The Odyssey IMAX 70mm Setup

[u/NoWork215]

[u/moomzzz]

Here’s me thinking they just plug in a usb somewhere and crack open VLC player on the big screen

[u/thomasthedude → u/moomzzz]

some cinemas do that, when I went to the latest avatar movie, the audio was out of sync and when they were fixing it you could see they used VLC

[u/justjanne → u/thomasthedude]

While that can happen (sometimes cinemas can actually get a license to show a movie off a bluray disc), typically there's dedicated playback servers showing a much higher quality version of the movie (think about 600GB for a movie).

[u/Away-Way5656 → u/justjanne]

what are they doing storing every single frame as a uncompressed image?

[u/justjanne → u/Away-Way5656]

Pretty much! Every frame is a separate JPEG2000 at almost lossless quality.

That's 10× more data than a typical 4K UHD Blu-ray, with 64 times more color depth than Dolby Vision.

And the sound is for trailers typically uncompressed 5.1 surround, for most movies 1024 channels of lossless Dolby Atmos, or with IMAX lossless 12.1 surround.

e.g. here's a 3 minute trailer in 2048×1080p, aka DCI 2K or 1080p HD, at 3.4 GB filesize: https://archive.org/download/avatar-2009-official-trailer-2k-prores/AVATAR_TLR-B-2D_S_EN-XX_51_2K_20091108_SMPTE_OV.zip

That should give you a feeling for why movies in cinemas look so much better than at home.

[u/retiredalavalathi → u/justjanne]

That should give you a feeling for why movies in cinemas look so much better than at home.

I've never felt that. Picture quality is always crisper on a TV screen than a cinema screen.

[u/shidderbean → u/retiredalavalathi]

Yeah, most cinema projectors have shit for focus. It's probably a calibration problem rather than capability

[u/SagittaryX → u/justjanne]

Compared to streaming yes, that's a noticeable difference to quite a few people. But I doubt that if you played that quality vs a 4K BluRay on the same screen that there is that huge of a difference that people would notice.

[u/VexingRaven → u/SagittaryX]

Of course, but that's the point right? They're not playing it on an 85 inch screen. They're playing it on an 85 foot screen. It needs to be perfect.

[u/Zac3d → u/VexingRaven]

It needs to be perfect.

Last time I went to the movies the projector screen was dirty. Which meant the brighter the image, the more apparent any flaws in the screen were. And also the black levels for projection just sucks compared to a modern OLED. Flaws of a theater are more apparent than what Blu-ray compression would be.

[u/slonkulocuswily182 → u/SagittaryX]

Streaming’s data rate is incredibly low quality.

The picture relies on your tv/phone to sharpen the image.

[u/Comprehensive-Mud373 → u/SagittaryX]

Yeah, why like have different quality on video at all? What's the reason of having 2160p 4K when 480p is more than good enough on my phone? /s

[u/daninet → u/Away-Way5656]

Its Jpeg2000 compression with uncompressed audio. Video is around 500mbps

[u/Ill_Emphasis3927 → u/daninet]

Lol, that doesn't surprise me, although I know nothing about it. The only thing it reminds me of is the original sonic game on Sega. The intro song and the music took up the majority of the storage space on the game cartridge.

[u/necrophcodr → u/Away-Way5656]

A lot of compression isn't lossless.

[u/Gurbonkers → u/justjanne]

IMAX DCPs are 300 gigs but yeah

[u/DefMech → u/thomasthedude]

That doesn't sound right. The system for digital movie distribution is heavily locked down and tightly integrated with the studios themselves, to the point that the actual theaters barely have any control over showtimes and when/how a movie starts. I'm not sure how a theater would be able to play a new release digital movie through VLC. Movies released in DCP are encrypted and to my knowledge there is no way to acquire the keys or decrypt the files unofficially.

[u/justjanne → u/DefMech]

They probably used VLC for the trailers, or in some rare cases cinemas can also get a license to play movies off of consumer blu ray discs, but that's typically only for films that have long been released.

Sometimes you can get decrypted DCPs, and especially trailers are never encrypted — e.g., here's the Avatar (2009) trailer as DCP https://archive.org/download/avatar-2009-official-trailer-2k-prores/AVATAR_TLR-B-2D_S_EN-XX_51_2K_20091108_SMPTE_OV.zip

But VLC doesn't properly support DCP anyway.

[u/FrenchFryCattaneo → u/justjanne]

Yeah I've seen small theaters where the ads before the movie are played on a completely different projector, so that could be done on vlc.

[u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 → u/moomzzz]

That does seem more efficient than 2.1 million feet of film per movie

[u/tnstaafsb → u/OtherwiseAlbatross14]

You'd be surprised how hard it is to cram 2.1 million feet of film into a USB drive.

[u/Templar113113 → u/moomzzz]

Nearly all cinemas use digital

[u/Captain_Zomaru → u/moomzzz]

No, that's what we(I) do

[u/JustCallMeYogurt → u/moomzzz]

There's a arthouse theatre in my city that does this type of thing. I couldn't believe it but I got there early for a couple of screenings and while waiting, sitting in the theatre the projectionist is setting up and pulls up VLC on a windows 10 computer and browses to the movie file on a removable drive. Even knowing this now I still go back since they have A/C, a bigger screen and way better sound system than I have at home, plus it supports a small business.

