IMAX
The other day, after the success of Star Trek in imax theaters, there was a slew of articles, deflating the new crop of imax theaters popping up in your popular amc theater of whatever. Stand alone imax theaters are typically many stories high, with uncompressed sound, and projected on true imax 70mm film. Where as all of the new theaters are really, just top notch regular theaters, taunting themselves as imax branded. But in reality the screen aren’t as large, they are just closer to the audience to give the illusion of granduer. Then the projection is not 70mm its, two, 2k projectors. Which does not nearly reach the quality of the imax frame.
Why should we shell out the extra 5 bucks for more of less an enhanced 35mm experience? I am a big fan of the true stand alone imax theaters. It is truly the anti- youtube experience, the imax frame is 9 times that of the 35mm frame, and has a digital equivalent of 18k. The highest end digital cameras are shooting just 4k.
The Dark Knight was one of the first feature narratives to shoot with a true imax camera for parts of the movie, and it is completely immersive. You can see things in the frame, that you couldn’t see before, a glint in the eye of a characters, something in the background. The imax just completely fills your field of vision, the only medium that we truly look into rather than at. A perfect window, that lends itself to captivate the audience in a great story and whole new environment. It is the ultimate format. One that I think, audience deserve not to be ripped off from with these imax poser theaters. It is no wonder people pirate movies, because rather then spending the money to put up more real imax theater, they copped out, tricked audiences, and charged the same prices for a far inferior experience. Its becoming insulting the anti piracy ads they put in front of the previews, telling us its stealing, when they are stealing from us with these bogus “imax” theaters.
I love IMAX, I think its the greatest format in the world, and I hope to see more and more films taking advantage of the viewing experience it provides. No matter how nice everybody’s HD 60in tv is, it will never be any match for the IMAX experience, and help save the deflating movie going audience. But hopefully, more true IMAX screens are built to really bring people out of their living rooms, and feel like the extra 5 bucks on top of an inflated ticket price is worth it.
out.
2 years ago • Notes