I second these posts.
Why didnt anyone complain about IMAX? They spent a lot of time and money setting up those cameras and figuring out how to work with them and yet no one *****ed about it.
Like with TDK, you're still going to have a lot of the film shot in 35mm and blown up for IMAX...which still isn't terrible. As far as the audience knowing the difference in 3D techniques...the post-processing method is still 3D enough (when done well) that it's certainly not like the old red/blue glasses method or flat planes of picture elements, etc. Some of it works pretty darn well, and can often be easier on the eye-strain than stuff shot/rendered in the more 'true' 3D.What bothers me is that most people don't know the difference between a film that was shot in 3D (Avatar, Coraline) and one that was post produced in 3D (Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans), and the idea of people going out in droves on opening night to unknowingly see a lesser experience is kind of depressing.
Moreover, I've never seen any 3D in any format that was more visually impressive/immersive than the native IMAX I saw in both TDK and RotF.
I've been very hopeful that Nolan would return to the native IMAX format for a long time, and I hope whatever WB's mindset is does not affect this.
Native IMAX
Well, as I alluded to before, when the post=-process method is done well, there's still some cool effects it has on stuff that has some depth to it to begin with. For example, the Batpod going through the lobby in TDK, or some of the car-chasing shots that were right on the bumper, or him jumping off the building in Hong Kong, etc. could all look pretty cool with some of the better digital conversion techniques. Granted, it may be more about depth than stuff actually popping out just inches from your nose, but still effective. I guess that maybe it should come down to ticket prices...if you should pay less for the 'lesser method' and so on....although I don't think the pricing comes down to just that.
That doesn't make much sense because the glasses for Avatar should work since they're based on polarization, which is pretty much the standard way of projecting whether you shoot actual 3D or not. Same as when they were doing 3D movies a decade ago in Disneyland and such. If they actually were using the old red/blue method, then something is really messed up there..especially if the actual movie is in color...or a really cheap-ass way of doing it. That's really odd....and a real rip-off, too, if they're still using that.
It's still going to be really tough to do all of it in IMAX because of just the size of the film itself...only 3 minutes per 1000ft roll (as opposed to around 11 minutes for 1000ft of 35mm) screaming through those gears and gates at 24 frames per second makes it hard to get something small, quiet, and (most importantly) affordable enough to use practically for most of the 'normal' but important stuff you'd have to film...like interior dialogue.
It might...it's just the physical size of that film. Those 1000-foot rolls are as wide in diameter (10-12 inches) as the 35mm ones, but 3-times as thick...and that's only 3-minutes at a time. Imagine what a 11-minute roll would look like? Imax gets its image quality from the size of that frame, so it's not like you can shrink it down. So that time-limit on the rolls is the real killer....especially if you're doing some of the meaty acting scenes that need a lot of takes and coverage. And what if the scene/dialogue is longer than three minutes? You can't even make it through one whole take...or every time there's a flub or a 'sorry, can we start over...?', you have to change out the roll. That could seriously affect your whole shooting workflow. Not to mention how much more the film stock/processing costs than 35mm.
I've worked on three films with the RED, and will be starting on a fourth in May. It's got its own set of issues that you have to be careful with, as it's definitely not one of those pro-sumer HDV or DVCProHD camcorder-type things. But I worked in actual film for a long time, so the workflow isn't really that different...it's just all digital. And it really comes down to how you do your color-correction to get whatever look you're going for....and your lenses, of course.
Good post!