[u/pizza_whistle → u/JustCallMeYogurt]

I mean what else were you expecting? VLC is a very solid media player and most movies being shown are digital. It's always going to just be some media player program on a computer.

[u/beavertownneckoil → u/pizza_whistle]

They use it on space aircraft

[u/czerilla → u/moomzzz]

Just make sure to move the cursor off-screen when you're done, and we're cool.. 🫡

[u/Caspi7 → u/moomzzz]

They are doing that for digital imax projections

[u/mccarthybergeron → u/moomzzz]

Watching this in a Apple Vision Pro headset would be pretty magical.

[u/SoftLink5162]

If they want us to watch Imax so badly make more Imax theatres man. We don't have single true Imax in my country. And that's true for most countries.

[u/Hey_Neat → u/SoftLink5162]

The problem is they don't make 70mm Projectors anymore. all the ones in use have been refurbished/Frankenstein'd from old projectors.

[u/SoftLink5162 → u/Hey_Neat]

Why can't they make new ones?

[u/Pheonix0114 → u/SoftLink5162]

They can, they just don't. Why? I guess they don't think there would be profit in it?

[u/GobsTX → u/Pheonix0114]

If there wasn’t enough business revenue to sustain the business, what makes you think you can start it again from scratch?

70mm imax doesn’t draw enough customers to make a meaningful business model. The theaters with this tech still struggle to stay open, like most theaters. Most people don’t attend those theaters because of increased ticket prices.

Most people don’t see or perceive enough difference between imax and a regular theater to pay the difference.

There are only 41 70mm imax theaters in the world, 26 are located in the us. There just isn’t enough interest or market share.

[u/omega416 → u/GobsTX]

Theaters in my city are literally charging inflated prices for Odyssey just because it's a Nolan movie and has the IMAX branding. I'd much rather pay that to actually watch it in 70mm.

[u/jx2002 → u/omega416]

I'm glad Chattanooga isn't, it's $25 a ticket for 70MM IMAX

[u/safetyvestsnow → u/jx2002]

$16.50 in Reading, MA. It’s a loss leader for the furniture store, but still.

Edit: Dual laser not 70mm native, still really nice at the same 1.43:1 aspect ratio

[u/IntrepidDreams → u/safetyvestsnow]

I'm confused by the furniture store loss leader. I've never seen a IMAX or any theatre along with a furniture store. 

Are you forced to go through the furniture store to exit the theater, like a gift shop at the end of an theme park ride? Are people going to watch a movie and deciding to get a couch while they are there?

[u/HarmonicFractals → u/IntrepidDreams]

Jordan's furniture. It's very surreal; It's a massive complex with a Fuddruckers, a play park and some other appendages. And yes, you do need to go through the furniture store. It's a fantastic theater though all said and done.

[u/pillage → u/IntrepidDreams]

Are you forced to go through the furniture store to exit the theater, like a gift shop at the end of an theme park ride?

The reverse: you go through the furniture store to enter the theater, then leave through a back door.

[u/phxtravis → u/GobsTX]

Probably not the best place to ask, but there is a 70mm IMAX near me and they have some seats available… are there any bad seats? All the center(except for the first 3 rows) are taken. Never been to a 70mm.

[u/Yivoe → u/phxtravis]

Do not sit in the front section. You will be miserable and miss most of the movie.

Center middle as usual is best, to the sides of that are fine. Further back will do.

But do not sit in the front.

[u/Echo-24 → u/GobsTX]

Then why still make it so you see more in imax?

[u/gonfr → u/Echo-24]

Artistic choice.

[u/mccarthybergeron → u/gonfr]

It's also special and premium feeling to be honest. I look it like restaurants. Sometimes you just want an In-and-Out $5 burger because the value is perfect... but there are those FEW times I want and can afford that robust $20 burger.

[u/PoopyisSmelly → u/Echo-24]

There are directors who just believe its the best way to display their art or have nostalgia for the format.

Like some of the scenes in Super 8 were filmed on Super 8.

Did they need to be? Absolutely not. But Spielberg thought itd be cool or whatever.

[u/xs0apy → u/PoopyisSmelly]

To be fair, real 70MM IMAX is fucking insane

[u/omare14 → u/xs0apy]

I'm blessed to be a 1-2 hour drive from three IMAX 70mm locations and it's truly an insane experience. A standard movie in the theater is a great film watching experience, but an IMAX 70mm viewing is pure spectacle, there's nothing like it.

[u/Morwynd78 → u/PoopyisSmelly]

Super 8 was directed by JJ Abrams, Spielberg was co-producer

[u/MarioDesigns → u/Echo-24]

Digital IMAX is cheaper and easier to do with more cinemas showing it. Most IMAX these days is both shot and shown on digital with only a few movies every few years using film.

Odyssey is the first film to be entirely shot on 70mm film for instance.

The aspect ratio is just a size problem really, 70mm though is a major logistical challenge that most people don’t care enough for when compared to digital.

[u/Sonofarakh → u/Echo-24]

There are no bigger film snobs/nerds/connoisseurs (call it whatever you like) than bigtime directors like Spielberg and Nolan.

