Imax re-formatting?? (1 Viewer)

[Michael St. Clair]

IMHO, you are very thoughtfully and intelligently stating a rational position that I hold to also. Stick to your guns!

Well, Jason, you have Phil on your side.
Of course, you should know that Phil believes in zooming 2.35:1 movies to fill his 1.77:1 screen.
Phil is a good guy and I love talking with him here and at AVS, but also I love to tease him. Oh, and he is just plain WRONG about OAR.

 

[cafink]

It seems to me that deference to the wishes of filmmakers is the better proposition

In general, I agree with you.

When the filmmakers change their mind long after a film is in the can, however, it creates a much tricker situation.

The HTF mission statement makes no distinction on this point, and I'm glad about that. It gives us something interesting to debate.

In the case of both "Apollo 13" and "Attack of the Clones," the filmmakers wished their films to be seen in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.4:1. The decisions to crop the movies for Imax presentations came much later, after the films were already shot and composed for the wider frame.

While the idea that a filmmaker can or should make such drastic changes to his movie so long after the fact certainly has merit, I personally think it's a poor idea, not least of all when it concerns the aspect ratio.

Re-editing a movie, just for example, can usually be reasonably done after-the-fact (as it often is with countless "director's cuts" and "extended editions" and such), because at the time of filming, the filmmakers were not yet sure of the way the movie would finally be edited. Once all is said and done, they still have lots of extra footage lying around. If a film is revisited, they can go back to this footage and use it, just like they had probably planned to in the first place.

A movie's aspect ratio, however, differs in that once the footage is shot, the framing cannot be changed. (Of course there is some wiggle room with soft-matte and super-35 films, which "Apollo 13" and "Attack of the Clones" are, but heavy use of special effects in both makes this almost a non-issue in this particular case.) The only thing one could possibly do is crop the image from its original, intended composition. This WILL hurt the composition, there is no way around that. The director is an important person in the making of a film, but even he cannot make a cropped, improperly-framed image look acceptable.

 

[AaronMK]

... Were all ~2.2:1 70mm blowups of ~2.4:1 35mm films boycott-worthy? Or does the desire of the filmmakers to do the blowup have some significance?

The desire of the filmakers to do a blowup and reframing for IMAX has a great amount of significance. If a presantation represents the wishes of the filmmakers, then it isn't P&S and this whole discussion becomes moot then, doesn't it.
And who knows? Maybe the movies will be letterboxed. The article mentioned nothing about accomodating for different aspect ratios. They letterboxed Beauty and the Beast, and it still gave it all the benefits that IMAX has to offer.
edit: Or mabe not....

 

[Ed St. Clair]

I wonder how many realize that most theater presentation's are not OAR.
When I saw Titian A.E., I could not read the second subtitle line for the aliens.
My greatest disappointment is always at the end of a film in a theater, when the credits scroll down. And I can clearly see, two feet or more on the top of the screen, as sometimes as well as the bottom, of just how much picture information was lost by improper framing.
If you truly wish to view a film OAR, and nothing but OAR, you had better do your homework before attending any theater presentation.

I am pro-OAR, by the way.
Just pointing out that we all have seen non-OAR presentations. Whether, we planed to or not.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

And who knows? Maybe the movies will be letterboxed.

On Ebert & Roper at the Movies, Roger stated A13 would not be in OAR [even though the clips used to promote the IMAX presentation were, go figure!]. He also acknowledged that film purist might be offended, but that he was not.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

If you truly wish to view a film OAR, and nothing but OAR, you had better do your homework before attending any theater presentation.

If it's that obvious, I demand a voucher for another showing and I leave!
2.35:1 to 1.66:1 is way beyond any common projection mistake!

 

[cafink]

I wonder how many realize that most theater presentation's are not OAR.

If by OAR you mean "exact to a fraction of an inch," then you're right — an OAR presentation is actually quite rare in theaters or elsewhere.

But this particular issue is not a matter of cropping a picture to make it "fit" a certain frame, it's just a matter of the technical realities of film projection.

Filmmakers know that their movie will almost never be presented spot-on at the 100% exact aspect ratio they intended. They frame accordingly. No movie will ever be hurt by cropping just 5 or 10 per cent of the picture from the edges.

The Imax issue at hand is a whole different beast. The films in question are being deliberately cropped. No matter how accurate the projection is, about 30 to 40 percent of the picture is going to be missing.

 

[Carl C]

Interesting to note that Fox execs are predicting that the IMAX release will pull in "at least $20 million" additional.
CLICK HERE

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Believe you me, I will be itching to see 5 story StarWars like Luke itching for his lightsaber in ROTJ

I will not let the dark side sway me

However, if I'm TOTALLY wrong and it's 2.35:1, they already have my money

 

[Robert Cook]

I wonder how that digital photography in Attack of the Clones is going to hold up on IMAX....

