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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Topic: Gravity
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 10-09-2013 03:41 AM
quote: Mark Ogden
No, it's not plausible at all, and that is why viewers who know something about outer space will fly up out of their seats in protest; the Hubble and the ISS are nowhere near each other; the Hubble is about 350 miles above the equator, the ISS is about 250 miles over Russia. But, show me the science fiction film that doesn't have such leaps in science and logic. You're gonna be hard-pressed to find one.
You had me thinking there, but both Hubble and IIS are not geostationary, they're constantly moving in regards to the surface of the earth. They do also not share the same orbit. They *might* be close to another from time to time, but the distance is constantly changing. Which would it make hard to target that object anyway, without the help of computers or sophisticated navigation equipment.
There is a whole list of flaws I could come up with. It did not ruin the show for me, as it sometimes does. This movie had enough stuff going for it.
It seems to be very hard to create stories that depict technology in a realistic manner. I don't really know a single sci-fi movie that I would consider to be 100% "technically accurate", but that's probably were the fiction part comes in. I wanted to point out Apollo 13, but that one is no science fiction, they had the real events and a bunch of NASA guys to help them to get the stuff right and then again, they made a whole bunch of factual technical errors (and I don't count the ones were they stayed off the real chain of events for dramatization).
quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
Those of you who had seen this movie in 2-D because Dolby Atmos was more important to you or you feel 3-D is a hype, did yourselves a great disservice.
Atmos and Stereoscopic 3D don't bite you know. I've seen it in Atmos AND dual projector 3D. I really liked the 3D in this one, but if I had to choose between Atmos 2D and IMAX 3D, I would choose Atmos 2D without doubt. There is another reason why I would not have watched in D-IMAX: the aspect ratio. Those D-IMAX screens really aren't that big, especially if you loose a big part of the top and bottom of it. Also, no IMAX theater I know, actually employs masking.
Regarding that old D-IMAX discussion. It seems, from what I conclude, that MOST people around here agree that Digital IMAX is, in it's current state, just hogwash.
I do agree with Terry, that they seem have a better marketing department than Dolby. But then again, it is hard to compare Dolby to IMAX. IMAX is more like THX in the sense that it's a concept. And unlike those other 2 or 3-letter acronyms those multiplex chains are inventing themselves, they do have exposure.
Also, I don't think Dolby is anywhere near dead. They might have had bigger brand recognition in the past, but they do have a huge install base. Even in the world of DCPs, they're still the number one sound processor choice.
Dolby Atmos might not see the same adoption rate as other new sound systems in the past, but that might be due to the fact that it only makes sense if you go all the way and install the whole array of speakers and amps.
But then again, in large parts of the world IMAX isn't going anywhere soon. In Germany for example, there is, until now, just a single D-IMAX installation and that opened just a few months ago.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-09-2013 11:38 AM
I have no regrets about watching Gravity in 2D. I might check out the 3D version sometime, but I have reservations about it. 3D movies have a nasty habit of making big things look small. The movie-makers try various tricks increase the 3D depth effect to satisfy audiences, but in doing so often screw up the sense of scale. That was my biggest complaint about the 3D in The Avengers, despite a lot of that movie's 3D being 2D/3D converted.
The Atmos mix of Gravity delivered the most vivid use of screen & surround panning I have ever heard in a movie. There's just no way for 5.1 or 7.1 to match that. I doubt Barco's "11.1" setup could compare favorably to Atmos either.
For more than a decade I had been wanting companies like DTS or Dolby to deliver a 10.2 channel system to theaters, in part to elevate commercial cinema above home theater once again. DTS & Universal Studios had an opportunity to deliver something like 10.2 surround back when the DTS XD10 scalable processor was first introduced. Out of the box, it was capable of 8 channel operation and that didn't even get used by movie studios. With Atmos, Dolby not only made my wishes come true for a proper movie theater sound format they surpassed what I requested by delivering something even better.
I don't expect Dolby Atmos to be installed in just any movie theater auditorium. It's too expensive for that. However, any theaters charging a premium just over the size of the room and screen (like RPX, XD, ETX, BigD, etc.) ought to be installing Atmos. I'm not going to settle for plain vanilla 5.1/7.1 in that kind of environment.