They love IMAX, and so they use their clout and pull to make the studio pay to produce their movies in IMAX, too. IMAX itself isn't profitable but the movies made for IMAX absolutely can be once they're chopped up for the smaller, standard aspect ratio and distributed to normal theatres.

[u/iHadou → u/Sonofarakh]

Yea but if you're taking off the bacon and cheese then I don't even want it anymore. Hearing how awesome the 6 story 70mm is that's 330 miles away from me, I'll just wait for the blu ray then.

[u/Hallc → u/GobsTX]

Most people don’t see or perceive enough difference between imax and a regular theater to pay the difference.

My guess would be those people haven't been to an IMAX theatre or at least not the ones I've been to. Walking into the IMAX screens at mine and I'm always utterly shocked by the sheer size of the screen.

[u/tryingisbetter → u/GobsTX]

They also break a lot.

[u/bobbyboob6 → u/Pheonix0114]

also i don't think anyone would want to pay like a million dollars for one

[u/AEnema18 → u/bobbyboob6]

Sigh… fine I’ll pay. Do they accept visa?

[u/sergeantmeatwad → u/Pheonix0114]

Fun fact, they don't even sell them. They are only leased to movie theaters. It's like a 99-yr rental agreement or something ridiculous. They take a cut of revenue instead of a single payment

[u/Nomoras → u/sergeantmeatwad]

Leasing is better in this case, cause you don't know how long the theatre will survive for.

[u/hugcub → u/Pheonix0114]

it's probably because the ENTIRE supply chain that sources all of the parts for these projectors doesn't even exist anymore. The casing for the projectors, the lenses, the tiny screws that hold it together, the glue, a million other small parts. All of that neeeds to be made by someone, who sources THEIR materials from someone else, who sources THEIR materials from someone else. None of that exists anymore I'm guessing and it would be extremely difficult to begin again.

[u/Duel_Option → u/Pheonix0114]

People aren’t going to the movies as much for a variety of reasons, cost for new projector is expensive.

Simple as that

[u/rockstar283 → u/Pheonix0114]

It all boils down to 💰💰

[u/ryohazuki224 → u/Pheonix0114]

Yeah, the cost and the lack of films being made for it can't justify making more. We got just one director here pushing the film format, but he alone cant change the movie industry to re-adopt this large, expensive, and complex format. And I highly doubt that more directors will suddenly jump into wanting to use the film on their projects, given the massive hurdles in the whole process. On set, the cameras themselves are super loud, Nolan has IMAX make a sort of enclosure for the cameras to cut down on sound so they could, you know, get recorded audio from the actors. Plus, the cameras themselves take film reels that can only last for three minutes of filming. Three minutes. How many directors are going to have their actors wait around between film changes every three minutes?

The format is amazing...for what its designed for: nature documentaries for educational purposes and large format "experiences", not for general filmmaking. The industry isn't going to suddenly swap to this anytime soon.

[u/Ramental → u/SoftLink5162]

Because filming on these cameras sucked. They were noisy and require shitloads of tape. Now they are not as noisy. But you see that the roll weights 400 kg, too.

Nolan is one of the few who can pull such a demand for equipment, but the theaters are not going to order expensive equipment for 1 movie every several years at best.

[u/remissile → u/Ramental]

But projectors and cameras aren't especially linked. Movies can be shot on IMAX cameras and only released digital, or filmed on digital/70mm/VistaVision (and so on) and be released on 70mm IMAX. The main reason is the costs.

[u/Ramental → u/remissile]

Of course you can film digital and show in cinemas on 70mm, but you will not get any of the supposed quality. Similarly with filming on 35mm, the improvement is there, but not as much to make it worth.

70mm projectors only make sense if the movie was filmed on 70mm originally.

[u/DMMMOM → u/SoftLink5162]

They can absolutely make new ones, but what, for every city in the world, for about 3 films a year shot on the format? Everything about it is redundant, old technology and not economically viable. It's not practical and there's probably only a handful of people in every city who could tell it was true 70mm.

[u/WeatherStunning1534 → u/SoftLink5162]

People barely go to theaters as it is. Nobody’s investing hundreds of millions into production of a very inconvenient and expensive format like 70mm, right now it’s largely the filmmakers and theaters themselves keeping the format alive out of their own pockets just out of the love of the medium

[u/RetroDave79 → u/SoftLink5162]

Factory closed time ago or moved to another technology, the machines needed to make the parts are gone or are not working anymore....

[u/Warmbly85 → u/SoftLink5162]

Because they make like 2 films a year worth seeing in IMAX. It used to be almost exclusively educational and documentaries like 20ish years ago and it was still like $20 for a ticket. 

Most people don’t care enough about the difference in quality to justify $45 tickets when you can just watch it normally for $15

[u/WonderBredOfficial → u/Hey_Neat]

That's for only for 70mm IMAX. IMAX still makes the normal IMAX projectors. That article you read the other day was just about 70mm ones in particular.

[u/remissile → u/WonderBredOfficial]

"Normal" IMAX is film.

[u/_adanedhel_ → u/remissile]

Well it depends on what you mean by “normal”.

Normal as in the “original” IMAX (which is, historically, mainly at dedicated facilities in museums/science centers/aquariums/etc and the rare theater in a big city), you’re correct that that’s film.

