Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Will 4K be the next 70mm?

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Digital Cinema Forum » Will 4K be the next 70mm? (Page 8)

This topic comprises 16 pages: 1 2 3 ... 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ... 14 15 16

Author

Topic: Will 4K be the next 70mm?

Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 10-31-2010 03:08 PM

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
knows for sure that AMC ETX setups are Sony 4k

AMC

A movie-lover's dream come true, this new state-of-the-art theatre is the first all-digital theatre in the area and is equipped with Sony® 4K digital cinema projectors, capable of producing images with more than four times the resolution of HDTV. As if all-digital screens weren't enough, two auditoriums at AMC Yonge & Dundas 24 boast screens that are more than three stories high and 55 feet wide, helping showcase highly anticipated films such as Paramount Pictures' "Stop-Loss" and Sony Pictures' "21.

At least the AMC in Toronto is Sony 4k

| IP: Logged

James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 10-31-2010 04:03 PM

If the surface area is more than 3 stories high, this translates to about a 40 foot by 55 foot screen, indicating this may be "common width".

| IP: Logged

Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 10-31-2010 04:46 PM

Sadly what Gorden reported about Incompetent projectionist running and ruining 70mm prints during their first run is true. It happened here during the 1st week of the first Batman movie starring Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nickelson as the Joker.
The film opened in 70mm at the Waikiki #3 and during the middle of the first week,, the Honolulu Advertiser reported the first reel of the movie was very badly damaged and a back up 35mm print had to be substituted until Warner Brothers replaced the damaged reel three weeks later. I did get to see the movie in 70mm at that time. I was not so lucky when a 70mm print of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was damaged at the Kapiolani Theatre and the movie played the remainder of it's run in 35mm and that is what I saw. For some reason, the 70mm print of GETTYSBURG had a slight sound track problem when it played at the Cinerama and o one know haw it had happened. I did get to see it in 70 before the show was moved over to the Kuhio a week later in 35mm.

I loved 70mm films and if I knew in advance a Honolulu theatre was not going to play it in that format , I always made an effort to see them on the mainland if I was traveling at the time.

-Claude

| IP: Logged

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 10-31-2010 06:53 PM

There's no way it is 40 feet high unless they plan on showing 1.66 or narrower movies. If it is that high, then that is wasted screen real estate because it will never be used. But anyway, a "story" is considered 10 feet high in general terms.

I know Sony projectors have had a very difficult time filling the screens at the Regal Colorado Mills theaters. Even the techs from Japan couldn't quite do it. Not sure why they couldn't just put a different lens on there. But when they put digital into their big house, they had to move the Christie in there and install the Sony in the smaller auditorium because it simply couldn't fill the screen. It doesn't even fill the screen all the way in the smaller auditorium. It's pathetic. A good friend of mine works at an all-digital AMC theater with Sonys and he hates them with a passion, says the Christie projector and Dolby servers, etc are much, much better than the slipshod way that Sony does things.

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-31-2010 09:11 PM

quote: Christian Appelt
TEMPLE OF DOOM was shot in 35mm Panavision, not in 65mm.
Visual effects scenes were filmed and composited in 8-perf Vistavision because this was ILM's in-house large format to compensate for losses in multi-generation optical printing. (IIRC, the decision was made before STAR WARS based on the availability of different film stocks in 35mm, 65mm would have been Special Order every time. It has been discussed in detail in older issues of CINEFEX.)

George selected VistaVision as the large-format for ILM opticals because 65mm was too expensive -- the existing cameras still in high demand for effects work. VistaVision was an abandoned format. The dormant equipment was available and cheap, so they went with it.

I've read this explanation a few times. I'm pretty sure the topic is covered in "Skywalking" and also in the original ILM coffee table book "The Art of Special Effects" (there was a followup to cover the transition to CGI). I'd check, but those books are back home in The Bahamas.

Fun Trivia -- ILMers referred to VistaVision as "lazy eights" because it was 8-perfs laying sideways.

| IP: Logged

Ian Parfrey
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1049
From: Imbil Australia 26 deg 27' 42.66" S 152 deg 42' 23.40" E
Registered: Feb 2009

posted 10-31-2010 10:02 PM

...and some of the cameras were referred to as "Empires".

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 10-31-2010 11:05 PM

quote: AMC Sales Blurb
A movie-lover's dream come true, this new state-of-the-art theatre is the first all-digital theatre in the area and is equipped with Sony® 4K digital cinema projectors, capable of producing images with more than four times the resolution of HDTV.

Let's underscore the phrase "CAPABLE of producing images with" blah blah blah. A 4K projector that is fed mostly with native 2K content is hardly 4K at all. Aw, but who cares about things like important details?

