The Curious Case of IMAX

KMR said:
In an earlier post in this thread, IMAX was characterized as being a "narrow" aspect ratio. My take on it is that it's really a "tall" aspect ratio. IMAX films are created to be projected on a very large screen, creating an environment that the audience is immersed in. It's been a while since I've seen an IMAX film, but as I recall the top & bottom of the screen usually has only peripheral information that you don't really need to look at directly. Occasionally there's something that you will look up or down at, and that's one of the things that helps give the format its "wow" factor.
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Apparently the "book" on how to film in IMAX recommends putting the actor's foreheads center screen. That leaves an AWFUL lot of headroom on the format. This was not lost on the DP of the Dark Knight who discusses this in American Cinematographer. They choose to ignore that advice and shoot their own tests. To me, the movie "plays bigger" when the advice is not followed.

I am lucky to have two IMAX theaters in my town, one next door to my building. Literally, it's a 2 minute walk. So I get to see the format regularly when funds permit. I find that it is now my preferred format for 'big" film. It is somewhat difficult for me though as a "movie" fan to watch movies that were shot anamorphic, go through the DMR process and get essentially panned and scanned to fit IMAX. If the movie was shot 1:85 it's a bit easier.
 
Interestingly I just saw Avatar in IMAX 3d for the first time and noticed the image didn't fill up the entire screen, just about 80 percent of it. There was black space on all sides. This was a true IMAX theater too. It looked great, but not as dramatic as the IMAX filmed sequences in DARK KNIGHT which had insane amounts of detail and filled the entire screen. It really didn't look any better than the Real3D version I first saw, just slightly bigger.
 
Back in the 4x3 days I used to put on 16x9 bars to make my footage look more cinematic.
Now I shoot only HD 16x9 and most folks watch it on a 16x9 screen/tv.

Everything should be fine now, but without black bars it looses the cinematic feel.
So now I put on 1.85x1 bars and the feel is back.

O.K. "cinematic- schminematic" - but to me it looks bigger, more epic with bars.

Personally I think 1.85:1 is the optimum, cause it is close to the human FOV.
Going even wider is O.K. for some big theaters, but on a computer screen or a TV set it looks wrong to me, if you got more black bars than film.

my ct2

Frank
 
PerroneFord said:
Ok, 1.34, 1.35 or 1.44, it doesn't matter. The movie was shot at 1.78. And the Dark knight was shot at either 2:35 or 2:40. And yes, the IMAX sequences in Dark Knight were shot with IMAX cameras (some on a steadicam!).

.
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they broke a few stedicams making that film the imaxs were too big...
 
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