“Normal” as in the much more common IMAX that people will encounter at their local multiplex, that is digital.

[u/remissile → u/_adanedhel_]

I say normal because IMAX is firstly a film format. Digital IMAX is just a commercial term.

[u/AC3_Gentile → u/SoftLink5162]

I live in Italy and I have only one IMAX theatre in a 3 hour driving range. Needless to say, literally every single seat, at every single time, of every single day of the next 3 weeks is sold out

[u/Darwins_Dog → u/SoftLink5162]

Half of them are in the US, and I'm still 7 hours away from the closest one, lol. The only thing I know about this movie is that it won't look or sound as good when I see it.

[u/aBunchOfSpiders → u/Darwins_Dog]

Damn I didn’t know I was so lucky. I have 3 within half an hour of my house. I don’t go to theaters often but when I do it’s only for IMAX.

[u/mrASSMAN → u/aBunchOfSpiders]

IMAX branding has been licensed out.. most of the IMAX theaters you’re seeing aren’t true IMAX.. like in Seattle there’s probably a dozen “IMAX” but only 1 or 2 true IMAX

[u/Duel_Option → u/SoftLink5162]

Did you not see the complexity on the video here?

The cost is anywhere between $500k to $1.2M per projector.

No one is shelling out that kind of money as theatre attendance is down 30% globally since pandemic

[u/mercified_rahul → u/SoftLink5162]

Its weird imax is so popular, but so less theatres? Like come on.

[u/Outside_Annual9102 → u/mercified_rahul]

Movie theaters are dying as an industry and you think there's a market for IMAX? It's not so popular, it's literally just this one movie.

[u/Sonikku_a → u/SoftLink5162]

Randomly my local theater in Rochester, NY upgraded to 70mm IMAX. Surprising, but I don’t mind when I see The Odyssey next week.

[u/sweetrobna → u/SoftLink5162]

California is hoarding them like a greedy dragon

But really they should build more, it's a great time seeing a movie on a huge screen. The metreon in San Francisco is is doing 3am showings as there is so much demand

[u/GeneralOrdinance → u/SoftLink5162]

india? i feel you regardless

[u/c_im_not_clever → u/SoftLink5162]

Stumbled on this yesterday, sheds some light. Also, maybe greed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/D4BBmS8pdO

[u/juliangst]

The irony that Nolan isn't interested in surround sound because all cinemas should have the same audio experience, but the picture is apparently so insignificant that less than 1% of theatres support the full 15/70mm format

[u/jrobpierce → u/juliangst]

My cousin does sound editing for films and he’s extremely annoyed that most directors came up as camera crew and don’t have enough appreciation for getting good audio

[u/TheRealAfinda → u/jrobpierce]

Such a shame. Good Audio sells the experience almost as much as a good picture.

[u/psyFungii → u/TheRealAfinda]

Civil War (2024) was such a ... different experience in the theatre to regular new releases because of the sound.

Story and visuals were ok/good, but the sound left me feeling "I was there" in a way I've not had often

[u/Nersius → u/juliangst]

Nolan isn't interested in sound at all.

Sorry, what I meant to say was N--- whshimtd-  --d tall.

[u/sik_dik]

That’s supposed to be almost 400 miles of film?

[u/Lentle26 → u/sik_dik]

Traditionally, movies are filmed on 35mm film where the film is pulled vertically so the width of the image is the width of the film. Vistavision was a 35mm film format that pulled the film horizontally instead so the width of the frame along the length of the film, giving you a larger image. Vistavision mostly died out as fine-grain film was introduced, and the larger frame size was unnecessary (and anamorphic lenses allowed for wider aspect ratios on traditional film formats).

70mm film is just like 35mm except bigger. 65 mm wide. IMAX takes this to the extreme by taking Vistavision's strategy on the larger 70mm film stock.

Let's assume this is 15-perf 70mm IMAX film, pulled horizontally, so it has a frame width of 70mm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_mm_film_(15-70).svg.svg) (though that is a coincidence since 70mm in the name refers to the film width, which is actually 65mm).

So with a movie run time of 172 minutes, 24 frames per second we can calculate film length as

seconds = 172 * 60 = 10320s

frames/s = 24

frame length = 70mm

10320 * 24 * 70mm = 17337.6 meters or 17.33 km or 10.75 miles.

Even if you're generous and adding some width between frames, we're so far off from 400 miles it has to be wrong.

[u/Own_Bee_4268 → u/Lentle26]

There are 41 70mm IMAX theaters so maybe it's the total? 

[u/Lentle26 → u/Own_Bee_4268]

Yeah, that's probably where the original 400 miles comes from. What we're seeing is just one copy of the film.

Or someone saw this article where Nolan said he shot 400 miles of film during production
https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/fantasy-movies/christopher-nolan-says-he-shot-almost-400-miles-of-film-for-the-odyssey-including-four-months-on-the-open-sea/
It'd be quite impressive to get it all right on the first go, and every frame made it into the final film.

[u/Mammoth_Yoghurt4241 → u/Lentle26]

On set for Oppenheimer they actually sometimes did rehearsals right before the take, because they only have about 60-90 seconds of film in the camera and they essentially had a pit crew come in to replace the film as fast as they could for every 1-3 takes. But there were definitely takes/camera angles we did that didn’t make the Final Cut. And each take I was thinking that if I sneezed, it would cost the production $10,000+ for another take. 😂 But it was really impressive to see.

