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Tarantino Walks the Walk, Gets 70mm Film Projectors For The Hateful Eight

June 9, 2015

By James DeRuvo (doddleNEWS)

The news about film’s death has been greatly exaggerated. If you believe the likes of Christopher Nolan, JJ Abrams, and Quentin Tarantino (and many others), the larter of which has put his money where his mouth is. For the release of his next film The Hateful Eight, Tarantino has managed to secure fifty 70mm projectors to put all around the world to show it off. Now that’s commitment. Since 70mm is my all-time favorite film format, I say, “Yes, please!”

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[Tarantino] really wants to get people back into theaters. You’re not going to get this [at home]. He did something really great to bring that [experience] back. Quentin wanted an epic Western [with The Hateful Eight], something that hasn’t been seen in forever, that would really wow people. [When he saw this test,] he started bouncing in his seat. - Dan Sasaki of Panavision told THR,

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As part of last weekend’s Cine Gear expo, Tarantinto screened test footage of The Hateful Eight showing sweeping vistas, stunning interiors, and some close up of the cast. The 70mm old school classic western left everyone cheering, with one cinematographer, Bill Bennett, stating on Twitter that the film was “Crazy beautiful. An entirely chemical analog process.”

Bennett went on to say that projected in Anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70mm, The Hateful Eight yielded an extremely wide aspect ratio of 2.76:1. The film, shot on a 65mm negative, is believed to be the first movie that has shot with Ultra Panavision 70 anamorphic lenses since Khartoum in 1966.

Panavision jumped at the chance to be part of such an ambitious event, working to refurbish 19 of their anamorphic lenses for the productions. Those same lenses are also planned to be used on the first Star Wars Anthology film “Rogue One,” being shot by cinematographer Greig Fraser. (Star Wars: The Force Awakens was shot on film, as was Jurassic World.)

In addition, Tarantino and Panavision also created a unique 2,000 foot film magazine for their cameras, in order to allow the director to shoot extremely long takes as part of the film’s unique flow. Kodak and Fotochem also participated in developing this new film magazine.

But while you can expect Tarantino to be sure his privately owned movie theater would have the exact specifications to showcase the work to fit his overall vision, it’s fantastic that Tarantino is putting his money where his mouth is. He’s working with select theaters all around the world to retrofit at least one screen with a 70mm projector to show The Hateful Eight as it should be seen.

Tarantino is also working with digital video houses to find a way to present The Hateful Eight in digital format that would mimic the ultra widescreen look as faithfully as possible. So while the director would like it if people would seek out one of the fifty 70mm houses he’s arranged to showcase the film, he understands that not every theater can have such a setup. Therefore, he’s trying to make it so that others can get a taste of what the pure 70mm experience is like at your local mega-theater.

Here’s hoping he succeeds, because there’s talk he’s going to hang up his spurs after The Hateful Eight and retire. He keeps threatening that anyway. And if true, going out with a cinematic bang is much better than a digital whimper.

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quote: Brad Miller

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... a single screen like the Cinerama in Seattle (which I finally got to visit last week and it was quite lovely)

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quote: Paul Mayer

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Tarantino is also working with digital video houses to find a way to present The Hateful Eight in digital format that would mimic the ultra widescreen look (of Ultra Panavision 70mm) as faithfully as possible.

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-11-2015, 12:02 PM:
 
As much as I am rooting for this to be hugely successful (and I am not a big Tarantino fan), my fear is that, even with top-notch equipment that is installed properly, most of these prints will get trashed pretty quickly by incompetent operators. Also, the UP70 thing is sort of silly, since the result will be a smaller-than-scope picture in nearly every theatre where this plays.

I would like nothing more than for this to be a huge wake-up call to audiences to start demanding that their movies look better than 2K or 35mm-from-DI can provide, but I am not optimistic at this point.

I can think of exactly one theatre in my market that could do justice to this (and they already have 70mm DTS and mag capability and would just need lenses), but they will almost certainly not get it because Weinstein titles always play at a Landmark multiplex in the same booking zone.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-11-2015, 12:36 PM:
 
Sadly, I agree with Scott. BLSI appears to be taking ownership of the process right up until the moment the equipment is installed, commissioned and operating in the venues. I have chatted about this to someone who knows people involved in it from their end, and from what I can gather they are not getting involved in projectionist training, or anything to do with ensuring that the operators have at least the basic craft skills needed to show these prints without damaging them.

Given that so many new (as in, not pre-existing 70mm capable) venues are involved in this project, it would make sense to me to fly all the projectionists involved - or at least, one from each venue - to a central location and give them 2-3 days' intensive training. I'd have thought that, if the training was thoughtfully designed, it should be enough to provide a 90% guarantee that they won't damage a print by straightforward operator error or omission. And in the context of the overall budget for the movie's promotion, distribution and release, the cost would be negligible.
 

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Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 06-11-2015, 02:16 PM:
 
I don't want to go full on conspiracy here, but if indeed the situation Leo describes plays out, could this be a way that the industry is telling these few filmmakers "Look, why are you even bothering with film! Look at all the trouble everyone went through and the prints are trashed and look like crap!"
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-11-2015, 03:59 PM:
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Tarantino (whom I have nothing but the utmost respect for and is one of my favorite directors) has good intentions here, but I am concerned that instead of his efforts successfully reviving film as an exhibition medium that it will actually be the final definitive nail in the coffin.

Most of these prints will be handled by people who have never even ran 35mm before. Of those that have ran 35mm before, we all know that most projectionists of years past weren't all that great to begin with. Now this release will effectively be asking managers who have no film experience (let alone 70mm) or more likely ushers and concessionists to deal with it.

I'm sure we all remember how effectively the Cinebistro destroyed their 70mm Interstellar beyond playability in less than 5 days.

The one really smart thing Tarantino is doing is forcing the 30 day exclusive on 70mm engagements, but how bad will most of those prints look by the end of that month? And will Weinstein back down like Paramount did at Cinebistro and provide a KDM to let them continue their shows digitally? If Tarantino permits that to happen, then it's going to be a complete fail.

Training is going to be desperately needed, but the problem is that this isn't a matter of installing 100 projectors. They aren't all the same! Proper training cannot be done on theory. It must be done on the actual equipment the people will be running it on, and it needs to be in the same configuration as it will be in their actual booth. I am envisioning some platters will be to the left, right, behind or even have the film flying over digital projectors and around sound racks. How do you do a centralized training course effectively without a standardized install?

Then we start thinking about the automations and so forth. I've no idea if BL&S is installing some sort of basic automation or not, and how it will (or most likely will not) interface with the theater's existing automation. Will it even bring house lights up at the end of the movie? If something goes wrong, will it simply keep running and dump film all over the floor? These projectors are old. Most likely many of them will have oil leaking from them. What sort of training will the managers have on refilling it so the intermittents don't die? Will film cleaners be provided as part of the system? Who will do the actual building of the prints? Will this be left to these new managers that haven't even handled film of any gauge before?

There are a ridiculous amount of unanswered questions and unless someone steps in and starts providing proper solutions, it will be a blood bath of a mess (just like a Tarantino movie).

BL&S is smart if they have bowed out of taking responsibility of training. Remember if they get 100 installs, that's a MINIMUM of 300 people that need individual training...and that won't happen with a group of people all spending a day in a lecture hall with a powerpoint.

