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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » 70mm on the up (Page 0)

 
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Author Topic: 70mm on the up
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

- posted 11-14-2003 09:50 PM      Profile for Bobby Henderson   Email Bobby Henderson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Sadly the economics of Hollywood militate against a strategy of marketing films which are designed to recoup the production investment gradually over many years. The kind of big-budget productions which could feasibly absorb the extra costs of 65/70 have to generate a profit in the first week or two of release, or are considered a failure.
Leo, you missed my point. Naturally any major film production will need to be successful (and profitable) on the initial release. The same standard would hold true for a modern feature shot on 65mm film.

What I am talking about is successful re-marketing of a "classic" film that was successful in its original release, but then doing certain things to keep the film from looking dated for viewers decades from now. It is a fact many people turn up their noses to older classic films in part because the visual look of the older films do not stand up well to most modern movies. A movie that is shot on 65mm film will be easier to transfer over to whatever video format is state of the art 20 to 50 years from now, if not even father into the future. Lots of work gets put into making 20 year old films like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" look good enough for 480p DVD release. Imagine the headaches down the road if someone's TV shows 6,000 X 14,000 pixels. 65mm is something that can stand up to that.

Give it 20 or 30 years and the video technology used on movies like "Episode II" or that "Desperado" sequel, "Once Upon A Time in Mexico" will seem inferior to consumer home video cameras. That's not to say either of those two films are "classic" at all, but it would be a shame for a filmmaker to shoot a ground breaking classic of a movie and waste that on getting screwed over for the fashion of shooting "digitally." Critics might hail the work for decades, but audiences will turn up their noses at it because the low rez video that was once considered good decades later looks like crap.

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Mattias Ohlson
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 180
From: Falun, Sweden
Registered: Mar 2003

- posted 11-16-2003 06:29 AM      Profile for Mattias Ohlson   Email Mattias Ohlson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If it has been determined that there is no need to go beyond 60fps that is valuahle knowledge. It has been posted here at film-tech that a lot is gained going from 24fps to 30fps. It would seem natural to me that improvements in picture quality from inreased fps depends a lot on the kind of scenes that are shot. With lots of action I am sure 48fps is superior to 30fps and with less things moving 30fps is good enough.

Is there no point in shooting 48fps and then you can project every other frame for a 24fps presentations. I assume that using sensitive modern film and shooting 65mm 48fps do not introduce any real problems.

1 70mm 48fps sd-70 release with the latest DTS
2 35mm from 65 mm original projected 24fps

Altenative one could be for permiere theaters / events
Alternative two for regular viewing

Also it seems sd-70 is using 96Hz flicker rate.

[ 11-16-2003, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: Mattias Ohlson ]

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-16-2003 12:59 PM      Profile for Gordon McLeod   Email Gordon McLeod   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
One thing that has been noticed is that skip frame print downs from the 48fps negative to 24fps prints seem to exhibit more strobing than a 24fps original of the same content
probably because there is less blurr to the moving edges of objects

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Phil Hill
I love my cootie bug

Posts: 7595
From: Hollywood, CA USA
Registered: Mar 2000

- posted 11-16-2003 02:26 PM      Profile for Phil Hill   Email Phil Hill       Edit/Delete Post 
That's true Gordon. When Iwerks was looking to buy ShowScan's 60fps ride-film library, we ran skip-frame tests to see how they would play on our 30fps equipment. The results were very acceptable, but the skipping was more noticible in the fast pan shots...but not objectionable.

>>> Phil

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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

- posted 11-16-2003 03:45 PM      Profile for Brian Guckian   Email Brian Guckian   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Adam said;

quote:
Imax MPX does not maintain the (approximate) 1.4:1 aspect ratio of 1570. It masks off the top and bottom of the image to create a 1.75:1 image on screen. It will only be good for DMR films that are letterboxed on the print. Original 1570 films will appear to have something missing.
Sure; I didn't mean that you could show true IMAX films in MPX theatres, just the other way round. However good point re. the ratio (they refer to it as 1:1.78 in their brochure). It means that even if you were to shoot 65mm and reprint upwards, you'd have a huge letterbox, possibly obviating any advantages of the larger image size.

But added to all the obstacles of shooting 65mm, there's the problem of too many formats. How can one, even with the best of intentions, justify printing say, Matrix : Revolutions in both 15/70 AND 5/70?

Not to mention the frame rates as above [Confused]

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John McConnel
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 118
From: Okmulgee, OK USA
Registered: Nov 2003

- posted 11-16-2003 05:27 PM      Profile for John McConnel   Author's Homepage   Email John McConnel   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
What's MPX? I just got in on this topic. Thanks.

