Didja catch Star Trek last weekend? Some people did ’cause the movie brought in an estimated $72.5 million. Anyway, one of Joel Johnson’s friends just so happens to be an IMAX engineer and offers up an explanation on why the new Star Trek isn’t a real IMAX film dispite being shown on IMAX screens. She goes into a bit more detail than “it isn’t IMAX ’cause it’s not film on IMAX.”
Just for future reference, ST was not shot in IMAX, and therefore is not a true imax film. imax is 65mm, 15-perf film, with an aspect ratio of 1:1.37 and a MASSIVE amount of image area, approximately 4x the size of VistaVision (VV is also the same format 35mm still cameras shoot, imagine a negative almost four times the surface area of one that was shot in your still camera.)
Star Trek was shot in cinemascope, an anamorphic format that squeezes the image on the film, but projects it through lenses that stretch it back out horizontally to its 1:2.35 aspect ratio. C-scope is run through a normal movie camera vertically, (90 degrees to a still camera) and exposes a frame taking up four perfs of film – about half the film area of a 35mm still camera.
Read the whole thing over on Boing Boing Gadgets.
And… the problem is?
Imax has a higher admission price.
Yeah I saw it on IMAX and it was amazing. Looks like you don’t need all the IMAX equipment after all.
you don’t get the same increased resolution of “true” IMAX.
not that it doesn’t look great, but it’s not “real” IMAX.
that would look like twice as sharp maybe.
I thought it was AMAZING! The movie wasn’t shot with IMAX cameras, but it was still digitally re-mastered with IMAX DMR technology that eliminates grain, digital artifacts, increases contrast and brightness and the sound is also re-mastered for the IMAX sound system.
The difference between 35mm and IMAX is like the difference between 480p and 1080p in video. 35mm is a 4:3 frame format. Cinemascope is merely squishing a wide image onto that small frame, and then using a special lens to spread it out to the original frame again.
Film is grainy and only holds “so much” information per centimeter of film area. IMAX holds considerably more visual information, per frame, simply because the film is larger and each frame is already in a wide format. This is how “High Definition” is achieved with film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX
Projecting Star Trek on an IMAX screen is cool, but seeing a large and grainy picture isn’t as cool as a large clear picture that IMAX gives. When something is filmed in IMAX, it looks clearer just like high-definition TV is to standard TV. What you got was “line-doubled” standard def.
Actually, IMAX is four to six times sharper depending on the frame rate and quality of the film. Which is why IMAX looks so real when viewed.
35mm films are typically 24 frames per second. Some short IMAX formats are up to 60 frames per second, although most full length IMAX movies are 24 frames per second for costs sake.
That all sounds great. But exactly what portion of the movie was shot on FILM? Was it the wide shot of planet Vulcan? Or perhaps it was all the space battles. At least the IMAX cameras were much lighter in a zero g environment. People, maybe 5% of this film actually exists on a piece of film. The rest was manufactured digitally. A few humans and a few props were actually “filmed” with a camera.
The question is what kind of resolution was the CGI created in. Was that CGI 35mm quality or was it IMAX quality. My guess, is it was NOT IMAX quality. I saw it on an imax screen this weekend, which was a ripoff. It did not fill the imax screen, and it was the smallest imax screen I’d ever seen. Barely any curvature to it at all. Normal screen width, with additional height. But it didn’t fill the height anyway. I noticed nothing at all special about the sound. Not once did anything sound like it was behind me. It was loud, but that’s it.
Well, maybe your IMAX theater just sucks. A “real” IMAX screen is gigantic.
As to the “digital source”. It doesn’t matter. The film was mastered on 35mm. It only takes a mechanical (with perhaps digital grain reduction) machine to remaster to 70mm IMAX. However, had they filmed and mastered in IMAX first and then remastered to 35mm, it would have looked much better in both formats.
Not many people REALLY know the difference between the two formats. Seriously, IMAX is the “HD” of film formats.
Hmmm. My IMAX theater was completely digital projection. Brand new. Just opened. So what do you think the source for that is? I truly doubt they created it digitally, mastered cscope to 35mm, then scanned that back to digital for digital IMAX projection. IMAX would be down a generation from the standard projection.
Anyone know more about digital IMAX projection?
Well, as an IMAX projectionist I can tell you that you are lucky to have a digital IMAX theater. This is a really new technology. Screens are a bit smaller is’n it?.
I think that if they have digital IMAX projectors now, they for sure have digital IMAX camera….
In fact I am projecting a U2 IMAX 3D movie right now and it was entirely filmed in digital then transferd on 72mm film. Image is not as clear as film tough. But still quite sharp.
I saw true Imax in DC at the Air and Space Museum.Withoutr going into details on how I know, trust me if the screen you saw the movie was not a 76′+ screen than it wasn’t Imax. Where I live we have a IMAX theatre that had just 2 houses, it went under in about 2 years cost the cost of a ticket was too expensive and they only showed special movies there. I saw the Lion King there along with other 3D movies.