The best chance of success would be to make sure all of the DP70s go into one area of the country, all the JJs go in another area of the country, all the Simplex3570s go into another area of the country and so forth. At least that way there would be some tiny amount of chance that training could be done in small groups without people having to travel too far, and in the instance of whatever few spare parts there are, could be kept at whichever tech's office was closest to get them back up and running.
 

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 06-11-2015, 04:43 PM:
 

quote: Leo

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Interesting that it's now 50 venues, down from 100 when the UP70 release was first announced.

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quote: Brad Miller

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I'm sure we all remember how effectively the Cinebistro destroyed their 70mm Interstellar beyond playability in less than 5 days.

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quote: Brad Miller

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Will film cleaners be provided as part of the system?

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The Weinstein Company said Quentin Tarantino’s new movie The Hateful Eight is getting an exclusive two-week roadshow in 70mm nationwide beginning Christmas Day. The plan is to follow that with a digital theatrical release January 8. The strategy for the Western shoot-em-up, Tarantino’s follow-up to 2012’s Django Unchained, for which he won the Original Screenplay Oscar. That also was released on December 25.

It will mark the widest 70mm release that the industry has seen in more than 20 years, TWC said today. Tarantino has been one of the biggest proponents of the format and was part of the filmmaker-led fight to keep the film stock division open at Kodak, which had decided to scrap the unit altogether until it was resurrected in February.

Quentin Tarantino New BeverlySamuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern star in the pic, whose beginnings were as violent as any Tarantino movie. The filmmaker threatened to scrap the project altogether after the script leaked out, and he eventually sued Gawker for publishing it on its site. He later retracted the suit and started casting up in earnest, giving fans a sneak peek at what’s in store in a rare 3 1/2-hour live read in LA with a loaded cast that included most of who ended up in the cast.

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The Weinstein Company said Quentin Tarantino’s new movie The Hateful Eight is getting an exclusive two-week roadshow in 70mm nationwide beginning Christmas Day. The plan is to follow that with a digital theatrical release January 8

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Yeah Quentin just fucked up letting that happen. With all of the product out there at Christmas, it's REALLY going to be hard to get people willing to put 70mm in and have it FORCE them to devote that auditorium to Hateful Eight no matter how good or bad it, or the competing movies perform.

Big mistake. It should've stayed at 4 weeks to make it worth the theater's effort.
 

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Posted by Eric Richard (Member # 8635) on 06-12-2015, 09:21 PM:
 
Any locations confirmed? Brad, you should set up a 70mm film school!
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-12-2015, 10:57 PM:
 
Christmas Day???!!!

I can just imagine the scene: church in the morning, then a nice family Christmas lunch, then load up the kids in the car, and off to the movies. Wait in line, buy the popcorn, settle into your seat, the lights go down...

"Mummy, why did that man just chop the poor horse's tail off?"

"Daddy, what's a two-faced mulefucker?"

"Mummy, what was that man doing to the other man while the Tammy Wynette music was playing?"

"Daddy, I know it's supposed to look really special 'cause it's in 70mm, but what that lady is doing to Samuel L. Jackson with her horsewhip is really gross!"
 

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Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 06-12-2015, 10:59 PM:
 
well I know what I'll be seeing January 7th
 

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Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 06-13-2015, 03:04 AM:
 
Oh good lord. :facepalm:
Here, This is a more appropriate Christmas Day piece to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5PFXhdfVT8
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 06-13-2015, 06:44 AM:
 
Haha, Leo, you made my day...

...waitaminute: were you talking about The Hateful Eight or Star Wars VII?

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-13-2015, 12:39 PM:
 
QT and the Weinstein Company needs to push the release back the following week. They could do a Wednesday, December 30 release so it could technically qualify for Oscar consideration. It's going to be too difficult to secure screens either already equipped for 70mm or appropriate for 70mm on Christmas Day. The new Star Wars movie is getting released on December 18. It will hog up a lot of big screen theater for more than just one week.

OTOH, it's a sure bet IMAX will be pimping its screens and Star Wars together as hard as it can. While a lot of other premium priced big screen theaters might have screens big enough to show a 70mm picture, their common width nature would make a UP 70mm show an extreme letterboxed affair.

I have a hunch more of the 70mm engagements of The Hateful Eight will be booked more into art house style theaters rather than typical all-digital multiplex theaters.

quote: Joe Redifer

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Being that Tarantino loves dirt and scratches as it contributes to the film "look", my guess would be no. SOURCE: I have seen Death Proof.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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I have a hunch more of the 70mm engagements of The Hateful Eight will be booked more into art house style theaters rather than typical all-digital multiplex theaters.

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quote:

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The news about film’s death has been greatly exaggerated.

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they got this wrong -- the news of film's LIFE EXPECTANCY is being greatly exaggerated... by this article.
 

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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-12-2015, 12:29 PM:
 
...and now...the trailer

But I'm sure all the 70mm die-hards have watched it, downloaded it, and obsessed over it already.

Right?
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-12-2015, 12:52 PM:
 
Looks like it was shot by Brett Ratner - almost everything is straight down the middle. May as well be in 1:37.
 

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Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 08-12-2015, 05:11 PM:
 
Several weeks ago, I got an e-mail asking if I'd be interested in possibly
joining the team that's running around installing the 70mm stuff, but I'm
already 'booked' almost through the end of the year with various film festivals,
press screenings and other events here in SF to take 'time off' to travel
for several weeks on another job, even though it sounded pretty interesting.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-13-2015, 05:23 AM:
 
It looks to me that the wide aspect ratio really gave them a hard time on close ups...the frames looked very cropped because they tried to do close ups but didn't have anything to fill the frame so either have extraneous stuff or just see someone's eyes. The super-wide-screen stuff never did well with close ups...they were good for panoramic images. Heck, some have problems with it on just normal Cinemascope frames, let alone Ultra-Panavision.

So I wonder if the movie will be released in Digital as an S-276 and if so, will exhibitors just use their "Scope" format or will want the image zoomed to get rid of those pesky black bars and crop the piss out of the sides. And those 2:1 screen people out there will be pissed to see letterbox bars show up on even those screens!

So I see www.in70mm.com is having fun with the promotion of The Hateful Eight...:

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50 theatres across in the US - in 70mm exclusively. Opens in substandard formats in January 2016

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quote: Jonathan Goeldner

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with such a wide image - any news if Tarantino is having his sound team mix with the five front channel sound stage in mind for those 70mm venues that still have the speakers in place as such?

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I was hoping so, but it's going to be straight-up 5.1.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-15-2015, 09:06 AM:
 
Yes because getting 1.25X 70mm film anamorphics on every 70mm projector that isn't installed yet in these 100ish theatres wasn't the challenge but an honest to God 6-track mix that would have been on any of the original UP70 features was just too big a hurdle to overcome! Nothing like an U L T R A W I D E picture with just three speakers behind it to convey the sense of width.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-15-2015, 05:31 PM:
 
Bah, who needs 5 screen channels when lots of these will end up in a medium auditorium with top masking that won't come down to 2.76:1 and the presentation will have small letterbox bars anyway.

Seriously, releasing day and date with STAR WARS is about the most foolish thing that could've been done for a 70mm film revival attempt.

