Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Bringing 3D on 70mm solution

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Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-08-2009, 01:36 PM:

Call me crazy but why has no one ever thought of doing this. Seeing how stacking of 2 digital projectors helps in illumination and also left/right eye better distribution, how would printing on a 70mm strip half images side by side. Using a spec offset you can have for example 60 frames delay between the left frame and the right frame thus left/right image on the projectors. A double stack system of 70mm projection to show 3D films with the top projector having a gate allowing only the left portion to be shown and the bottom projector with a gate allowing only the right portion to be shown. Would it work or not?
Demetris

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 08-08-2009, 01:49 PM:

Theoretically it would work if all installations followed strict spacing rules between the top and bottom projectors. However, wouldn't it be better to print the images synchronized side by side and let the optics do the alignment? I think you could pump enough light through one film projector to fulfill the illumination requirements.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-08-2009, 02:02 PM:

As I set, a spec offset between the top and bottom image. Sound is a different aspect. Although now that I think about it more, it would be wiser having them side by side and using a double lens feature since splicing would be identical on the two images. Well just a thought what do you think?
Demetris

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-08-2009, 03:23 PM:

House of Wax was widely shown in side by side 70mm 3-D in the 70s. It was spectaculuar for sure but the 1:33 aspect ratio of the movie also perfectly lends itself to doing this and keeping the spherical lenses on the projector. Down side is you still need a silver screen. Actually there are 10 perf 70mm projectors so you could do full frame 70mm over and under easily. Its just not practical today in today's typical multiplex situation. No one could properly run the 70mm equipment for the most part... at least what equipment is left today... not that much really. 10 perf really flys fast... almost as fast as Imax!

Mark

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 08-08-2009, 04:19 PM:

I installed a couple of Mega 8/70's at a park in China. One is a 3D ride, the other is a 4D. I worked on a 5/70 projector out in L.A. that ran 48 FPS. We were looking at doing 3d on that single projector, not sure what ever happened with that project... [Confused]

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 08-08-2009, 04:34 PM:

Once again (cost wise) Digital TV makes 70mm make sense. Louis

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 08-09-2009, 10:09 AM:

Demetris, there was a single-strip 65/70mm 3D process in the 1960s known as HiFi Stereo 70. Dual anamorphic images on 5-perf 70mm with a single beam splitter lens (IIRC, it was called "Stereo-Kinotar" and distributed by Kinoton).

You can see a 3D film clip at the beginning of chapter 6 of this text:

M.C.S.-70 (in70mm.com)

Not quite as bright as double 70mm 3D, I have to admit.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-09-2009, 10:20 AM:

What the eff is "4D"? You can't make up your own dimensions.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 08-09-2009, 12:28 PM:

Time travel.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-09-2009, 01:19 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Down side is you still need a silver screen.

Why is that Mark?

quote: Christian Appelt
Demetris, there was a single-strip 65/70mm 3D process in the 1960s known as HiFi Stereo 70.

I did not know that! Thanks.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-09-2009, 02:31 PM:

quote:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Down side is you still need a silver screen.
Why is that Mark?

To maintain polarization of the light. As for the downside it is because of the hot spotting and the loss of light associated with where one sits in the theatre. Light uniformity sucks on a silver screen plain and simple.

[ 08-09-2009, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: Adam Martin ]

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 08-09-2009, 06:16 PM:

quote: Darryl Spicer was the last to post

What the eff is "4D"? You can't make up your own dimensions.

If your good like me you can [Big Grin]

Actually it adds other effects to the movie. In this one it drops bubbles from the ceiling in one scene, a mist of water in your face when an elephant sneezes, and strobe lights and air sprayed at you in different scenes.

4D pic

Rick

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-09-2009, 10:02 PM:

Funny story:

Cinemark used to run a 3-screen theater inside the local mall. It's one of places I trained before Tinesltown-17 opened.

One of the managers who used to run the place told me that the block walls were filled with granular Styrofoam insulation. When the wind blew hard enough from the right direction, some of the Styrofoam beads used to blow out from the cracks in the walls and into the theater.

It was during the run of "Miracle on 34th St." (1995 remake) when a customer came out to report that white Styrofoam was blowing into the theater.

The manager, without missing a beat, said, "Yes, I know. It's a new special effect to make it feel more like Christmas in the theater."