Just know that the new so called Imax is not a true IMAX experiance, you’ll get the same effects ifyou see it digitazl or regular 35mm. Huge example; Harry Potter, only the first 10 min was in 3D and everyone ran to go see it in so called IMAX Experiance and 3D, the opnly IMAX expriance they got was the cost….. They are ripping people off.
I forgot something…
Movie productions have to RENT their cameras. A 35mm Panavision camera is much cheaper per hour than an IMAX camera. IMAX film is also considerably more expensive. Giggly actors requiring re-takes can cost a veritable fortune to film. Also, the IMAX camera is HUGE and hard to move around without mechanical assistance. A “steady cam” is almost impossible.
This is why IMAX films are always made mounted on vehicles, or on film dolly’s etc. Shaking an IMAX camera around is akin to taking a Bently off road. It’s just not made for it.
Sound, the IMAX camera sounds like a chain saw when running. ALL audio must be done in post production.
As to CGI, yes, it would have to have TEN times the resolution for IMAX, and that means much longer render times. That’s a lot of money.
I think the producer’s choice to film and master in 35mm was a practical and financial choice. It’s easier to “upconvert” a 35mm film to a 70mm frame. It may look poorer, but not as poor as upconverting standard def TV to 1080p high-def. Film doesn’t have scan lines. It just looks grainier.
Here, this is better than Wikipedia (look at all pages):
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/imax1.htm
I guess except for the one they physically carried to the top of my everest. It seemed pretty durable. All the audio in that movie is foley of course. As is most audio in films these days.
That would be Mt Everest. I don’t own the mountain. Stupid iPhone.
I would say they either had a very large crew and two cameras (so one was always working), or they had a smaller digital camera. The advantage of very high resolution digital versus IMAX film is size and weight. The storage media is much smaller and lighter for digital (and doesn’t sound like a chainsaw when recording).
Regardless, both cameras, either digital or IMAX film, were very expensive to rent and insure for Mt. Everest.
I’d venture to guess that it was digitally recorded. Only based on the effect of cold on film (very heavy film), and the size and power requirements for an IMAX camera.
On the other hand, it would have been cool to have a “making of” documentary of the documentary.
You should check out “the making of everest”, and of course “everest” itself. Circa the late 1990s. Nothing digital going on there.
Not the only problem. Anziz Ansari found out the hard way that not all supposed imax screens are imax sized. sad
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ncl=ddgjNn5MdDOYk7MP_NlUX1xQdJmgM
In plain English:
First of all… there is a new DIGITAL IMAX “format” which is MUCH smaller than the original “large” film IMAX format. The new digital format is projected onto a screen that is about 20% the size of the original “large” film format IMAX screen. (Or about the same size a “normal” movie theater screen used to be when I was a kid.) The new “digital projection format” screen is 58 feet wide and 28 feet high. The “original” (large) film IMAX is 97 feet wide by 76 feet high.
Now, hold on to your pants… the new Star Trek movie was NOT shot in any IMAX format. Not one frame of it. Not the standard “large” film IMAX nor the new digital IMAX that is projected onto the smaller, so-called “digital” IMAX screen. (I don’t know if there even is such a thing as a new IMAX digital camera or if it is merely a “projection format” that other formats can be converted to.)
Now that we have that cleared up… as I understand it (and according to this article) the new Star Trek movie WAS shot in “normal” Cinemascope (stretchy anamorphic) and THEN converted to the new digital format IMAX projetion system.
For what it is worth… I watched a crappy CAM VID copy from Russia last night and, aside from the low res and poor audio, I felt the ending sucked. It was a good movie in its own right and definitely had some classic moments (I will still go see it in an IMAX theater), however, as a Star Trek fan, I was very disappointed with the “Hollywood” ending which absolutely destroyed the integrity and historical continuity of the Star Trek universe. Gene Roddenberry is rolling in his grave.
You clearly see the difference when watching the last Batman. This one has shots filmed in IMAX film format. And it was beautifull on a IMAX screen.
Gene Roddenberry is applauding in his grave. That smug, self-satisfied “hollywood” ending is exactly what Gene did with the original TV series, like it or not. As far as I’m concerned they were paying him tribute
What “Hollywood ending”? Didn’t Star Trek IV end in exactly the same way?
The non-true-IMAX version of ST I saw at Star Cinema 16 & IMAX in Iowa, was clearly cropped for the screen. The aspect ratio was trimmed, like a letter box movie shown on TV. Having just saw ST in a normal theater the day before, I was acutely aware of the cropping.
Also, the conversion artifacts were unbearable. Large globs of dusty bunny shadows roaming all over the screen, were very distracting.
Guys,
The digital version of IMAX is officially called ” LIEMAX “.
It’s a fraud.
ive seen lots and lots of imax, most non-fiction. But star trek is my favorite amongst all. The funny part is Ive never been a star trek fan.