NOBODY will give up their large auditoriums (suitable for such a presentation) unless they are in some sort of split zone where they don't get Star Wars. The only scenario around here I can think of that fits such a scenario is LOOK vs. AMC. I'm quite sure AMC will force the studio to give them STAR WARS, and for Tarantino, that's good news as one of my personal 70mm systems is still setup on their large #1 auditorium (with the capability of a 1.25x anamorphic as well). It wouldn't take much to go in there and raise the bottom edge of the masking to create a 2.76 ratio, change out the lens and file a new plate.

But other than THAT scenario, who in their right mind is going to give up any decent sized auditorium and go through the expense and hassle to run Hateful Eight in 70mm for a petty 2 weeks when they can run STAR WARS and sell the shit out of their big auditoriums instead???

Let me clarify "expense and hassle" before someone chimes in with the notion that the studio is going to cover all of the costs involved. First most of those installs will have to have a second port window installed. Even if the studio covers the cost of that, electricians, equipment shipping, install, etc the auditorium is bound to have some downtime. That costs the theater money. Is Weinstein going to rent out these auditoriums for every day they are shut down?

Likewise the theater will have to staff the operation of that projector. In most situations it will end up being some manager that has never even touched 35mm film before running it from a crash-course training session by who-knows-what-guy that is sent around to provide such assistance.

I'm betting the installs will not be supplied with FilmGuard and a film cleaner. Sure the run is only 2 weeks and the 70mm film frame is quite large to begin with, but if Tarantino is REALLY trying to put on a bunch of perfect presentations, that is needed. Anyone who has worked with FilmGuard before knows that a presentation without it simply isn't as good as it could've been. People who argue against that statement have obviously never ran a booth with it because there is no comparison.

The prints are also bound to suffer from static being polyester base without the extra anti-static offerings of the big boy labs that don't exist anymore (or the addition of FilmGuard). Likewise even though I checked and it is possible to do one last production run of platter safety rings, that was decided not necessary, so who knows how many tail wraps and thrown prints there will end up being.

Again remember, the theaters that ran Intersteller last year all had projectionists to varying level of at least SOME experience, and supposedly most of the prints got damaged in the few weeks they were ran.

It's not Glorious Ultra Panavision 70MM if the print is scratched or has dirt specs on it! The entire moviegoing world is now accustomed to flicker-less, flawlessly clean "prints" projected digitally. Add back in the flicker and any little black specs to the image (god forbid a line) and people will walk out of there saying "good riddance film".

Tarantino likes to end his movies in a bloodbath. This one will be no different, the bloodbath will just be in the booth. What's sad is it doesn't have to end that way, but from the information I have on how this is playing out, that is precisely what will happen.

Quentin I know lots of people don't like your movies, but personally I love your movies. I really truly do. They are some of my all time favorites and I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and especially for what you are trying to do with this release, but it's just not being handled in a manner to be successful and I've only touched on a few of the points here. I'm afraid you will go down in the history books as "that guy who was responsible for hammering that last nail in film's coffin" instead of "that guy who saved film from extinction."
 

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Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 08-15-2015, 05:52 PM:
 
I am sure where I work that Hateful Eight is going to open upstairs as we can run 70mm there but not 3D. Screen is 4 feet shorter than downstairs. While fully opened masking 2.21 to 1 will have to aim projector up and add masking to the bottom. Downstairs would be just aiming the projector down and lower the top boarder. Easy to do as it is a stage house. Border in on the fly system. There is also the accessibility issue upstairs. No elevator. We did not scratch the Interstellar 70mm print we had. It did get a little dirty in moving from downstairs to upstairs and back down in the 5 weeks we had it. I now have a 70mm film cleaner that I did not have at the time.
 

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Posted by David J Hilsgen (Member # 2614) on 08-16-2015, 01:22 AM:
 
I agree with brad, prints are going to be trashed,are they going to have a training course? when i was running interstellar in 70 up here in the midwest with a outside temp of -15 i tarped that section of the booth off ,got the humidifers out, luckily i held on to them, otherwise i would of had all kinds of problems.I do have adjustable top masking so i should be ok for H8 i`m set up in a medium size house & have 3 other large size houses for star wars. also who is making the lens? nobody has contacted me yet.B.L.S was out during interstellar & took measurements.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-16-2015, 01:37 AM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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Seriously, releasing day and date with STAR WARS is about the most foolish thing that could've been done for a 70mm film revival attempt.

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quote: Brad Miller

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It's also entirely possible that even though new anamorphic lenses are being manufactured for this movie, if a suitable prime backup lens isn't available for a given auditorium, then it's a no-go.

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quote: Brad Miller

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when they are ready to run the issue then faced is one of training. Can it be done? Absolutely. What are the odds of it being done properly in the given timeline and the obstacles in the way? Pretty darn slim. This isn't the fault of BL&S, it's just the facts.

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I think it's very significant that BLSI are only supplying and installing the equipment. My understanding is that their contractual obligations stop at the point that they leave a working projector, platter and DTS player set up in each venue. They are not getting involved in operating or supporting the systems during the actual run, and were not willing to take that aspect of the project on.

From this I infer that they are well aware of the pitfalls Brad describes, and which have been mentioned many times on this thread, on others and on the post mortem threads from the Interstellar run.

All that remains to be seen is how much of a trainwreck the run is in the theaters that receive the new installs. Hopefully it won't be enough of one to kibosh future 5/70 releases.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-16-2015, 02:03 PM:
 
Oh nobody ever said BL&S wasn't smart! They were exceedingly smart to get things to a certain point and then just run. I didn't realize however that once the gear was installed that they had no responsibility for keeping it running. That's a bit of a surprise, as the quality of their rebuild could have a major influence on the uptime of the gear.

I guess this also means these theaters probably won't have a dual failover DTS setup. I wonder if the XD20s they are using will be outfitted with a raid? The XD10s certainly can't be setup that way. Whenever that hard drive farts, game over, auditorium down.

Personally I've not bothered with the 70mm failover setup at my personal screening room as I'm never running public or ticketed shows. If the player should die, it's not the end of the world. (Then again mine is setup with a raid.) For a theatrical setup though, ALL of my setups always have and always will have a failover system installed so if the primary player dumps, the show continues. Yes dts is an amazingly robust system, but anyone who has been around for a good while knows they can and DO fail. In the digital world most people also now realize that hard drives, even the enterprise ones, can and DO fail without warning as well. The concern here is that 70mm dts has no fallback track. The auditorium is simply dead and it's like jumping back in time to the days of CDS. Again in my screening room if that should ever happen it's no big deal, but not at a public cinema.

Then again the chances of the prints being trashed beyond playability is probably significantly higher than a dts system failing. Sad, but true.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-16-2015, 03:01 PM:
 
Is this really only playing in 70mm for two weeks? What happens then? Do the 70mm theatres switch to 35mm or ?
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-16-2015, 06:15 PM:
 

quote: Brad Miller

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I wonder if the XD20s they are using will be outfitted with a raid? The XD10s certainly can't be setup that way. Whenever that hard drive farts, game over, auditorium down.

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quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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Also, unless your laptop is your ONLY computer what on earth would you need such a large HD for?