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Adam Martin
I'm not even gonna point out the irony.

Posts: 3686
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Nov 2000

- posted 11-16-2003 05:44 PM      Profile for Adam Martin   Author's Homepage   Email Adam Martin       Edit/Delete Post 
New IMAX System Unvailed (sic)

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

- posted 11-16-2003 06:34 PM      Profile for Steve Kraus     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
If IMAX release, whether day and date or delayed, of conventional films is becoming all the rage is it that much to ask that a studio at least TRY releasing a few 5/70's and see if those jack up attendence (with appropriate advertising) like they used to? It's incomprehensible that they don't even try.

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-16-2003 08:36 PM      Profile for Gordon McLeod   Email Gordon McLeod   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
yes and call it MiniMax [Big Grin]

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

- posted 11-17-2003 12:19 AM      Profile for John Hawkinson   Email John Hawkinson   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Did Sony learn anything of interest from the 70mm rerelease of LOA?

--jhawk

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

- posted 11-17-2003 01:46 AM      Profile for Leo Enticknap   Author's Homepage   Email Leo Enticknap   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
What I am talking about is successful re-marketing of a "classic" film that was successful in its original release, but then doing certain things to keep the film from looking dated for viewers decades from now.
Sadly, the film and TV industries have a pretty poor record when it comes to 'future proofing' their output. Nitrate continued to be used for three decades after the decomposition process was fully understood: in the '40s, some very stable early chromogenic colour processes were abandoned in favour of cheaper ones which were far more prone to fading (more on this in this book), and of course the main reason videotape became so popular for TV production was that it could be wiped and re-recorded.

However, now that we have a far bigger 'secondary' market for archive film (e.g. cable/satellite, DVD) I think studios are starting to take this issue a bit more seriously, but I can't see any systematic evidence of studios being willing to accept a cost hit at the point of production in order to ensure effective preservation. A pity, because restoring a film later is usually far more expensive.

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Joe Schmidt
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 172
From: Billings, Montana, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

- posted 11-20-2003 03:41 AM      Profile for Joe Schmidt   Email Joe Schmidt   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
70MM Mag Century (Ampex) Reproduce Head Stack Question:

Approximately how much does a new one cost these days, and who makes them? I guess these head stacks are no longer made by Ampex, but is there any NewOldStock around? Many of us are familiar with the Century 70/35 mag penthouses containing Ampex head stacks.

This is a bit of a rhetorical question... I have just received news that Otari of Japan is closing for good Otari USA, so there are going to be some difficulties after a while in getting Otari parts for their professional reel-to-reel tape machines. These are very useful to those with large R2R tape libraries, I have two Otaris. While the heads offer long life and although today we do little new recordings into the format, the day might arrive when at least new reproduce heads are needed for 1/4 and 1/2" wide tape. What company might be able to produce equivalent heads? One wonders if when the time comes these will be available, but then there is the possibility of cannibalizing some old machines for parts.

Nortronics is still around and hopefully alive and well for a long time.

Thanks, guys!

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-20-2003 11:40 PM      Profile for Gordon McLeod   Email Gordon McLeod   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Electromag in california makes replacement head clusters to order

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 11-23-2003 04:35 AM      Profile for Frank Angel   Author's Homepage   Email Frank Angel   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Why not assume the heads will be difficult to get in the future and buy replacements now while Otari still has them? I know that Laserdiscs players are a thing of the past, but I have quite an extensive library of them and bought one of the last players available. It sits on a shelf awaiting the demise of my current player.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-23-2003 01:23 PM      Profile for Mark Gulbrandsen   Email Mark Gulbrandsen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
We have a number of used but in very good shape TECCON 6 track heads, both wide track and narrow, at CLACO for the DP-70's. These can be adapted quite easily to the JJ.
BTW... Scott Sound in Burbank bought all of the remaining TECCON stock. They even have brand new Cinerama 7 track heads just in case you might need one.

As for the Otari thats easy...just go to..... http://www.jrfmagnetics.com

The more manhufacturers that discontinue making analog magnetic recorders the longer JRF will be around. Their heads are also far better then most factory originals. I bought new 2 track wide gap heads from them a few years back for a Studer A-80 that I had. The wide gap heads afford a couple more db of s/n ratio but are only common on European machines. Ther is another company in CA. called Flux Magnetics but they only specialize in Ampex and Studer heads. No relation to the Flux Capacitor though.... http://www.fluxmagnetics.com/

Mark @ CLACO

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