Apollo 13 coming to IMAX (1 Viewer)

[debi_lee]

In the Ron Howard press conference this morning he mentioned that Apollo 13 will be coming to IMAX theaters in September.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

And it is reformatted, much in the way that the 'full frame' Harry Potter DVD is drastically reformatted from the theatrical release.

No OAR, no sale.

 

[Chauncey_G]

Obviously, I can't speak for a film that hasn't been released yet, but if it is released in the same format as Fantasia 2000 and Beauty and the Beast, then it WILL be in it's original aspect ratio. The Harry Potter thing was, if I remember correctly, a special lens on a 35mm projector trying to fill the IMAX screen as much as possible.
Apollo 13 will be released in the 15/70 film format which means that it will be shown via the IMAX projector and therefore have better image quality and stability than a 35mm projector could produce.
Again, I can't say for sure as to it's aspect ratio, but since Ron Howard has overseen the process of reformatting his film to 15/70, and since both Fantasia 2000 and Beauty and the Beast were shown in their OAR (the film itself was letterboxed to preserve the aspect ratio), I don't see why Apollo 13 would not be handled in a similar way.
Maybe it's the optimist in me...

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Before anyone says anything, the Special FX were composed at 2.35:1. According to my friends in the FX buisness, EVERY SHOT would have to be redone, as the software used to create the film is long long gone and would take months to restore at best

 

[Michael St. Clair]

1) Fantasia 2000 and Beauty and the Beast were originally composed 1.66:1, with consideration towards 1.85:1 theatrical presentation in the USA. A far cry for 2.35:1. These films were presented mildly letterboxed in the 1.44:1 IMAX frame.

2) Jeffrey Wells (of reel.com) viewed a demo screening of some footage from the IMAX Apollo 13, and it was 1.66:1, radically reframed from the 2.35:1 original.

To quote myself from an earlier thread on the subject...

If 'Apollo 13' were presented 1.66:1 on DVD (unmatting some shots, pan-and-scanning others), there would be cries for studio blood in this forum.

 

[Tim Glover]

Not to start a flame war, but sometimes we need to just enjoy the frickin' movie! Seeing AND hearing Apollo 13 on IMAX would be very cool. It may lose some info on the sides but it would be a thrilling spectacle and most of us own the still reference quality OAR dvd so we can STILL call ourselves purists.

 

[Mark Kalzer]

And also, let's wait until we KNOW what Aspect Ratio they will present it in before we start bashing and screaming Ron Howard to death here! I'm as much an OAR purist as the next HTF member, but let's settle down here!

 

[Jeff Kleist]

We DO know the AR. See Michael's post above

Every single FX shot will be P&S, tho the non-FX will probably be open matte

Either way, it is not OAR

NO OAR=NO SALE!

 

[Patrick McCart]

Every single FX shot will be P&S, tho the non-FX will probably be open matte

There's nothing set in stone that the CGI can't be recreated for IMAX.

You don't truly think Ron Howard is going to put no effort into actually adapting the film correctly?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Patrick, doing so will be ludicrously expensive. I really don't think that Universal is counting on making the $30 million minimum it would take to redo the FX with this release

And no, I don't think that it will be anything but P&S. All we can do is hope that the SFX were actually composed at 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 (I doubt they were)

I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt I am

Even so, no widescreen, no ticket

 

[Patrick McCart]

Patrick, doing so will be ludicrously expensive. I really don't think that Universal is counting on making the $30 million minimum it would take to redo the FX with this release

And no, I don't think that it will be anything but P&S. All we can do is hope that the SFX were actually composed at 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 (I doubt they were)

P&S would be impossible because the image quality would be awful. Taking 1.44:1 from 2.35:1 would result in bathtub-sized grain and even flaws in the SFX.

Fantasia's Sorceror's Apprentice looked poor enough blownup (I am amazed that Disney didn't have the interstital slowly zoom out to reveal a windowbox. Not only was the composition terrible, the grain was horrendous.), so it's unlikely that Universal would simply blowup the hard-matted FX shots.

