Here's an excerpt from a story in today's Chicago Tribune:

"Shipiro" is Jon Shipiro, co-producer, along with his brother, of the IMAX film "All Access."

Music made larger-than-life
---------------------------
By Gary Dretzka, Tribune staff reporter

... "No one has shot a film of this nature for a long time", said Shipiro. "This was an attempt to show a concert as it is, using the latest technology and lighting that was maximized for the film. Film stocks have improved immeasurably since the Rolling Stones' Imax movie, and this one actually has more resolution than high-definition television."
Viewers won't have to have a degree in engineering to fully appreciate the high-tech wonders of large-format HD movie making. The clarity of the images -- projected onto a screen that's 70 feet high -- is breathtaking.
Although the visual and digital audio presentation is stunning, it's worth noting that Imax cameras aren't particularly suited to photographing rock concerts. Nimble they're not.
"People told us we wouldn't be able to do closeups, or move the camera around quickly, because the lens wouldn't be able to hold the image," Shipiro explained. ...

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In general, the slower films have better sharpness and finer grain, but even the high speed films look very good if properly exposed. Excessive graininess is often due more to underexposure.

Huh? I just love when journalists try to impress people with incorrect info. All Access is 24fps, not 48fps.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the film for what it was ... a concert film, an audio experience. I screened it for Peter Shapiro (Jon's co-producing brother) and one of the bands that was in the film.

Everyone was particularly impressed with our kick-ass sound system running wide open. Concert-level volume without the usual distortion and crappy acoustics.

The only thing that I really didn't like was the blow-up material. Particularly the Sheryl Crow interview; grain so big it was distracting.

It was also kind of neat how they built a "making of..." right into the movie. They made no particular attempt to block out the LF cameras, cranes or dollys from their shots. Cool to see them in use.

Gordon: How does AA compare to Nsync? (Visually and audibly?) I know NS is an 8/70 blowup. We open NS on June 1, and we're doing a staff screening of AA next month so we may play both. (BTW, I never saw the Stones flick.)

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The film is still in the boxes, so I'll warn our CP about the problems you had.

Hope we add AA to the fall schedule here. At least its a great soundtrack beyond the first time.

Anyway, there are some stunningly clear concert shots, but some of the interviews, especially Sheryl Crow, are VERY grainy. It really stands out against the Imax images.

Mark Lensenmayer

Unfortunately after Iwerks had mixed the soundtrack it was rejected by whoever makes those decisions on behalf of NSYNC. They then attempted to remix it, and you have what was actually released. Basically the same signal coming from all four corners with a realy heavy LFE. I wish I could have heard the original Iwerks soundtrack.

The 8 seconds of out of sync was really funny I thought. It took RGB several days to send out the 'fix' but by then I already had a fix working so didn't bother with theirs.

Also the soundtrack is too long, the credits run out before the audio does. So I had to add 15 - 20 seconds of film at the end so I could close the douser but keep the machine running so the sound could play out. I thought there was a change in the credits coming, but I never saw one.

The DTS soundtrack sounds terrible, I found out from DTS that the master was clipping during the digital transfer it was mixed so loud.

It's pretty much refered to Nstink or Nsuck around here by the staff, but it does descent at the box office so we keep running it. Note that we only run it on non-school nights, and weekends.

Unfortunately I have heard nothing good about All Access, so I guess IMAX can't do a good concert film either.

Adam, too bad you can't run shows at whatever level you feel is appropriate. I don't have that problem as my theatre was built on a bed of springs. If not I think that NSYNC would be knocking the Titanic artifacts over. Our CEO kept asking for more volume so I gave it to him.

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