*Two days on set as a BG Actor.

[u/SordidDreams → u/Lentle26]

It'd be quite impressive to get it all right on the first go, and every frame made it into the final film.

You'd need Werner Herzog for that, not Christopher Nolan.

[u/CommunicationFit5161 → u/Lentle26]

r/theydidthemath

[u/im_just_thinking → u/sik_dik]

And that's what every IMAX theater gets?

[u/Vesper_0481 → u/im_just_thinking]

True IMAX theaters.

Some market themselves as IMAX, but aren't really, around the world.

[u/Newone1255 → u/Vesper_0481]

There are only 41 of them in the world as well

[u/scottjeffreys → u/Newone1255]

And somehow my city of Grand Rapids has one of them.

[u/Small_Insect_8275 → u/Newone1255]

Well this has ruined my day, just checked the one I’m going to on Sunday and it appears to be a liemax

[u/Weekly_Artichoke_515]

Nice. Can’t wait to watch it cropped vertical, cut up into minute-long YouTube shorts with a very faint voiceover explaining what’s happening on the screen. 

[u/l_rufus_californicus → u/Weekly_Artichoke_515]

AI voiceover, at that.

[u/SpaceChatter]

What if you get a fingerprint on it?

[u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 → u/SpaceChatter]

You could draw a dick on it with a sharpie and not even notice it while watching

[u/Charon_the_Reflector → u/OtherwiseAlbatross14]

Tyler Durden did it

[u/jah_bro_ney → u/Charon_the_Reflector]

Tyler didn't draw dicks, he spliced frames of porn into the movie.

[u/Kiwi_Fried_Chicken → u/jah_bro_ney]

"OHHH"

[u/Axe-of-Kindness → u/Charon_the_Reflector]

/r/yourjokebutworse

[u/Dale_Carvello → u/OtherwiseAlbatross14]

No one knows they saw it, but they did.

[u/justjanne → u/[deleted]]

You can actually see it, and back in the day once a film was too dirty and old for a cinema to play it, it's get played by secondary, cheaper cinemas (nickel odeons), where you could see all the scratches, dirt, hairs, fingerprints, and sometimes the tape that glued the film back together.

[u/siggiarabi → u/SpaceChatter]

I'm guessing the particle rollers would take care of that

[u/anaccount50 → u/siggiarabi]

Yes and no. I've seen a handful of movies in 70mm IMAX, and it's pretty common that there's some amount of scratches, dust, hairs, etc that inevitably make it past the rollers and onto the screen. It tends to get worse the later you see it after the initial release (inherent downside of film, it gets worn and possibly damaged with each showing).

I'm sure there's even more that the rollers take care of, but you usually don't end up with a pristine image past maybe the first couple of shows of a print. Imperfections are part of the charm of film, but you have to go in to it expecting that vs the clean look of digital

[u/BananaMartini → u/SpaceChatter]

You’re not supposed to touch film with your fingertips. Projectionists should be washing their hands often and using alcohol pn them to dry up any oils. Film should be held by the fingertips at wither edge, or if you must touch the picture area you hold it between the sides of your fingers, so like your fingers are perpendicular to the film. But if you do get a fingerprint on it yeah, it’s probably not visible, and if you knew it was there you could lift it with acid free tape and/pr alcohol. That’s really more of a concern with archival prints though, making sure nothing gets trapped in the wind for long periods of storage. I don’t think they really care about these prints Theyre running because I doubt they intend to ever store them after a cinematic run. 

[u/cycopl → u/SpaceChatter]

A fingerprint on one frame would not be noticeable, bigger danger is when something gets caught on a roller and then scratches the entire film. (Was a projectionist for 5 years, never messed with imax though)

[u/Jackomat007]

Do cinemas really still work with Giant rolls of Film? I always thought they get like an email with the Film on it or something

[u/JoewithaJ → u/Jackomat007]

Only certain ones. Most have transitioned to fully digital.

[u/BananaMartini → u/Jackomat007]

It is extremely rare for cinemas these days to run actual film. It’s also extremely rare for movies to even be released on film. For movies like The Odyssey it’s purely a niche format screening market thing. Unless the cinema says they are running it on 70MM or 70MM IMAX, which theres only a handful pf cinemas that are even capable of that, it was filmed in that format but is being projected to you digitally. 

[u/xtphty → u/BananaMartini]

Honesty having watched all Nolan 70mm releases and some on digital IMAX as well, even as an enthusiast there are things I appreciate about these theaters far more than the novelties of film vs digital. They just seem to have a higher overall standard of quality in almost everything - the projection, screen size, contrast, sound, even darkness, atmosphere and their limited seating and arrangements.

I don't know if its just IMAX strictly controlling these factors as the 70mm releases are rare and expensive, or the few remaining theaters acknowledging the target enthusiast audience. But across the 5 different 70mm theaters I have been to, not one has had a significant drop in quality for me.

In comparison, I have been to so many regular "IMAX" theaters where likely more than one of those factors are just way below standard. One particular example I always remember is Interstellar, which I have watched in two separate 70mm theaters, and 1 digital IMAX. And the thing I remember most vividly about the digital screening was how on every dark scene I could see a blue glow from the IMAX sign at the entrance, and this movie had a lot of dark scenes lol.