It's just like the laughable nonsense that exists in tens of millions of homes across the United States (and probably much of the rest of the developed world). They have widescreen HD-capable TV sets that are being fed only with SD-quality video, often 4:3 ratio and artificially stretched. Yet many of these folks probably think they're watching shows in high definition based solely on the TV hardware.

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 10-31-2010 11:21 PM

very true bobby -- i predict the next generation of kids who grow up watching a stretched version of sesame street will not see any difference between a circle and an oval, or a square and a rectangle [Eek!]

| IP: Logged

Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-31-2010 11:42 PM

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
Greg, Manny and Christian are right

I'll try not to let that go to my head. To me, the history of 70mm is a sad story. I was a teenaged projectionist in 1983 with about 8 months of experience in the booth when we got a new 70mm system in order to show Return of the Jedi. I was a whiz with 35mm and I stand behind my 35mm performance with full confidence and no regrets. And I was expected to make the jump to 70mm without any problems. Well, that didn't happen. I just didn't have the skills. I had no way of knowing, for example, about the tension adjustments on the JJ projector (of which Brad has written). The biggest breakdown (and it was a big disaster) happened when I had the night off but, still, it could have easily happened while I was there.

So the problems with 70mm over the years make me sad. But to me it's more sad to think about people who still expect 70mm to make a comeback someday. You can argue about it for 8 pages on a web site but let's be realistic: This wonderful 70mm revival will never happen! Our efforts will be better spent promoting the future which is, like it or not, higher-resolution digital presentations with higher frame rates than that awful, ugly, jittery 24 fps. And digital solves one of 70mm's major problems: The inexperienced operator can switch to a higher-quality projection system without needing any additional skills or experience than they needed with the standard-quality system.

| IP: Logged

Tom Petrov
Five Guys Lover

Posts: 1121
From: El Paso, TX
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 11-01-2010 12:06 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
A 4K projector that is fed mostly with native 2K content is hardly 4K at all. Aw, but who cares about things like important details?

Didn't they blow up 35mm for 70mm showings?

quote:
So the problems with 70mm over the years make me sad. But to me it's more sad to think about people who still expect 70mm to make a comeback someday. You can argue about it for 8 pages on a web site but let's be realistic: This wonderful 70mm revival will never happen! Our efforts will be better spent promoting the future which is, like it or not, higher-resolution digital presentations with higher frame rates than that awful, ugly, jittery 24 fps. And digital solves one of 70mm's major problems: The inexperienced operator can switch to a higher-quality projection system without needing any additional skills or experience than they needed with the standard-quality system.

This is why I maintain that 70mm is a fail. High print cost, expensive production, you need an experienced operator that costs money per hour and you must have a long theatrical run to get your money back. 35mm is much more efficient and profitable

Also the biggest hurdle is without filmaker support, you have no chance.If James Cameron and George Lucas support digital, then RIP for 70mm. .

You are right, it will never, ever comeback.

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 11-01-2010 05:04 AM

quote: Tom Petrov
Didn't they blow up 35mm for 70mm showings?

Yes they did. Mainly because 70mm offered a better way to do sound. But if you re-read Steve's post you will find there were benefits beyond that.

quote: Tom Petrov
This is why I maintain that 70mm is a fail. High print cost, expensive production, you need an experienced operator that costs money per hour and you must have a long theatrical run to get your money back. 35mm is much more efficient and profitable

You're forgetting that 35mm requires an experienced operator too. Just because kids are doing it does not mean they're doing it right. Long theatrical runs aren't bad for business. The cinema operators stand to make more money if the movie has a life beyond just the first or second weekends because, with time, the theatre retains a greater share of the box-office receipts. It's not fair that the studios flood the market with 3000+ prints the way they do now. It kills the movie when everyone can see it in the first weekend -- because they're never sold out anymore, or they may be sold out but another showtime is available in 15 minutes. Nowadays, a movie doesn't have to be any good. By the time word spreads that a movie is bad, everyone's already seen it.

quote: Tom Petrov
Also the biggest hurdle is without filmaker support, you have no chance.If James Cameron and George Lucas support digital, then RIP for 70mm. .

James Cameron and George Lucas aren't the only powerful filmmakers. To go with an obvious example, Steven Spielberg can pretty much do whatever he wants. As long as his films continue to make money, the studios won't have a problem keeping him happy -- even if that means a few hundred 70mm prints. If those 70mm prints can be proven to outsell the other formats, a comeback is completely possible.

Do not forget -- MONEY drives the industry. SAVING money isn't the only issue. MAKING money is all that matters. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. If saving money was the only thing that mattered, the studios would choose to go with a lesser quality of everything (picture, sound, writing, acting, music, etc). And, they migrate to WHATEVER sells more tickets (Sound, Color, 70mm, Stereo, THX, Digital, 3D).