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quote: Scott Norwood

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Out of curiousity, what do you do that requires 32-bit Windows?

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quote: Leo Enticknap

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I've got an older, PCMCIA phono preamp card (with switchable on/off RIAA EQ), which is still my best option for transferring 78s and for which no 64-bit driver is available.

A more minor reason is that if one Windows image were ever to become malware-infested, I could scan it and disinfect it while booted into the other...

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quote:

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I gave this person the 7 full days of "threading training"

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I trained the same - 7 days of hard training so they would never forget and also with this, they gained the confidence to handle the machinery.

So far at present, that Samsung 16T SSD drive is an Enterprise drive and not for consumer use.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-18-2015, 11:21 PM:
 
Correction above: I was thinking on Samsung's 1Zb SSD Drive that they came out, which this $8K drive is the Enterprise drive, and got it mixed up with this above 16T drive.

Apologies

-Monte
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-18-2015, 11:56 PM:
 
I wonder how many people click on this thread expecting a discussion about film.
 

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Posted by Amanda Mundin (Member # 3386) on 08-19-2015, 10:02 AM:
 
So how many theatres, if any, are going to be showing Hateful Eight on a larger 2.76:1 screen, i.e. larger than their normal 2.39 image, rather than making the screen smaller to fit the 2.76 ratio?
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-19-2015, 10:20 AM:
 
The only houses that could show UP70 covering a larger surface area of screen than any other ratio would be ones with a screen and masking specifically designed for UP70 (in other words, with an area left and right that is kept masked when showing 2.36). I don't know of any such houses still in existence. In most cases, the screen itself will be optimized for 2.36, and you could only go wider than that by letterboxing.

Our biggest screen (at the Egyptian) is unusual in that it was designed with "legacy" ratios in mind from the outset, and so the ratio that uses the largest part of its surface area is 2.2:1 5/70. This is obtained by opening all four masking bars all the way. 1.33 (35mm full-gate) and 1.37 also use the full height of the screen. But even we can't show UP70 with a larger image than regular 'scope: for UP70, we have to open the side (vertical) bars all the way, and then adjust the horizontal ones to mask the image. The result is 2.39 minus a letterbox.
 

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Posted by Brian D. Whitish (Member # 825) on 08-19-2015, 01:53 PM:
 
If they use the curved screen at Seattle Cinerama they could do it. I think they will be running Star Wars. How about Cinerama Dome in LA?
 

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Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 08-19-2015, 08:21 PM:
 
Cinerama Dome can run UP70. Saw Mad Mad Mad World there a few years back and they showed it with a UP lens. I expect that the UP70 image is wider than the normal scope.
 

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 08-19-2015, 08:41 PM:
 
Did ArcLight ever settle with I.A.T.S.E. #33? I'd only love to see them try to open this thing in the Dome while some of the best guys in the business are out on Sunset Blvd. with picket signs.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-20-2015, 11:35 AM:
 
More news from my contact: apparently the list of 50 venues has not yet been finalized, and BLSI is worried about running out of places to store the gear that they've refurbed and prepared for installation.

This is cutting it really fine. I don't know how many installation teams they're going to deploy when the time comes, but for argument's sake let's say two, and it takes a week per venue (travel to and from, the install and testing, allowing a day or two for unforeseen issues, etc.). That already means February-March before they're done, even if they started right now.

There's no mention of it in the Telluride program, so it looks like that premiere isn't going to happen, either.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that the "50 5/70" release will need at least 3-6 months to make happen after the movie has actually been finished (to the point of an approved answer print), which in turn leads to the guess that we're going to see this pushed back well into next spring.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-20-2015, 12:00 PM:
 
If the bookings are able to be finalized, they could possibly ship out the systems and let them sit in the theaters waiting to be installed to help clear storage space. The only problem with this issue is one of shipping damage not being immediately reported.

Surely they will have more than 2 install teams. The concern though is if they will truly give proper time to handle each install like you wrote. None of these installs will be straightforward, as it isn't like a new building. Everything from a second port window to new low voltage and high voltage wiring will have to be dealt with. Even if exhaust is split with dampers, that takes time. If the installs are rushed, then the quality just won't be there. Likewise if they were to subcontract out additional crews that don't have solid 70mm install experience, the quality will suffer.

But it sounds like they have the time if the film isn't going to be completed for Christmas day anyway and delaying the opening would however be the best possible thing for Tarantino's vision.
 

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Posted by Paul H. Rayton (Member # 1817) on 08-20-2015, 12:27 PM:
 
There will be a lot of rather unhappy people, with associated wringing of hands, if they don't make the December release date, at least somehow. It's called "Academy Awards Qualification", and if QT and/or The Weinstein Co. think they need a boost from such consideration, they're going to HAVE to make that December release date, or just abandon pretty much any hope of awards attention to help sell the picture to those who may not be attracted to the movie by some hype about a wider-than-normal picture size.
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-20-2015, 12:34 PM:
 
They only need to get it into one screen for a week to qualify. Maybe they will go full retro and bring back the Road Show. That way, all 50 theatres don't need to be up and ready at once.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-20-2015, 01:23 PM:
 
Even though it has been a tradition in recent decades to release Oscar™-caliber movies in November or December, it's not really necessary. There are plenty of Best Picture Oscar™ winners that weren't released in the late Fall or holiday season.

If any teams need extra time to get this film completed as well as possible in post production and shown as well as possible in theaters then it's really critical to allow the extra time.

If the new 70mm installations are done well they could be used again for other movie releases. There's maybe a couple future 70mm movie possibilities in the works now. Plus, since certain d-cinema camera models are vastly outpacing the max of 4K projectors, 70mm prints are an alternative to show off that extra resolution.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-20-2015, 01:32 PM:
 

quote: Martin McCaffery

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They only need to get it into one screen for a week to qualify...

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quote: Paul Rayton

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A few other considerations that pertain: the run has to be in a commercial cinema...

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quote: Leo Enticknap

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...which suggests that if the qualifying run is to be on 70mm and in a venue that already has that capability, it would have to be the Arclight.

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quote: Leo Enticknap

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There's no mention of it in the Telluride program, so it looks like that premiere isn't going to happen, either.

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Telluride doesn't typically release it's program until the day before the
festival opens. (Unless you are privy to some inside info!)

. . and just as an aside, every movie that's won the "Best Picture" Oscar
for the past 7 years have either premiered or had their first North American
screening at Telluride.
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-20-2015, 07:45 PM:
 
I was looking at the program on their website. If that's only provisional until the day before the opening, then I guess they could add this movie.

As for other LA theatres, I'm told that the Chinese no longer has any film projection capability - it was removed to make way for the laser lamphouse stuff. Don't know about the others.
 

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Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 08-20-2015, 08:00 PM:
 
Leo- D'oh! Taka 2nd look. That's LAST year's program. In fact I remember
running many of those shows.

This will be my 9th year working Telluride. I just started packing for the trip.
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 08-20-2015, 10:10 PM:
 
We just received one-sheets today for Hateful Eight. I'm a little irritated the say "Panavision Ultra 70" (or how ever you read it). There's nothing wrong with advertising it as such in venues where it will be playing that way. But I think it's wrong to plaster that all over the posters going out to every theatre when the vast majority won't be playing it in that format. Especially since the posted doesn't say "in Select Theatres" or something to that extent.