While there are definitely details of analog film I recall from these movies, by far my most overwhelming association with 70mm is just of that proper theatrical experience that is quite rare to find consistently in digital theaters.

[u/Original-Body-5794 → u/xtphty]

It might just be that if you're going through the effort and cost of setting up this very specialized equipment to screen the movie in 70MM it won't kill you to spend up a bit more to make the rest of the experience overall better. It is marketted as a more premium experience after all, meanwhile more common cinemas are just going to cut costs.

[u/BumbleFrump_ → u/Jackomat007]

I was a manager at a 16 screen Regal Cinemas for a few years and oversaw everything to do with our projectors and movie showtimes. Our theatres never touched film, everything came through either completely digitally over this projector management software called Screenwriter, or for more niche movies, they would come on hard drives sent from the studios. We would upload the hard drives to a huge storage system and then transfer digitally to the projectors which needed to show the movie.

As far as I know film these days is pretty much only used for these types of IMAX 70mm screenings. Regular movie theatres are going to be exclusively digital these days.

[u/Das_Ponyman → u/BumbleFrump_]

If I may ask, when around was this? I was also in charge of the projector systems at Regal Cinemas (during the transition between film and digital) and we never got legit emails/downloads of films. We only ever got it in a few formats

1) Multiple film reels/cans that you would have to splice together to put on one big platter (like you see in OP's video, but much much smaller since not IMAX. This is Star Trek, as an example)

2) A large hard drive that came in a padded case, that made me think I was handling nuclear codes

3) USB drives that were 100% only ever used for trailers.

In all cases, you had to mail back after the filming was finished. Very very rarely, they would forget about them (I think I took home like 50 of them when I finally quit).

[u/Newone1255 → u/Jackomat007]

There are only 41 true IMAX theaters in the world. Unless you’ve seen a movie in one of those you haven’t seen real IMAX

[u/JaySayMayday → u/Newone1255]

If you're talking about 70mm there's less than that. But there's multiple imax formats, I prefer DL2 over 70mm

[u/rmccue → u/JaySayMayday]

There were, but some cinemas have recommissioned their 70mm projectors specifically for The Odyssey.

[u/WiseEyedea → u/Jackomat007]

I used to be a full time projectionist. Working 5 days a week hauling those heavy ass canisters of film up the stairs. When the theatre decided to upgrade to digital my hours got cut to just 3 hours a week making a playlist.

[u/CosmicChar1ey]

It’s crazy to me that all this money and effort is to make this ultra high-quality product and in the end, it will be mostly viewed on streaming services with compression and shitty video quality

[u/mrkangtastic → u/CosmicChar1ey]

There are still a ton of benefits to shooting film even if the delivery medium is digital in the end. The film look can be somewhat replicated shooting digital, but it's never quite the same.

Subtractive color, grain, dye layers, halation, aberration, focus due to dye layers, how it handles highlights and shadows, how it handles over and under exposure on an organic chemical medium just give a different look than digital even if you can get close by using software like Davinci Resolve or shoot on digital cinema cameras that have a more filmic rendering like the Alexa.

And even though the streaming services are compressed af, the "look" gets baked in enough that it makes a meaningful difference even at lower bitrates/depths.

[u/dream-of-earthshine → u/mrkangtastic]

I fully agree that film and digital don't give the exact same look, but I don't think 'benefit' is the right word. Film stock captures how film stock captures. That's not inherently better or worse.

I think in most situations where someone is shooting on film like this, just shoot on an Alexa265, don't limit yourself to the 3 minute maximum rolling time, don't have the same issues with noise as the full 70mm IMAX. It will result in a better film overall even if the visuals have a different feel and quality.

(I am never going to be in the situation where I can make this kind of choice, fanciest cameras I've used are broadcast quality)

[u/mrkangtastic → u/dream-of-earthshine]

I meant that there are benefits to shooting film, not that shooting film as a whole is inherently superior to or better than digital. But there is a look to it that can't quite be replicated on digital.

That said, I do agree with your comment as a whole. Look no further than Sir Roger Deakins work (Sicario is a great example) to see how artfully a digital sensor can be utilized.

A minor counterpoint might be that even if the "film look" is rooted in some intangible feeling of nostalgia, I still think its a rather valid thing to chase. The fact that it's still something that is sought after even in how colorists grade digital footage, kind of says it all in my opinion. Heck, 24p and 180º shutter angle is a relic of the early days of Hollywood yet it still endures and is subconsciously associated in our minds as the "movie" look. If that, then why not the "film look" as well?

I'm not actually all that dogmatic about it when it comes to film vs digital, and I know I'm opening a can of worms with this debate. Interesting discussion none the less.

[u/xxDankerstein → u/CosmicChar1ey]

It leaves the door open for higher quality in the future. Right now, the film resolution on 70mm is about 3x what we can get on digital. When digital technology improves, we'll have room to create higher res digital copies. It probably won't be noticeable to the average person, but the master quality is very important when it comes to copying, remastering, etc.

[u/BumWink → u/xxDankerstein]

I think higher resolution also becomes less significant with aggressive film grain.