Since the non-SFX scenes are already spherical, 30 mil would be more than enough to re-render the CGI from the original digital files. The same thing was done to Antz for a few scenes in Cyberworld.

Even if the film is reframed and rerendered, it's still being supervised by the director and isn't replacing the 35mm version.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

IMAX supposedly has a process to keep the horrific grain that would be produced by the blowup down. If Beauty and the Beast was a recipiant of this, I'd say they succeeded.

 

[Jason Seaver]

If I recall correctly, Disney went back to the original CAPS data for Beauty And The Beast and basically re-rendered the whole movie. That would jive with the impression I got watching it - while the colors themselves are smooth, the outlines of the characters had a thick, jagged look, except during the new sequences (which were presumably originated on IMAX).
The "IMAX DMR" process (and I believe Apollo 13 is the first complete movie it's being used on) is digital; it scans the movie in frame-by-frame at very high resolution and then interpolates to a higher resolution before outputting it to film again.
Hopefully, Ron Howard is intimately involved with the process, especially in terms of deciding how the movie gets cropped if need be. Still, the press release shows Howard as clearly being enthusiastic about the process, and I know that I for one will be all over this when it comes out, even if I have to take a train to Providence or the furniture store to see it.

 

[Chauncey_G]

Edit: Yike! Jason got to the DMR thing while I was writing!
The new process is, IIRC, called DMR. This new process is supposed to be able to remaster a native 35mm print into the 70mm format used by IMAX without the grain at a greatly reduced cost than had previously been possible.

Quote:

To this, I can only say that I hope this was the result of watching a demo reel, and not the finished product.
One thing is sure on this: only time will tell. Michael, though I sincerely hope you're wrong, I do recognize that you have some powerful arguements for being wary of this film. I'm just hoping that they will continue with their practice of letterboxing the films, and do it properly. Either way, we'll see in a few months.

 

[Ken Garrison]

I'd only go to an iMax theater if the film they are showing is filmed with an actual iMax camera.

 

[Chris Dugger]

And just to get you all up in arms...

They are editing 20 minutes out of this presentation of APOLLO 13.

The original runtime is too long for the IMAX platter system.

So, not only do you get a re-format, but you also get an edited version.

Dugger

 

[Michael St. Clair]

They are editing 20 minutes out of this presentation of APOLLO 13.

Damn, I just spit coffee on my keyboard.

 

[Chauncey_G]

They are editing 20 minutes out of this presentation of APOLLO 13.

That inner optimist I mentioned earlier?

...um, nevermind...

 

[Robert Cook]

Jason Seaver wrote:

That would jive with the impression I got watching it - while the colors themselves are smooth, the outlines of the characters had a thick, jagged look, except during the new sequences (which were presumably originated on IMAX).

The new scene was originated on Disney’s CAPS system, as usual, and the whole movie was then printed on IMAX film at about four times the usual resolution, if I remember correctly, although I’m not sure where the scaling took place. The new scene may look smoother because the scanners are different now, the current version of CAPS does more anti-aliasing at an early stage, they had more time for the cleanup artists to draw finer lines, or any other reasons of this nature. It had been completed long before the decision was made to release the movie on IMAX.

 

[Scott_MacD]

So, let me get this straight..
we're getting a 35mm Super35 movie, possibly panned and scanned to 1.44:1, and blown up digitally using some kind of scaling algorithm which interpolates to 70mm IMAX proportions. (sounds hideous already!)
Won't DMR smoothing out the grain remove detail? And since the film originated on 35mm already, it will be impossible to create additional detail for the IMAX presentation, except in the CGI moments, whereupon the software used is most likely obsolete by nearly 10 years.
This blowup sounds like a film presentation of Attack of the Clones(digital cinema), since native 35mm resolution is far greater than current digital video.
The best thing about this, is the possible improvement of the soundmix. And I know little of sound formats in IMAX. Perhaps another enlightened member can help me out here.