteadiness of the projector all take away from the final effective resolution of the product. Furthermore, when you duplicate an image you do not get a 100% duplication, you loose resolution at each step (its one of the things that digital has going for it over film...digital can yield and exact copy, film can not...its a fact).
The numbers say that 65/70mm release prints will appear nearly 15 times better than the same print that was 35/35 true scope using the same film stocks throughout.
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