It's like he's setting up theatres to be called out for an inferior presentation - or letting customers know right off the bat that they will be getting something less.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-21-2015, 12:54 AM:
 
I thought pretty much every poster put logos on them. I don't really pay attention to posters in great detail, but do they always say "in select theaters" or "see it in LiEMAX"?
 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 08-21-2015, 01:32 AM:
 
About the question of Oscar qualification runs, all a film needs to do is play in a Los Angeles County theatre for a consecutive 7-day run that can BEGIN by midnight of December 31st (the reason so many movies felt they had to open by Dec 25 was because the Golden Globes required the 7 day run be completed by the end of the year). No New York run is required; however, as Bobby pointed out, a lot of Academy members reside in NY, so it is for their benefit that a lot of Oscar runs open. See rules 2 AND 3: http://www.oscars.org/sites/default/files/88aa_rules.pdf
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 08-21-2015, 01:51 AM:
 
Brad, there are a wide variety of ways IMAX is handled. But usually it will say something like "In theatres and IMAX". Also, IMAX is usually just a logo and/or tagline at the bottom of the poster - under the credit block. But in most cases it's obvious that IMAX is not the only format.


 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 08-21-2015, 08:15 AM:
 
As someone who loves movies, I think it's great that he's shooting and releasing his film in a superior, high resolution format rather than a pixel-y, mushy-looking 2k format that is really only watchable on a <20' wide screen.

If it doesn't play in Colorado, I'll try to travel out of town to see it.

And I think it's great that he's letting moviegoers know about it.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-21-2015, 10:35 AM:
 
Presumably, the poster is using "Ultra Panavision 70" to indicate the production process (Panavision 1.25x anamorphic lenses used on a Panavision 65mm camera). Sort of like how "Filmed with Panavision Cameras and Lenses" or "Arri" is commonly seen in credits and sometimes posters. I believe that Panavision requires this and Arri probably gives some sort of rental discount or other benefit to productions that use their logo.

In any case, posters have a history of listing logos for various formats. Lots of posters have the "Dolby Digital," "DTS," and "SDDS" logos on them, even though, obviously, only one of those systems could actually be used at a time for a given screening (and cinemas without digital sound would not be using any of them). Isn't there a logo (SDDS?) that actually says "verify theatre format" on it?
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-21-2015, 10:52 AM:
 
Panavision contractually requires their logo on any and all materials associated with the actual release of a film shot with their cameras and or lenses.

Mark
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-21-2015, 04:11 PM:
 
Not an issue here, given that he actually wants to advertise the process.

quote: Jim Cassedy

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Leo- D'oh! Taka 2nd look. That's LAST year's program. In fact I remember running many of those shows.

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quote: Scott Norwood

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In any case, posters have a history of listing logos for various formats. Lots of posters have the "Dolby Digital," "DTS," and "SDDS" logos on them, even though, obviously, only one of those systems could actually be used at a time for a given screening (and cinemas without digital sound would not be using any of them). Isn't there a logo (SDDS?) that actually says "verify theatre format" on it?

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quote:

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Hollywood Uses Bigger Screens to Tell Sophisticated Stories
By MICHAEL CIEPLY -- Aug. 14, 2015 --- The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — In the literal sense, it is going to be a spectacular film season.

Though top Oscars have gone lately to tightly spun dramas like “Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave,” Hollywood’s major studios are preparing to flood festival screens and commercial theaters with an unusual, year-end wave of grown-up movie spectacles — shown in the 3-D or large-screen format that is usually reserved for action blockbusters with younger audiences.

“There is a kind of show business in the fall that we’ve never had before,” said Greg Foster, the chief executive of the IMAX Corporation’s entertainment unit. He spoke of the confluence of films aimed at adults, many in 3-D, that will be delivered in IMAX and other large (and premium-priced) formats this year, pointing toward higher seasonal ticket sales, and perhaps a significant shift in viewing habits.

Sales in premium-ticket buying have surged in recent months, but to sustain momentum, studios will have to attract more adults, especially in the United States, while regaining younger viewers who had drifted away from 3-D after an initial expansion over five years ago.

On Sept. 2, the Venice Film Festival will open with a 3-D thriller, Baltasar Kormakur’s “Everest,” about love and death in the Himalayas. A few weeks later, Robert Zemeckis’s “The Walk,” about Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, also in 3-D, will open the New York Film Festival.

The Toronto International Film Festival almost went the same way for its opener: Programmers flirted with showing Ridley Scott’s “The Martian,” a 3-D interplanetary adventure from 20th Century Fox, at the first-night gala on Sept. 10; instead they went with Fox Searchlight’s “Demolition,” saving the space film for another of their showcase premieres.

Some film executives see potential for industry transformation, if mature viewers indeed flock to a more sophisticated lineup of event films. “The word I would use is ‘necessary,’ ” Tom Rothman, the chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s motion picture group, said of the envisioned change.

By commanding a premium of several dollars per ticket — more easily paid by adults than teenagers — the enhanced screens promise expanded revenue for the companies involved. In the quarter that ended June 30, the average movie ticket price shot to $8.61, up 6 percent from the preceding three months, partly because of premium-ticket buying for “Jurassic World.”

If adults are more willing to don 3-D glasses — among those ages 50 to 59, 3-D viewing hit a peak in 2013, when Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” was a hit — that is partly because film exhibitors and related companies have been courting them to fill newly created capacity.

This year RealD, a supplier of 3-D technology, pushed its screen count past 27,000, up more than 6 percent from last year, even as 3-D viewing among the young fell sharply from a high in 2011, when “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2” was a draw, before rebounding this summer. Similarly, the Cinemark, Regal and AMC theater chains now operate more than 430 proprietary premium large-format screens, up 34 percent from 320 in 2013.

IMAX, a giant-screen pioneer, has pushed its global screen count to almost 1,000. At the same time, it has urged studios to join in creating event films for adults, especially for release in a September-October period that had previously been a dead spot, short on fantasy blockbusters.

On Sept. 18, Universal will thus release an IMAX-only version of “Everest” a week before the movie’s wide release, while Sony will offer an early IMAX release of “The Walk” on Sept. 30.

“What they are doing is replacing the 70-millimeter showcase theaters that supported a David Lean or a Stanley Kubrick,” Fox’s domestic distribution president, Chris Aronson, said of large-format screens, many of which will carry Mr. Scott’s “The Martian” on Oct. 2.

Inspired by recent predecessors like “Gravity” and Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” some of the visually ambitious films will most likely figure in the annual movie awards race.

The early festival entries from Mr. Kormakur, Mr. Zemeckis and Mr. Scott are to be joined later by “In the Heart of the Sea,” also in 3-D, a 19th-century sea adventure from Ron Howard for release by Warner Bros. on Dec. 11, and “The Revenant,” a frontier action-thriller from Alejandro González Iñárritu, for release by Fox on Christmas.

Mr. Iñárritu won this year’s best picture and best director Oscars with “Birdman,” which was set almost entirely within a Broadway theater production. But he is now using natural light and newly designed digital cameras to follow his star, Leonardo DiCaprio, through a Western mountain wilderness. The film promises to be as expansive as “Birdman” was contained.