Story goes... The guy bought it! [Big Grin]

He went back in, sat down and thought he was seeing something extra special!

[Big Grin]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 08-09-2009, 10:19 PM:

A bit off-topic, but...

Is there any reason, besides Real-D's infinited displeasure, why a 3D process couldn't be encoded before the picture is placed onto the hard drive, possibly allowing you to avoid some of the light losses currently experienced?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-10-2009, 02:54 AM:

I didn't know that bubbles, etc were actual dimensions unto themselves!

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 08-10-2009, 08:56 AM:

4D definition

It's from Wikipedia, so it's got to be true!

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-10-2009, 12:36 PM:

Someone else MUST own the name "Ride Film" then... has alot more meaning!

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 08-10-2009, 02:45 PM:

Y'Know, when I want to watch a movie, I want to watch a MOVIE without being shaken around. I want to concentrate on the characters, the plot or the visuals without somebody else (or some machine) telling me what I'm supposed to feel like.

It's not to say that I don't like motion rides but, when I want to see something like that I'll buy a ticket for the "Back to the Future" ride or something like that. (BTTF closed in 2007. Didn't it?)

It just seems to me that movies are being marketed by what 3-D and "4-D" crap they can figure out how to build. Weren't they putting buzzers under seats back in the 1950's? Or was that just an urban legend?

They just need to concentrate on making good movies. The rest of that crap will sort itself out by itself.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 08-28-2009, 07:36 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
It just seems to me that movies are being marketed by what 3-D and "4-D" crap they can figure out how to build. Weren't they putting buzzers under seats back in the 1950's? Or was that just an urban legend?

They did for the movie "The Tingler" with Vincent Price. Only certain seats were wired. I went to my local RKO in the Bronx and was really pissed to find out they weren't setup for the effect. I made my father take me to a theatre on Broadway in NYC (can't remember which one), but even there only some seats were wired. I stuck my head under the seats to find one.

It was just a little vibrator buzz, but it worked really well. It made me smile, but there were people in the audience who screamed like hell. After they screamed, everyone in the audience would laugh. This was part of the plotline - as I remember it, The Tingler was this lobster looking thing that was attached to your spine, but dormant until you were scared, or something to that effect. I think fear caused it to "get loose" and if you couldn't scream, it would kill you. So near the end of the move, a Tingler gets loose and then they set off the buzzers. I don't know if this was cued into the film or done manually by the projectionist according to a script.

Most of the late 50s, early 60s horror movies weren't the least bit scary, even to a kid. But this one did scare me just a little (I was 10 or 11 at the time.) The only other film I can think of that creeped me out a bit was Mario Bava's "Black Sunday". That was one of the only satisfying horror films I saw as a kid.

The Tingler was produced by William Castle who always had some gimmicks associated with his films. For "13 Ghosts", they gave you a red/blue viewer. If you wanted to see the ghosts you looked through the red and if you didn't, you looked through the blue (the screen was tinted blue for those scenes.)

The movie Matinee (1993) with John Goodman was very loosely based on William Castle.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-28-2009, 08:29 PM:

Same with HOUSE ON HAUNTED hill, another Castle low budget, B&W horror with Price. It too had a gimick -- a skeleton about 8ft tall was rigged at the proscenium at the top and to the right of the screen. During the movie, it was hidden by a black velour curtain. In the movie, when Vincent Price pushes someone into a vat of acid or something and the decomposed corps emerges as mostly a skeleton, the curtain would part revealing this thing on a cable which would be pulled on the cable across the orchestra and up toward the projection booth, all the while Price was pulling the ropes that were supposedly attached to the skeleton as it emerged from the vat of acid (and its little hiding place on the side of the screen). Hence the gimick they hyped as "Emergo." Another William Castle first.

I saw it with half the kids on my block at the RKO Keiths in Flushing NY -- a 2000 seat stunning movie place (sporting a 3 story water fountain in the grand lobby). We went to the first show on Saturday morning and once we saw the Emergo thing dangling over our heads, we stayed for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th show just so we could use it as target practice for popcorn boxes made into airplanes and spit balls. So determined were we to hurl whatever we could at this Emergo skeleton that we actually chewing napkins non-stop to make a cache HUGE spitballs -- ammo for the next time it emergo-ed. It was awesome fun. We got thrown out half way thru the 4th show. Good times can't last forever.