Which brings me to my last point:

Never say "never." I'm sure there are those who thought they'd seen the last of 3D.

| IP: Logged

Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 11-01-2010 07:59 AM

But Spielberg doesn't support 65mm production either. The next, big, epic "event" movies are going to be sequels to Avatar and Peter Jsckson's Hobbitt stuff. The "best" way to see those movies "the way they were meant to be seen" will be digital 3D. Perhaps Mr. Nolan will try something in 65mm for the next Batman movie but I doubt it will be as successful as The Dark Knight (which was never a "fun" movie to watch). Will that be enough to launch a trend? Some of us hope so but I don't buy it.

I know guys who worked on one of those 65mm movies produced by the Mormon Church. Principal photography was in the Spring of 1999 (so anything could have happened since then). He told me that, essentially, the Arrixflex 765 cameras they used had barely been used between 1990 (when the guys from the church used them for their first big-format movie) and 1999. They had suffered from neglect a bit and weren't as nice to use as they should have been. So I question the idea that a potential filmmaker could just call up Panavision or Arriflex and get a 65mm package very easily. Those cameras likely would need a lot of maintenance before they're ready for the field, unlike a 35mm package which would be out-the-door immediately. So, that's just another potential, realistic concern for a producer. You don't want a camera to shut down your production when you're already spending a ton of money per day on actors, crew, locations, etc. that will just sit there costing you more while you're waiting for the camera to work. (We can argue that it's not a realistic fear but it's easy to see why producers would be afraid.)

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 11-01-2010 08:57 AM

Greg, I think you missed my point which was *IF* Spielberg wanted to... or if *ANYONE* with sufficient clout wanted to... blah blah blah.

And, don't you think Arri and Panavision would bend over backwards to impress such a hot-shot director? I'm telling you -- those cameras wouldn't know what hit them! They'd be like new. "Like a Virgin," as Madonna would say.

And the time it would take to rehab those cameras is totally within the realm of possibility -- Hollywood filmmakers don't rush into production -- there'd be plenty of time to get those camera packages together. Do you think Stanley Kubrick worked with "off the rack" camera equipment? (He didn't.)

"Surely, you can't be serious..."

Are you really equating the Hollywood clout factor of some Mormon filmmakers with that of Spielberg, Jackson (etc)..?

| IP: Logged

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-01-2010 09:41 AM

Manny... What packages... Only just a few 65mm cameras exist at each company! Dream on though...

Mark

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 11-01-2010 10:01 AM

quote:
This wonderful 70mm revival will never happen!

Most of us don't believe it's going to happen. A big reason why these threads generate a lot of pages is because many of us just aren't going to tolerate it when someone makes the extremely dumb-assed claim that 2K digital or 4K digital is somehow equal to 70mm. It isn't! Those "digital" formats are NEVER going to be as good as 70mm.

70mm may not ever make a comeback, but Hollywood movie studios and movie theater companies should not be let off the hook for dropping the standards of production and presentation quality to a permanently lower level. 35mm isn't as good as 70mm. Digital sure as hell isn't as good either. Movie fans are stuck with lesser quality imagery because the "filmmakers" and theaters are more concerned with using systems that are faster and easier than something using something better.

Video ("digital") production and projection will have to improve to much higher standards in numerous areas before it could ever honestly pass itself off as being equal or superior to 70mm. IMHO, it still hasn't matched 35mm.

On the production side new video cameras with native 8K or 16K resolution (and appropriate lens systems to match) would be necessary. Digital intermediate use and CGI renderings would need to match those resolution levels. Right now 2K is still the de facto standard and many of those "2K" projects are really rendered natively in 1080p and blown up slightly to 2K. My understanding is most DI systems with 4K capability won't let you edit in color at 4K resolution; you have to do color work on lower resolution "proxy" footage and then apply the changes to the 4K data. 8K DI work has been used in a handful of cases, mostly on 65mm/70mm film material for a few Blu-ray projects.

Companies like Red, Panavision and Canon can keep on developing new CCD and CMOS imagers as much as they like. It's a bigger step to build full camera systems and lens packages around those new chips and a more difficult step above that to get movie productions to actually originate across the board in that higher resolution. A movie production that uses a Red camera to shoot in 4K, but then dump the footage down to 2K in post is only a 2K movie in the end.

Digital projection has a couple serious drawbacks: unsatisfactory contrast and brightness. 4K just doesn't seem to be ready for giant sized screen use with the complaints I've seen about brightness levels. No digital system has black levels that match that of film. 70mm can be used on really huge screens and deliver unmatched levels of brightness along with superior contrast.

There may never be a 70mm revival, but nothing as good as 70mm is coming along anytime soon.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 16 pages: 1 2 3 ... 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ... 14 15 16

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.