“We’re finishing the final battle scenes right now,” said Brad Weston, chief executive of New Regency Pictures, which also backed “Birdman.”

Along with the more expected 3-D and large-screen presentations of fan-driven sequels like “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” from Lionsgate and Walt Disney’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” studios will surround their big-scale festival and awards bets with another tier of 3-D or giant-screen films that appeal to adults but are rooted in action, horror or family genres.

Those include the James Bond film “Spectre” from Sony Pictures and MGM; the Peter Pan fable “Pan” from Warner Bros.; the horror-romance “Crimson Peak,” from Universal; and the caper film “Point Break,” from Warner and Alcon Entertainment.

“Point Break,” which reimagines Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 surf-heist thriller of the same name, aims to transform the original story by connecting with an expanded world of extreme sports. It relies heavily on real stunts rather than digital tricks, but also capitalizes on evolving technology, including giant 3-D screens.

“You can do a lot more now with spectacle,” said Broderick Johnson, who joins his fellow Alcon co-president, Andrew A. Kosove, as a producer of “Point Break.”
For some filmmakers, the merger between special formats and adult themes points toward the realization of long-deferred dreams.

“Everest,” with Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Kelly and Josh Brolin, will be in 3-D as well. Photo Credit: Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures

“Everything I’ve done in my entire career is culminating in making this movie,” Mr. Zemeckis said, referring to “The Walk.” He spoke of advances in filmmaking technology that, to his mind, had finally erased the distinction between live action and digitally created images.

(Mr. Rothman predicted that the movie would supersede old wisdom that says films require a willing suspension of disbelief. “There is no disbelieve, you believe!” Mr. Rothman said of the movie’s re-creation of the now-destroyed World Trade Center towers.)

That makes it possible, Mr. Zemeckis added, to tell strikingly visual stories cheaply enough to let studios bet on sophisticated viewers, rather than relying on a teenager-driven mass market or a predefined fan base. “The Walk,” he confirmed, cost well under $50 million to produce, though he invested nine years in developing the project, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Mr. Petit.

For Mr. Kormakur, the grandeur of large screens should help forge a link between the spirit of his earlier Icelandic films, like “The Deep” — about a fisherman adrift in the icy sea — and a potentially vast audience.

“I wanted to match the intimacy of independent movies and the spectacle of an epic blockbuster,” said Mr. Kormakur, speaking by phone from Denmark. He added that he was “pleasantly surprised” to find “Everest,” which has backing from the family-oriented Walden Media, at the Venice festival (where “Gravity” had its debut).

Mr. Howard said he was similarly struck by a seeming paradox: That the overwhelming power of advanced screen techniques can make a film as large as “In the Heart of the Sea,” which involves deadly encounters with a sperm whale, more emotionally accessible to viewers, who seem to share the characters’ experiences.

“The more palpable and immersive the experience,” he said, “the more personal the film feels.”

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quote: Paul H. Rayton

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Even more ominous is that, wouldn't you know it, there is even **another** western-type movie (a "frontier action-thriller") from Fox, opening on Dec. 25, "Revenant", from the Director of last year's "Birdman", Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. While "we" here on F-T are all aware of this 70mm project, in the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Moviegoer it will largely boil down to which one, generally, is the better "frontier action-thriller".

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quote: Brad Miller

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This is because the McDonald's kid had no idea what he was doing, which means no bad habits. I could train him properly and he would simply know no other way to do the job.

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quote: Brad Miller

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(from way back on page 6)
Bill the most amazing transformation I ever had was with a kid who had just turned 16 years old...
Normally my rule is someone gets 3 shifts practicing basic threading and if they don't get the basics by that point, they're out...
To give you an idea of the way I trained, I would assemble virgin prints of 2 trailers. Each trainee had to "own" that print, and they were the only ones to touch it. This "movie" ran about 5 minutes and it was comprised of one trailer to simulate the trailer pack and another trailer to simulate the feature, with a full set of cues so the automation would do a normal and complete "show". I then made them thread it over and over and over for hours on end over multiple days. I would constantly keep an eye on their threading and techniques, and if there was a mark on the print after being ran repeatedly like that it was considered a failure. Dirt on the print was not tolerated either, as I consider that a mark. This taught them the importance of keeping the projector clean, and most importantly the film cleaner...

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quote: Bill Brandenstein

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But who needs to train operators any more?

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quote: Mitchell Dvoskin

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Worse, you can't get your money back for poor presentation or canceled shows, because the tickets are for admission to the museum, the movies are free with museum admission.

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quote: Scott Norwood

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I wonder how the film distributors feel about this? (Or do they pay film rental based upon total ticket sales regardless of how many attend the film?)

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quote: Leo Enticknap

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There is no shortage of kids wanting to do this, and many of them have gone through (or are going through) film archiving school, have shot stuff on super 8, collect 16mm movies they show at home, and so already have an aptitude and inclination for careful film handling. Unlike some multiplex kids, they have an affinity with the medium and get that it needs to be handled carefully. For these sorts of people, the sort of training method Brad describes wouldn't be necessary, because they'd be motivated to put themselves through that process without anyone looking over them.

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quote: Paul H. Rayton

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So, if no one in the entire audience there in NYC made a fuss about "Mad (4) World" being projected "squeezed" -- in time to get it corrected for the main part of the show -- it makes me wonder how docile (or stupid) audiences have become.

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quote: Rick Raskin

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Not to wonder. Just look at how may people stretch their TV's image to fill the 16X9 screen and think there is nothing wrong.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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I'm just hoping one of the theaters in Dallas that were set up by Brad to run Interstellar in 5/70 will be running The Hateful Eight. I'd feel pretty secure about the show going off without a hitch then.

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quote: Brad Miller

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Bobby, going head-to-head against Star Wars, it's going to be interesting to see if the existing 3 theaters I installed 70mm for Interstellar at will be willing to play it. I would bet Look will, and they have a sweet auditorium for it too, but I'm thinking the other two locations may pass (or have it moved to a smaller house). I know they want Oscar consideration, but it's really suicide for business and from a 70mm perspective to go against Star Wars.

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quote: Paul H. Rayton

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There must be a few screens that can do this justice, but along with the Uptown (which would need a new screen), the few that come to mind are the Dome (in L.A.) and the Cinerama in Seattle. And maybe a few of the so-called "giant screen" venues around, but all of them that I can think of are digital only (with no film projectionists -- see previous posts in this thread), and would very likely need non-metallic screens as well.

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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The severe letter-boxing would yield something barely better than 720p resolution

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And that right there could also be a driving force behind why he wanted to shoot it 2.76:1 so digital wouldn't stand a chance because of the silly square pixels requirement.
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 09-05-2015, 06:14 PM:
 
Any news on the theater list? Any rumors?

I realize the odds are low for seeing it in Colorado... but he did film it here!
 

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Posted by Norman Shetler (Member # 9016) on 09-08-2015, 05:02 AM:
 
Any news on how european markets are going to (have to) handle this? Are distributors going to be forced to provide 70mm prints?
 

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Posted by Sascha F. Roll (Member # 9043) on 09-08-2015, 05:41 AM:
 
It is confirmed that at least one cinema in Germany is going to show TH8 in 70/5 from January 28th:
https://youtu.be/TSLuaxxltas

Currently they are working on a bigger (wider) Screen to allow UP70 to be the biggest Format.
 