[u/gummby8]

One of the most fun jobs I ever had was an AMC Projector Tech.

No one gave two shits what I did so long as those projectors started on time.

Lots of little tips and tricks and teardown technical details to learn. I felt like a magician when I hit that start button and the movie appeared on the big screen.

Too bad the pay and management were shit.

[u/GradeApprehensive516 → u/gummby8]

I still think the coolest thing I ever saw while working in a theatre was one of the Harry Potter opening nights. All 17 screens sold out, only five copies of film. Each copy had a shit ton of blanks in front and trees set up running from projector to projector four times over. Fun times, the magic has definitely left the movie business.

[u/Peac0ck69]

The problem for me is that they diluted the IMAX brand. They had an “IMAX” screen put in a Cineworld my city years ago, but it wasn’t true IMAX or even close to it.

To the point that now that Vue has taken over the cinema, it’s the same projector and speaker system but they don’t even call it IMAX they call it EPIC.

If anybody went to the “IMAX”screen they’d be disappointed. But there’s nowhere to watch the proper IMAX outside of London really in the UK.

[u/remissile → u/Peac0ck69]

Totally true. In France we haves tens of "IMAX" screens, but only one which has a film projector. And it's at the other side of the country (in my POV).

[u/HungryLikeDaW0lf]

Scientists are currently working on ways to make IMAX projectors 3x louder and 7x more complicated to setup. What a time to be alive.

[u/Nahteh]

More guerilla marketing.

[u/RipTheEcto]

all that just to make me nauseous

[u/fiesew]

Still movies on films like it was invented yesterday and nothing else has been invented ever since other than bigger machines to run them.

Imagine this for some many industries and products.

[u/bsnimunf → u/fiesew]

Surely digital films have been invented since? 

[u/jasenzero1 → u/bsnimunf]

They have been invented, but don't call me Shirley.

[u/Worried-Penalty8744 → u/fiesew]

Power generation is just finding more and more complicated ways of boiling water to spin a turbine

[u/Exact-Ad-4132 → u/Worried-Penalty8744]

Solar cells are different.

[u/Wirezat → u/Exact-Ad-4132]

Yeah until you go really big and solar plants are mirrors focusing on a boiling tank again (although they boil salt tbf

[u/wonkey_monkey → u/Wirezat]

(although they boil salt tbf

They melt the salt for as a form of temporary heat storage.

Guess what they do with the heat from the salt when they actually want electricity...

[u/Pressure_Chief → u/Worried-Penalty8744]

Fission to boil water is still the wildest thing to me. Split an atom, and our best next step with that energy is to make water warm? So counterintuitive.

[u/lordofthehomeless → u/Pressure_Chief]

Problem is we don't want energy in just any form. So getting heat energy to a usable energy form is most efficiently done with turning water to steam to move a turbine. Now if you could find a better way to turn heat directly into electricity with no more loss it would redefine the energy market.

[u/uranium-_-235 → u/Pressure_Chief]

It's just one the most efficient ways to turn thermal energy into electrical energy and pretty simple as well

[u/OperativePiGuy → u/Pressure_Chief]

There's a few modern technologies that make me feel that way. Like apparently Chemotherapy is essentially just poisoning yourself in the hopes the cancer dies before you do. At least that's the general gist I seem to get whenever it's explained to me. You'd think we'd have something more sophisticated by now, but I'm just a dumb nobody so maybe my thinking in general is wrong lol

[u/SamiraSimp → u/OperativePiGuy]

you're pretty much on the money, chemotherapy is "just" poisoning yourself. the more sophisticated method is more targeted poison.

you are trying to kill something that literally has your DNA and is made from your cells, while not killing your actual body. it's not an easy problem to solve, despite countless doctors dedicating their lives to it.

[u/Exact-Ad-4132 → u/Pressure_Chief]

They have radioisotope fuel cells. I think it works by basically being the radioactive equivalent of a solar panel sealed in a box next to some radioactive material

[u/Templar113113 → u/fiesew]

It's nearly all digital nowadays, this is rare.

[u/gideon513 → u/fiesew]

Massive oversimplification and also just plain incorrect

[u/jib661 → u/fiesew]

35mm film, the film standard for over 100 years, has a higher "resolution" than 4k. It depends on a lot of factors, this is a whole massive conversation with lots of nuance, but the general truth is that the 100-year-old technology still has higher "resolution" than the modern digital standard.

70mm, what this video is showing, is orders of magnitude larger than 35mm (not just 2x better as the number suggests). So yeah, shining a light through celluloid still, fortunately, has a place in the world.

[u/GordonNewtron]

Nolan's erection takes up a lot of space.

[u/CHERNO-B1LL]

"What do you mean you spilled your milkshake on it!!"

[u/schizopotato]

Is that seriously almost 400 miles of film?

[u/Lentle26 → u/schizopotato]

No, it's not

see: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1uy6fvi/comment/oxwzp2u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/gr8scottaz → u/schizopotato]

It's about 10 miles - but 41 theaters showing it in 70mm makes it about 400 miles of film across the 41 theaters.