 

[James Q Jenkins]

You can't see the trees for the forest.
IMAX is a very specific format with very peculiar effects. That huge megagigantic screen demands radically different photography and framing techniques than does a standard movie theater frame. IMAX films are filmed for IMAX specifically.
When movies are shown on IMAX that were not composed for IMAX, the result is IMO a dismal failure and an extremely unsatisfying presentation of the film in question. OAR or non-OAR is largely irrelevant to this issue, both are not as the director intended. Was Apollo 13 filmed and composed for IMAX? Was Star Wars Attack Of The Clones? No! They were composed for regular theaters.
So you see the "true" film purist wouldn't be interested in the first place, much less bicker about OAR.
BTW you OAR zealots are scaring me.

 

[Robert Cook]

I think I've found the perfect solution to this issue, thanks to the American WideScreen Museum. It's an amazing new digital recomposition technology called FlikFX. Check it out--page 6 specifically addresses IMAX. Our worries are all behind us now! :wink:

 

[Jean-Michel]

I cannot imagine AOTC looking any good on an IMAX screen. I didn't think it looked particularly ugly in either 35mm or DLP but blowing it up to that size is asking for trouble. Out of curiousity, what was the film's AR? The "negative" was 1.78:1 but I doubt the entire film (effects shots and all) were composed in that ratio. Were they composed in 1.85:1 or 2.35:1?

I am admitting right now that I will see Apollo 13 on an IMAX screen. So ner.

 

[Brian W.]

Quote from Ron Howard:

The procedure began with scanning the original Apollo 13 at 4K resolution. (IMAX subcontracts this scanning process to service bureaus.) The company’s 20-person production team then commenced making the shot-by-shot decisions about framing the original film to work in IMAX’s 4:3 aspect ratio, deferring to Hanley and Howard as needed.

“Apollo 13 was shot full-aperture [Super] 35,” [IMAX's Hugh] Murray explains, “so we’ve had a good aspect ratio to deal with.”

“No shots were trimmed because of framing,” says [Dan] Hanley [the film's editor], who discounts the conventional wisdom that predicts difficulty in watching an IMAX film with many close-ups. “There was the notion that with the framing you had to keep everything in the lower third of the screen—-that if you used framing like you do with 35 there would be very little headroom at the top. But I don’t see that at all with our stuff. If you have a close-up with the headline at the top of the screen, there’s still a good eyeline, and that’s what you’re watching. The performance is at a spot that’s quite easy to view.”

 

[Jeff Kleist]

“No shots were trimmed because of framing,”

I want proof, right now, because the shot on their homepage of it is CROPPED!

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Jeff,

No need for proof. I think what he meant was that no shots were EDITED out of the film specifically because of a framing issue. Poor word choice on his part - "trimmed".

While the re-formatting is bad enough, I'm surprised I'm not seeing more complaints about the shortening of the film by 25 minutes (IIRC). That should be enough to keep everyone away....

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Peter, I felt I already had enough to bitch about frankly

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I can't imagine anyone getting excited about seeing APOLLO 13 on an IMAX screen. Look at what you get - a "re-formatted to fit your screen" version that's missing a fifth of its original running time. So you get to see it on a really big screen with a really loud sound system - big deal! Unless you manage to secure seats in the back row, you're going to miss half of the image anyway unless you continuously turn your head. There's a *reason* real IMAX films have all the significant action framed in the bottom third of the image. And why they are edited a particular way. Standard Hollywood techniques are wrong for the IMAX screen.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

IMAX
70mm
Horizontal
15 perf pull-across
1.44:1 aspect ratio
PANAVISION etc
35mm
Vertical
4 perf pull-down
2.40:1 aspect ratio
Appolo 13 was shot in Super 35: Link Removed. The effects were shot in 1.66:1 VistaVision. Surely they used the full 1.33:1 Super 35 frame when they made the IMAX dupe negative? If the show has been shot in Panavision anamorphic, then there would definately be cause for concern, but it is a Super 35 film, and a 1.44:1 IMAX blow-up should look great.
Correct me, if I have just spouted jibberish.
Gordy

 

[Terrell]

BTW you OAR zealots are scaring me.

Tell me about it. I support OAR on video and in theaters. I'd prefer consumers were educated by employees at stores and by studios. I'd also prefer P&S video titles were done away with, and only widescreen DVDs and videos were released. I'd like to see the studios say no more to P&S DVDs. But there is a limit, and you can take this too far. Josh and I had this argument earlier in the Star Wars thread. Like I said, I'll probably skip AOTC in IMAX. I've seen it 7 times, which is the most I've ever seen any film in theaters. But it won't be because it's reformatted or cropped. I'll just patiently wait for the DVD. But like I said, I don't see how going to see AOTC or Apollo 13 in IMAX means you're throwing your support behind P&S. Buying P&S DVDs when you know better is what I consider throwing your support behind P&S. I don't equate IMAX to buying P&S videos. These two films may look like garbage on IMAX. They may look great. But are we really to the point where we petition our own members not to go see something in IMAX because we so rigidly adhere to OAR? I hope not. Let's support OAR. But let's not go overboard. This is not an army. That said, I can to a point understand what Michael, Jeff, and Josh are saying. I just don't agree with them in this case.
I really wonder if the OAR fanatics are as rigid when they watch cable TV.