"Project Hail Mary" - DCP Aspect Ratio

[Jim Cassedy]

In case you haven't seen the filmmakers letter for P-H-M, I've copied it below.

The official CPL is:
ProjectHailMary_FTR-3_F-200_EN-XX-OCAP_US_71-HI-VI_4K . . etc, etc

Don't let the "F-200" fool you. Read the letter:

ProjectHailMary_Letter.jpg
(I winced at the "When You Play It At Seven" quip! lol)

I'm getting really 'screwed' on this release! Late last year, I was told that we scheduled to be the only theater in
the San Francisco Bay area to be running this in 70mm, and BarcoHDR, much as we've done with several recent
other releases. All of our auditoriums were scheduled to get new seats, carpets, and lighting improvements at the
beginning of the year. Unfortunately, construction, and permit delays, as well as a few other bone-headed (in my
opinion) scheduling decisions mean that our main auditorium will not be ready in time to run P-H-M in 70mm. In
fact last time I looked, the 5/70 version of P-H-M isn't booked into any other 70mm theater in SF and Oakland.
(feel free to correct me if you find a venue, but even the "In 70mm" website shows no P-H-M in SF or OAK.)

Deluxe did send an HDR version and keys, so, technically, I could watch in HDR, if I didn't mind sitting on
the floor. (The picture would look great, but the acoustics would be horrible in the room as it is now!
NuMishNoSeats1.jpg


These pix were taken abt a week ago. New seats are more or less in place, but the room will
not be 'ready for prime time" for at least another week or more. There's still alotta work to do.
NuMishNoSeats3.jpg

[Frank Cox]

So everyone with a scope-sized screen gets to show this with a small picture and a smaller picture.

And I see that we're theatre technicians now. Not projectionists.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Once again we are somehow twins Jim, although my photos of such an auditorium will be 6 months or so after yours.

I think their note for scope screen havers, in an ideal world based on the "framed for 2.0" comment, would be to present it as F-200 complete with masking, but some scenes will squish down to 2.39:1

Of course we know many theatres will not have that configuration.

Flat screens should too if they have the masking to do it, but it will be less awkward than a scope screen if they don't have the masking, so it would be a 2:1 letterboxed inside of 1.85:1, transitioning to 2.39:1 letterboxed.

Or just do what they say, and ignore the masking even if you have it. ;-)

[Jim Cassedy]

And I see that we're theatre technicians now. Not projectionists.

Why? Well for one thing, 'projectionists' have a union. My company started
enforcing this nomenclature almost 2½ years ago. I am no longer allowed to
use the 'p-word'. Signs that used to say "Projection Room" now say "Equipment
Room" or simply "Keep Out". I was already a long time union member when they
hired me, so I'm sort of grandfathered in. But I'm sure they'd rather be paying
someone closer to minimum wage as they do at many venues, rather than my
union scale which is more than 2.5x current minimum wage.
(The sign that bothered me most at one venue was the sign which read:
"Automatic Equipment Room" - - there wasn't a damn piece of automated
equipment in there except maybe for the air conditioning thermostat and a
motion controlled light switch.)

[Scotty Wright]

In
fact last time I looked, the 5/70 version of P-H-M isn't booked into any other 70mm theater in SF and Oakland.
(feel free to correct me if you find a venue, but even the "In 70mm" website shows no P-H-M in SF or OAK.)

Right you are. x2 imax 70 prints only at Metreon in SF, and Hacienda Crossings in Dublin.

it’s a shame delayed hosed you. Tho I’m curious why the Grand Lake wasn’t able to pick it up instead.

[Ian Puffenberger]

I can't imagine how awful a movie shot in a mix of scope and 2:1 (where the latter is supposed to be more awe-inspiring) printed on 5/70 film and released by a former internet bookstore would look.

[Chris Haller]

Eh. I'm a digital projectionist. When I get paid by my chain to program theaters, my title in the system is "Projection Manager." I'll take it.

My theater is running 2 versions of this movie - the alternating 2:1-2.39 standard version and a constant height scope build for our Screen X venue. That version had to be shipped separately from the F200 transmission we received. Flat Screen X houses use the standard F200 dcp.

It would have been wiser to just print the 2.39:1 version onto 70mm, but I've heard reports that the 70mm print looks pretty great, all things considered. I saw the 15/70 show here in Rochester, where its the first 15/70 run in 12 years and thought the print looked pretty good. Dune 2 and Joker looked terrible on 15/70, so it was refreshing to see a good looking filmout of the digital shoot.

[Frank Cox]

Why wouldn't they provide that constant height scope version to theatres that have scope-sized screens? It exists and it would look better.

Avatar manages to provide every screen ratio under the sun.

[Chris Haller]

Why wouldn't they provide that constant height scope version to theatres that have scope-sized screens? It exists and it would look better.

Avatar manages to provide every screen ratio under the sun.

Probably because, to the filmmakers, the aspect ratio switching is key to their storytelling. In IMAX 70mm it is very effective. They only released it to theaters with scope screen configured Screen X builds so they could sync Wing files to it. Otherwise its all F200 all day.

[Mike Blakesley]

Why not the umpteen versions like in "Avatar?" The one word answer is "Amazon."

Amazon knows the majority of theater viewers will see it in "Imax" due to the marketing, and most of the rest of their customers will see it on their phones or their 50-inch screens, so they don't care about dumb things like plain-Jane theatrical presentation.

I guess the parts that are in the "present day" are supposed to be a bigger (Imax) image, and the flashbacks are supposed to be less impressive, so that's why they didn't make it a "scope" picture with the present-day images pillar-boxed.

This movie needs James Cameron, a guy who really gives a crap about this kind of thing. People are really liking it, but if it was done in a format that flatters every theater screen, they would really, REALLY be liking it.

[Jim Cassedy]

One of the asst. managers, who just came back from several days off, ran up to me
on Monday nite and said that he thought "I had the screen framed wrong". I showed
him the ingest letter from Deluxe which I had already pre-printed, just to settle any
inquiries or arguments from staff or customers, because I knew that at some point,
somebody was going to question the aspect ratio.
- - "This isn't first rodeo", as the saying goes . . .

[Martin Brooks]

So everyone with a scope-sized screen gets to show this with a small picture and a smaller picture.

And I see that we're theatre technicians now. Not projectionists.

I saw this yesterday at a Dolby theater, which does have a 2.4:1 screen. I could swear that the whole thing was 2.4 within the 1.85 frame. I kept looking for changing aspect ratios, but didn't notice them. But assuming they were there and it did change from 2.4 to 2.0, was the 2.0 (in 4K) at 4096 x 2048? So it was a big 332 pixels higher than 2.4 and the same width?
This makes no sense to me. How does 2.4 feel like a memory? Do we dream in widescreen? IMO, for theaters with scope screens, memory should have been 1.85 and space should have been 2.4. And how is the vastness of space represented by being a few pixels taller.

I think some of these filmamakers have lost their minds.

How did the 5/70mm version handle it?

[Shibu Paul]

The movie is only fit for flat-ratio screens.

[Scotty Wright]

How did the 5/70mm version handle it?

This is from the 5perf print in Vancouver

[Ryan Gallagher]

This is from the 5perf print in Vancouver

RIP hiding the 2.0:1 keystone with aperture plates. Yuck!