[u/DatasGadgets]

That sound of the projector and film is pure joy to my ears

[u/Rex_Mundi → u/DatasGadgets]

That is called the Geneva Drive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_drive

[u/orcusgrasshopperfog]

Yeah no thanks. Is it just me or is Matt Damon look like he's just phoning it in for this role in the trailers?

[u/Alexandhisgoose]

This really doesn't seem worth it.

[u/Tight-Pay5032]

shouldn't a room like this need to be dust free?

carpet is not a good choice?

[u/Notelu → u/Tight-Pay5032]

IIRC part of it is that the film moves so fast that a lot of the dust just gets flung off. Almost everything else is caught by the rollers, and if it does stay on the film it'll be small and only on screen for 1/24th of a second.

[u/MHWGamer → u/Notelu]

also the dust=imperfections is part of why we still use film for Imax. For whatever weird reason imperfections, noise, etc. make a movie more realistic and trick our brains to believe it. Extremely clean movies just look weird. Maybe that changes as we are the last "we know what a VHS is" generation and in 30 years nobody cares but rn, anything to clean or even just bad artificial noise makes us unbelieve the movie

[u/ThatFlamingo942 → u/Tight-Pay5032]

I'm genuinely curious bc I don't know. What is the difference? It seems like carpet might trap more dust whereas with hardflooring, the dust would be able to dance around.

[u/kermstar → u/ThatFlamingo942]

But its much easier to remove

[u/Unhappy-Hamster-1183 → u/Tight-Pay5032]

Specialized carpet helps trapping dust so that it doesn’t move around.

Thats the only valid thing i could imagine.

[u/orange_sox]

Be Kind Rewind!

[u/Odd-Top1916]

so sick of hearing about Odyssey on every single subreddit. Its all secret paid advertisement isnt? ;)

[u/Athlete_Cautious → u/Odd-Top1916]

"please get hyped for our shit"

[u/PeteDub]

The price of memory and storage is so high they went back to old school film 🤣

[u/veskishosa]

It's crazyy how big the machine is

[u/hellp-desk-trainee-]

This just seems excessive

[u/itsomeoneperson]

yet still has the black levels of a bad LCD

[u/The96kHz]

This is why I'm not inviting Christopher Nolan to my birthday party.

[u/_toenail]

Always wondered what the tensile strength of film like this is?

 I'm assuming pretty damn tough to go through a projector like that, but I'd aways be worried about damaging it if I worked there!

[u/ecrane2018 → u/_toenail]

The 70mm imax near me constantly has issues. A bunch of Oppenheimer screenings got canceled because of a damaged film had to be repaired

[u/halolordkiller3]

Surprised no gloves

[u/Tostonn]

I just know the guy setting this all up is underpaid

[u/JustCallMeYogurt]

crazy impressive setup.

[u/dogsdub]

The movie is a fucking 3 hour imax ad

[u/angry_wombat]

now if they could just make a good movie

[u/9009RPM]

I'm trying to get tickets to the AMC Lincoln Center for this. Will be first time experiencing IMAX 70mm

[u/BigGreenBillyGoat]

Be kind, rewind.

[u/MrWeirdoFace]

I'll be honest. I grew up with an actual proper imax film screen nearby (Six Flags) as a child in the late 80s/early 90s where at the time they showed documentaries (Speed), and sometimes 3D movies (The Last Buffalo, Niagara). It was mind blowing as a kid, and the screen was enormous (64.5 feet by 88.25 feet says the internet. Sounds about right). Supposedly it was the largest in the world.

That said, the Imax theater's at regular movie theaters (Regal, Marcus) don't really feel much different than the normal showings. And regular "normal" movie presentations are already so good, I usually go for that. The last couple times when I ended up in the Imax (one earlier this year, one last year) it didn't really change my theater-going experience. Now I do understand that yes, films shot with an Imax camera can have a particular look with a certain depth of field and super fine detail potentially, but I just don't really notice or care when watching a movie. Good lighting, sound design, and of course storytelling, are really the only things I notice that really affect my experience. For what it's worth I was a film student and worked as a sound designer, so I do care, but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze unless you have access to something extremely unique like the theater I mentioned.

[u/ibanezerscrooge]

Thinking about how awesome being a film operator must be getting to watch all those cool movies for free...

*hears how loud the sound of IMAX projector running*

well that sucks.

[u/Next-Excitement1398]

Can’t wait to watch it on my phone

[u/New_Sympathy5234]

Interesting that it's real film and it's still in a reel. I thought it would be one big video file. Distribution must be insane

[u/LazaroFilm]

I used to work in a 65/70mm lab. Those rolls are no joke. It’s crazy how heavy they are. We would break them down to a bunch of smaller rolls for maintenance. After a certain number of screenings the rolls came back to the lab and would get cleaned up and visually inspected for damaged frames. If a frame was too damaged they usually just cut it off and no one would be the wiser.

[u/drdildamesh]

Why does the film have to go all over the place like a roller coaster tycoon experiment?

[u/GoodGuyScott]

I still find it crazy that they still use film at the movie theatres instead if digital projection or just a big ass tv

[u/devil_n_i]

Be kind rewind

[u/Gizmoduck99]

Jesus Christ this is annoying and nauseating. The workers are either massive film machine buffs that LOVE it or they absolutely hate their job and wish they were dead.

[u/panbuk1]

All of that to watch nolan slop. What a waste.