That gets back to IMAX. Sooner or later the bloom is going to come off that rose. I don't like IMAX' sound systems. Those plain 5.1 channel systems with only 2 surround speaker cabinets are a big liability. A rival with a big screen can install a dual 4K projector setup with a Dolby Atmos capable sound system and just trounce IMAX-D.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 10-09-2013 03:11 PM
quote:
I have no regrets about watching Gravity in 2D. I might check out the 3D version sometime, but I have reservations about it. 3D movies have a nasty habit of making big things look small. The movie-makers try various tricks increase the 3D depth effect to satisfy audiences, but in doing so often screw up the sense of scale. That was my biggest complaint about the 3D in The Avengers, despite a lot of that movie's 3D being 2D/3D converted.
I agree with you, 3D has the nasty habit of pulling things out of proportion, or rather, to squeeze things out of proportion. I'm not entirely certain, but it seems to happen more with the overuse of negative parallax (the in your face effect). But in this movie, it actually worked, at least for me. It brought back some memories of Space Station 3D (a real 15/70 IMAX feature) and I really liked the 3D in that one, it really brought "space" a bit closer. This movie managed to do the same and the 3D actually helped (at least for me). There was one scene, were some of the debris flies right at you, I really had to blink with my eyes several times. Even my head was in "collision avoidance mode", it's been a long time a 3D presentation did that to me.
quote: Bobby Henderson
That gets back to IMAX. Sooner or later the bloom is going to come off that rose. I don't like IMAX' sound systems. Those plain 5.1 channel systems with only 2 surround speaker cabinets are a big liability. A rival with a big screen can install a dual 4K projector setup with a Dolby Atmos capable sound system and just trounce IMAX-D.
Technically, that's absolutely true. Dolby Atmos is the sound system I've been waiting for, for years. An "object/vector" based sound system, that can potentially fit any room and reproduce real, "3d" immersive sound.
The theater I've been to, to see Gravity, beats an average D-IMAX installation on any aspect: Screen size, sound quality, sound impact and projection quality. This experience was branded as "XD". But whatever nonsense XD may stand for, it's not something that's been marketed with the same power as IMAX. IMAX is on the film poster, in the trailers and also featured in the marquee of an increasing number of movie theaters.
I do perfectly know that this "XD" bullshit brand stands for something much more sophisticated than ultra-boomy 5.1 sound on an oversized, flat screen with 2K projection. I did do my homework, because I care.
But Terry might have a point (and it has been discussed here before): many people unfortunately don't care. D-IMAX is probably "good enough" for them, which, in my opinion is a sad thing... I know lots of people that still watch crappy low-bitrate SD content on their super-size HD screen and 7.1 setup, even though the 1080p HD with SRD and/or DTS version of the same channel is just two button-pushes away, they don't seem to notice the difference or just don't care...
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-10-2013 10:50 AM
quote: Manny Knowles
Yes. It's possible that Atmos inspired this particular use of surround sound. Would they have mixed it this way if Atmos didn't exist? Who knows?
The videos I mentioned earlier, featuring director Alfonso Cuarón and sound re-recording mixer Skip Lievsay, sort of answer that question. The movie's sound design was composed first in 7.1 surround. Then, as Skip Lievsay put it, they "doubled down" with making the object placement and surround pans more precise in Dolby Atmos.
Alfonso Cuarón talks about Dolby Atmos
Alfonso Cuarón & Skip Lievsay on Gravity Sound Design
quote: Manny Knowles
It is worth giving this film a listen in 5.1 because I think it actually illustrates that it's not as "bad" a format as people have come to believe. The industry just got lazy, creating "rules" like: dialogue in the center channel, music and sfx in L/R, ambience in the surrounds. And then the format gets a bad rap, "necessitating" something like Atmos.
5.1 surround is great if you're sitting in the right place within the auditorium and the theater's sound system is properly designed and maintained. All too often 5.1 surround is pretty limiting in a commercial theater auditorium because the conventional surround speaker array projects a left wall-right wall stereo effect to most of the viewers. Only a few people sitting in the theater's sweet spot experience truly enveloping surround. Surround•EX, DTS-ES and, more recently, discrete 7.1 with four surround channels all intended to solve that problem.
How a sound format is used is another matter that changes from one movie to the next. Too many movies are mixed in a very conventional manner, even a lot of loud, bombastic action movies. I watched Man of Steel in Dolby Atmos. That mix didn't do nearly as much the mix of Gravity did with the creative possibilities of Dolby Atmos.
Alfonso Cuarón wanted a more "literal" sound field in Gravity. In real life we hear everything in a three dimensional way. 5.1/7.1 surround is limited in how it can present that. Even Atmos has its limits, but it's a whole lot closer to realistic 3D sound than 5.1/7.1.
Meanwhile, I think Woody Allen is still having his movies mixed in mono, right? Digital mono though.
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