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Posted by Norman Shetler (Member # 9016) on 09-15-2015, 05:54 AM:
 
Ah thanks for that valuable information! Any other news on european cinemas showing the film in 70mm?
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 09-22-2015, 06:46 AM:
 
From my friend over at MicroIndie Cinema:

quote:

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How Quentin Tarantino Resurrected Ultra Panavision 70 for 'The Hateful Eight' Roadshow

By Bill Desowitz | Thompson on Hollywood August 28, 2015 at 10:00AM

Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson digs into the technical nitty-gritty of the large-format anamorphic film process that hasn't been used in nearly 50 years.

The comeback of motion picture film will literally get its biggest boost yet with the Ultra Panavision 70 release of celluloid defender Quentin Tarantino's post-Civil War Western "The Hateful Eight."

Shot on 65mm film with classic Panavision lenses in the widest aspect ratio of 2.76:1, this marks the first anamorphic 70mm theatrical release in nearly 50 years. The two-week roadshow engagement (they're aiming for 100 theaters with the Cinerama Dome in contention for LA, of course) would be the best holiday gift for cinephiles.

"The Hateful Eight" will also pit three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson ("Hugo," "The Aviator," "JFK") in a shoot-out with Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, who's going for a third Oscar in a row for his own frozen wilderness adventure, "The Revenant," from "Birdman" director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. (Both films are racing to the editorial finish line for a Christmas Day release.)

Richardson proclaimed that Ultra Panavision 70 more than reinforces the notion that film can coexist with digital: it provides such unparalleled scope, resolution and beauty that everyone should be using it. "When we saw Sam Jackson in a closeup -- or anyone -- it just aided the skin. It's remarkable. We never used diffusion, the only filters we ever did were outside. It was stunning."

Feeding off "Stagecoach," "The Desperate Hours" and "And Then There Were None," Tarantino's ninth film throws eight travelers together a decade after the Civil War in Wyoming. But a bitter snowstorm prevents them from getting to Red Rock, where bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) intends to bring feral-like fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to justice. The ensemble also includes Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern.

Tarantino touted seven minutes of footage at Comic-Con through the raging blizzard and then inside a stagecoach stop just outside Red Rock called Minnie's Haberdashery (which we reported). According to Dern, "He has the greatest attention to detail on a set as any director who ever lived, his only rival would be Luchino Visconti. He creates an atmosphere for all of us not to do our greatest work necessarily, but to get better."

The last Ultra Panavision 70 release was "Khartoum" (1966), the biopic with Charlton Heston as British Gen. Charles Gordon. The list also includes "Ben-Hur," "Mutiny on the Bounty," "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," "The Fall of the Roman Empire," "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and "The Battle of the Bulge."

In fact, Panavision took Tarantino into a screening room and surprised him with the chariot race from "Ben-Hur," starting with the sides at the normal width and then spread out to expose the full frame -- and the film nerd was totally hooked on Ultra Panavision 70.

But this all began accidentally: "We went in thinking we were going to shoot standard format for 65mm and one day I was with Gregor Tavenner, my first camera assistant, and Dan Sasaki [Panavision VP of optical engineering] was showing us standard Panavision lenses for 65mm and while looking at them, I slipped behind the curtain and saw this shelf filled with odd-shaped lenses [triangular with prisms]. They were Ultra Panavision lenses," Richardson said.

Sasaki put the lenses up on the projector and Richardson was hooked. Even before testing the lenses, Panavision threw all its weight behind the project, and Kodak and the FotoKem lab were on board as well.

First came testing by Richardson in freezing temperatures while scouting locations in Telluride, Colorado that would benefit them visually, with great mountain vistas. Panavision had to reconfigure and apply new coatings to 19 lenses for focus-pulling. Panavision also made a 2,000-foot magazine for the film cameras to accommodate Tarantino's penchant for long takes. The camera's limit fell just under that length, yet this was still considerably longer than the normal 1,000-ft. magazine could handle.

The team brought a very analogue approach to shooting in Telluride (with few blizzards and rare overcast days) and onstage at LA's Red Studios, where they lowered the temperature to 30 degrees. They screened dailies in 70mm, with no digital intermediate, and the film is being color-timed photochemically, the old-school way, by FotoKem.

Theaters will be retrofitted with anamorphic lenses for 70mm projectors. Yes, there will be a digital release from TWC on January 8, 2016, which will continue to show the film in 70mm as well.

With two cameras at his disposal, and Tarantino operating a couple of shots himself, Richardson had to get used to certain anomalies: slight color alterations when shooting actors' faces after switching lenses — ranging from the triangular ones that provide a bronze look to more user-friendly cylindrical shapes — or odd flaring caused by light bouncing indirectly off the prism when shooting two characters in front of a fireplace.

"The most complex thing for me was that the set was primarily this one building where they arrive in this stagecoach," Richardson explained. "But if you shoot a medium shot with the lenses, anywhere you're seeing two-thirds or more of the room, depending on where the character is, because it's such a wide frame. You're lighting the entire set and other characters are constantly in your frame. Quentin first looked at 'Mad, Mad World'. Part of what happened in that film is that you had a medium shot with all the characters in the frame. It was an adjustment for all of us."

Indoors were lit warm and exteriors cool. Sasaki also altered the lenses for sharpness in closer shots (within three feet). "Quentin likes to shoot a lot of masters because his films are dialogue-driven. We worked with all primes. He accepted what 65mm allowed him. There are more characters in the frame -- at least four in one shot -- and he could see the quality of the image and quick adjustments could be made for makeup and hair [as a result of the 70mm dailies]. We all knew we had limitations and there would be breakdowns with the 65mm camera because they're not used often, but overall there very few problems with the equipment," Richardson said.

Because of the film's claustrophobic, lowly lit nature, however, the use of Ultra Panavision was actually counter-intuitive. But Tarantino wasn't about to turn down this rare historical opportunity. In a clever game of hide-and-seek, he used the frame to deliberately show more or less when he wanted to obscure crucial character information.

"There's a great deal of interior landscape available and the actors loved it. Also, I think they enjoyed the visual feast that was given to them in terms of their own faces," said Richardson, who admitted, though, that throwback photochemical color timing has been frightening.

"I'd become reliant on a digital intermediate for fixing things in post and you can let certain things go. For example, you realize that the backgrounds are blown out but you don't want to take the time to put a hard gel up. You know you can rescue that with the window and tracking, or if your weather doesn't quite match, it's easier to work a look between sunny and overcast.

"In this particular case, there was no fixing: what you shoot is what you get. You're not going in to fix a wall if you didn't put enough light on it; if you're overexposed on that side with sun, you're gonna have sun. There's nothing you can do. So Quentin worked very hard in collaboration in trying to make sure the weather conditions were what he wanted for sequences. And he helped me a great deal in that way. Ordinarily, he says to me, 'If they're looking at your work, they're not listening to my words.' He's going to go for the best performance regardless of the condition of the light."

But not when it came to this gorgeous look. And this is just the beginning, as Gareth Edwards' "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is also reportedly being shot with Ultra Panavision 70 lenses.

---

 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-24-2015, 03:32 AM:
 
Bobby mentioned the deeply curved screen -- was the original spec for UP70 that it was to be presented on a curved screen...I mean really curved, not a that wimpy CinemaScope mild curve?

