2 ms·

I don’t think you covered the difference between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. One frame of IMAX is basically 3 frames of normal 70mm. So it is physically 3 times bigger

I don’t think you covered the difference between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. One frame of IMAX is basically 3 frames of normal 70mm. So it is physically 3 times bigger I’d say that yes it’s a marketing technique, but for these releases it’s not a gimmick. If you have a chance to watch a film in 1.43:1, you should try it. The difference is how big it is, and especially how tall it is. Most theatres don’t physically have the size for it. Film could be gimmicky, but I can clearly notice the difference. (Was at a film release that had to fall back to digital at a couple points, and it was very obvious to me, but not my friends with me.) What’s gimmicky is when normal movies release for IMAX without filling that full aspect ratio. Or when you have a tiny IMAX screen

KaiserPro 2mo ago
> between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. Im not sure how many vertical 70mm projectors there are left. I don't think its a delivery format any more. In terms of shooting, I think the only person mad enough to use 65mm is Ken Branagh on his agatha christie movies. its easier and a fuckload cheaper to shoot anamorphic on 35mm or 35mm digital. Plus I think the choice of scanner is wider. Thats also another good point, I'm not sure what scanners you can actually use on imax.
- ralferoo 2mo ago
  Yeah, I haven't been involved in film projection since late 1998. Back then, it was at my university student cinema, we had 70mm capability but only showed one or two films a year in 70mm because there were so few films available for us to hire in that format. If I recall, the main one we showed every year was Backdraft. By comparison, there were 2 showings per day during term time (so 7x10x3 days per year) and most films would only be shown 1 or maybe 2 nights. I was told then that we were very lucky to have that projector as there were only around 4 or 5 cinemas in the country with 70mm projectors (other than IMAX), and I can only imagine it's gone down since then. That said, it's hard to find information on it now - the only list of 70mm cinemas I could find had 5, but included IMAX and not my university cinema even though they showed Interstellar in 70mm last year so probably are just not listed because it's not open to the general public.
ralferoo 2mo ago
> ... the difference between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. One frame of IMAX is basically 3 frames of normal 70mm. Oh, thanks for pointing that out. It's alluded to in the article, but I hadn't twigged that they'd increased the size of the frame. Yeah, that definitely means there's a lot of scope for just massively increasing the height of the screen whilst keeping it wide, and so it's definitely going to be an issue for a lot of cinemas to fit it in without just shrinking the image size substantially so the height fits, at which point the extra resolution would only make it look less grainy.

KaiserPro 2mo ago

> between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. Im not sure how many vertical 70mm projectors there are left. I don't think its a delivery format any more. In terms of shooting, I think the only person mad enough to use 65mm is Ken Branagh on his agatha christie movies. its easier and a fuckload cheaper to shoot anamorphic on 35mm or 35mm digital. Plus I think the choice of scanner is wider. Thats also another good point, I'm not sure what scanners you can actually use on imax.

ralferoo 2mo ago
Yeah, I haven't been involved in film projection since late 1998. Back then, it was at my university student cinema, we had 70mm capability but only showed one or two films a year in 70mm because there were so few films available for us to hire in that format. If I recall, the main one we showed every year was Backdraft. By comparison, there were 2 showings per day during term time (so 7x10x3 days per year) and most films would only be shown 1 or maybe 2 nights. I was told then that we were very lucky to have that projector as there were only around 4 or 5 cinemas in the country with 70mm projectors (other than IMAX), and I can only imagine it's gone down since then. That said, it's hard to find information on it now - the only list of 70mm cinemas I could find had 5, but included IMAX and not my university cinema even though they showed Interstellar in 70mm last year so probably are just not listed because it's not open to the general public.

ralferoo 2mo ago

> ... the difference between 70mm and IMAX 70mm. One frame of IMAX is basically 3 frames of normal 70mm. Oh, thanks for pointing that out. It's alluded to in the article, but I hadn't twigged that they'd increased the size of the frame. Yeah, that definitely means there's a lot of scope for just massively increasing the height of the screen whilst keeping it wide, and so it's definitely going to be an issue for a lot of cinemas to fit it in without just shrinking the image size substantially so the height fits, at which point the extra resolution would only make it look less grainy.