The Dark Knight, the latest “episode” in the Batman series, opens July 18 to great anticipation. The film is made more compelling and poignant by the death of Heath Ledger, who from what we can see in the film’s trailer, plays a very dark Joker. But, for aficionados of “behind-the-scenes” stories, The Dark Knight is compelling for other reasons.
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Just a quick question/comment. I have worked as a projectionist at the two IMAX Theaters in Manhattan. IMAX is now going to begin to install supposedly 70mm resolution digital projectors replacing the current 70mm film systems. Does this mean a true 65mm resolution (quiet)IMAX digital camera, is on the horizon? I worked as a grip for Local 52 on \"Across the Sea of Time\", and it floored me how damn noisy these cameras actually are.
Posted by Steven Romano on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 @ 06:52 PM
2.
The IMAX digital camera already exists, it\'s called the DALSA. Anyone who saw the Celco frame they had recorded to 70mm, 15-perf, IMAX at NAB knows that the DALSA camera can capture 70mm quality, oh yes! The camera is silent, weights about 1/3 of an IMAX camera and has a 2-hour magazine. The camera is a dream came true camera for the IMAX set.
Posted by Irene33 on Thursday, July 3, 2008 @ 02:43 AM
3.
So the IMAX neg was scanned at 8K and then intermixed with the 35mm neg scanned at 4K I imagine, some add\'l DMRing applied and then the DI was finished in what, 6K and shot out to a final IMAX interneg? I was hoping to read more about the IMAX postproduction.
I was very lucky to be on an IMAX set hear a year ago for a french production and see the camera running and talk to the Cinematographer a bit about his hurdles and such. One of the camera\'s vacuum pump broke down (big problem!).
Posted by Roloff on Thursday, July 3, 2008 @ 05:49 AM
4.
Dalsa is 34 x 17mm ie, S35. "70mm quality" is a meaningless metric. Dalsa is a S35 chip capturing in 4K.
Posted by WrongIrene on Thursday, July 3, 2008 @ 02:54 PM
5.
He should have just shot the entire movie in regular 5-perf 65mm (aka Super Panavision or Todd-AO). It has the correct aspect ratio (2.2, only slightly different than 2.39). Superb image quality, noiseless cameras, great choice of lenses, much easier to deal with. You could still do an IMAX prestige release but better yet you could offer regular cinemas 70mm prints. There is plenty of 70mm projection gear out there that can be put in very cheaply and modern 70mm prints use DTS sound instead of costly magnetic tracks. True 70mm (shot on 65mm negative) blows 2K D-Cinema away. And with quality post production much of the clarity of the 65mm negative would come through even on 35mm prints. Even D-Cinema would look better with the better source material. 70mm on the marquee and ads brings in people; it's been documented.
Posted by Steve Kraus on Sunday, July 6, 2008 @ 12:49 AM
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Steve, do you think the surviving U.S. infrastructure for 70mm exhibition would support a major release? With so many years since Titanic -- which barely got a 70mm-blowup release at all -- I wonder how many screens would be ready to load up an actual 70mm film if it were made available to them. Would sure be fun to see.
Posted by Bryant Frazer on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 @ 10:21 AM
7.
15-perf 65mm is a 1.33 format, so with Dalsa or Red you're going to have a pretty severe letterbox. And there aren't many usable 5-perf 65mm cameras around. Witness the 765 used for the wide shots in Shine a Light - soft! Old gear not ready for current-day use.
Posted by TimS on Thursday, July 10, 2008 @ 04:59 PM
8.
The new Red Epic will be able to shoot up to 28K at from 1 to 30 FPS, which is roughly the equivalent of IMAX resolution.
Posted by Douglas Monce on Saturday, December 20, 2008 @ 08:29 PM
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