As for this whole idea of trying to go backward in time to reverse all the changes that have come about in the whole cinema process from camera lens to the screen -- from finding suitable equipment that's no longer manufactured and that's in top working condition (equipment on both ends of the spectrum -- production to presentation), and then needing to reconfigure cinema rooms that have long been modified or fully built NOT to be able to accommodate screens of the size required by the UP70 format (or even SD70), really right down to Paul H.'s "final solution" which may be that you have to go back and build your UP70 format theatre from construction plans of an original UP70 house!

When you look at this list of SOOO many elements working against getting a substantial number of cinemas that can actually play this thing and indeed do it justice, it is really discouraging. It seems like too many theatres will wind up with a patchwork of compromises and "fixes" to accommodate the format only to wind up with a screen not the right size, not the right gain (like silver!!), and an image in some venues for all we know, being shown without the right anamorphic lens by projectionsts not able to master the craft.

Unfortunately the fact that Tarantino has chosen the UP70 format to "resurrect" film as a viable "event" to encourage the use of film and to show off its splendor may actually work against that goal. For all his good intentions, he may have bitten off it just to much more than he can chew -- after all, though he may be able to surround himself with top-draw technical people who can put a visually stunning image on that strip of polyester, he simply isn't going to have the resources to be in every booth applying his meticulous attention to detail that he's noted for to the way his film is presented in those 50 venues. The reality may be that on the presentation end, it may just be too ungainly a project to work -- and by work I mean, that it does the format justice on the screen and probably more importantly, it winds up being profitable for theatre owners as well as producers and investors so they'll want to do it again for other similar, specialty FILM engagements when a director gets the film bug. It has to make economic sense for everyone, especially the exhibitor -- it can't disrupt their business flow if ever it is to become something that will happen more than just this once.

Exhibitors are business men first and only secondly are they....well, secondly they are business men too; only somewhere way down the distant bottom of a long list are they lovers of the photochemical film process as an aesthetic entity that should be preserved for future generations. That's the business of museums and unfortunately museums as they are today are not viable venues for a commercial 70mm theatrical run, UP70 or SD70.

If we put aside that pessimistic laundry list that we can all envision with this project and imagine the best case scenario, it would be that this thing comes off without too many problems, exhibitors make money, the public is enlightened to the beauty of film as a very special way of seeing movies vs. the every day, run-of-the-mill digital presentation and everyone looks forward and gets excited about other directors who in the future decide to do a film treatment for their special projects. And it happens often enough that it no longer presents the daunting challenges we have enumerate in this thread. Imagine all the 70mm installations...it's easy if you try.
 

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Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 09-24-2015, 04:22 AM:
 
Some background on Ultra Panavision 70

http://www.in70mm.com/news/2009/ultra_panavision/index.htm

The system was originally intended for making VERY good 35mm reduction prints for MGM
 

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Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 10-03-2015, 09:39 PM:
 

quote: Frank Angel

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It seems like too many theatres will wind up with a patchwork of compromises and "fixes" to accommodate the format only to wind up with a screen not the right size, not the right gain (like silver!!), and an image in some venues for all we know, being shown without the right anamorphic lens by projectionsts not able to master the craft.

Unfortunately the fact that Tarantino has chosen the UP70 format to "resurrect" film as a viable "event" to encourage the use of film and to show off its splendor may actually work against that goal. For all his good intentions, he may have bitten off it just to much more than he can chew -- after all, though he may be able to surround himself with top-draw technical people who can put a visually stunning image on that strip of polyester, he simply isn't going to have the resources to be in every booth applying his meticulous attention to detail that he's noted for to the way his film is presented in those 50 venues. The reality may be that on the presentation end, it may just be too ungainly a project to work

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quote: Bill Desowitz

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Panavision took Tarantino into a screening room and surprised him with he chariot race from "Ben-Hur," starting with the sides at the normal width and then spread out to expose the full frame -- and the film nerd was totally hooked on ULtra Panavision 70.

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quote:

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Quentin Tarantino Says He Cut a Different Version of ‘The Hateful Eight’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Hateful EightCOURTESY OF THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY
OCTOBER 12, 2015 | 12:07PM PT
In addition to featuring an overture and an intermission, the limited engagement will include six extra minutes of material.

Kristopher Tapley
Co-Awards Editor
@kristapley
When audiences pay to see the limited roadshow engagement of Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” this holiday season, it won’t just be the projection of Ultra Panavision 70mm photography that distinguishes it from multiplex versions released two weeks later. It will be a slightly different — and longer — film overall.

This story first appeared in the October 13, 2015 issue of Variety. Subscribe today.
“The roadshow version has an overture and an intermission, and it will be three hours, two minutes,” Tarantino told Variety. “The multiplex version is about six minutes shorter, not counting the intermission time, which is about 12 minutes.”

The two-time Oscar winner was not ordered to truncate the film for wider release. Rather, he liked the idea of the roadshow experience having a little something extra. “Nor did I want to treat the multiplex release like this left-handed version, either,” he said. So he tweaked certain scenes to better suit the separate viewing experiences.

“The 70 is the 70,” he said. “You’ve paid the money. You’ve bought your ticket. So you’re there. I’ve got you. But I actually changed the cutting slightly for a couple of the multiplex scenes because it’s not that. Now it’s on Showtime Extreme. You’re watching it on TV and you just kind of want to watch a movie on your couch. Or you’re at Hot Dog on a Stick and you just want to catch a movie.”

The sequences in question play in “big, long, cool, unblinking takes” in the 70mm version, Tarantino said. “It was awesome in the bigness of 70, but sitting on your couch, maybe it’s not so awesome. So I cut it up a little bit. It’s a little less precious about itself.”

Roadshow experiences are rare these days, but they have been implemented by filmmakers looking to make splashes. Kevin Smith toured his 2011 film “Red State,” four-walling it in theaters across the country at premium prices. In 2008, Steven Soderbergh’s two-part “Che” was presented as a double-feature roadshow in certain markets. Tarantino’s fellow celluloid proponents Paul Thomas Anderson (“The Master”) and Christopher Nolan (“Interstellar”) have released movies in the 70mm format in recent years, but it’s mostly reserved for repertory and retrospective programs.

Panavision retrofitted lenses for cameras during production of “The Hateful Eight” and made 2,000-foot magazines to hold the massive amounts of film. The Weinstein Company, meanwhile, is paying to install projectors in venues across the country. While only 16 70mm prints for “The Master” were struck, and 12 for “Interstellar,” the ambitious plan for the “Hateful Eight” roadshow is to play in 100 theaters.

Tarantino, who revamped the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles last year with a film only directive, said 70mm could be a way to combat ubiquitous digital projection, a development he considers a bridge too far in the steady move away from celluloid.

“I didn’t realize what a lost cause 35mm projection was,” he said. “But what I also didn’t know is how excited everyone was going to be about 70. I think everybody is looking to see how we do in that first two weeks. But that’s also kind of exciting. I’m hoping that ‘Hateful Eight’ does well enough that that becomes, for the filmmakers who care, the new premier way to launch their movie in an exclusive way.”

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quote:

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“I didn’t realize what a lost cause 35mm projection was,

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