Ok, so for those who aren’t aware there appears to be a debate brewing regarding IMAX movies playing on screens less than 10 stories tall.
A few days ago an actor by the name of Aziz Anzari posted a blog after he went and saw the new Star Trek movie at an IMAX theater in Burbank. It seems to have been one of those retrofitted screens at a normal theater. (An AMC apparently.) He was highly upset because he felt the advertising of an “IMAX” showing on a screen only slightly larger than normal was deceptive.
Personally, I went and saw Spider-Man 3 at my local theater back in 2007 on one of those retrofitted IMAX screens purely as an experiment. I was aware at the time that the IMAX label was purely a resolution characteristic and had nothing to do with the screen size, but I must confess I was disappointed. (Not enough to blog about it though.) On a normal sized screen I really couldn’t tell the difference. The normal showings of a new copy of a movie in 35mm or otherwise are damn near perfect to my eyes. (Though I’m a philistine when it comes to screen resolution, so take that for FWIW.)
So the points for discussion…
Are these “IMAX” screenings in retrofitted theaters a scam as Mr. Anzari asserts? Is there even any difference when comparing them to standard screen sizes?
(An aside: I went and saw the new Star Trek, (great movie BTW), on Monday and opted for the standard screen. I could see the pores in the actors skin when ever they were in close up. How much more resolution could “IMAX” possibly achieve?)
They are putting larger screens in standard theaters. The new AMC Mainstreet 6 in Kansas City claims to have screens four times as large as the industry standard for the number of seats. Coupled with 4K digital projection, I thought an IMAX film couldn’t have been any better. And I’m a very critical viewer and was in the front row.
A true IMAX presentation requires, at the least, a screen as wide as the auditorium as long, or ideally, as high as the auditorium is long. The IMAX screen at Chicago’s Navy Pier is the latter. The screen is monstrous, as is the sound system. But the auditoriums at the Mainstreet 6 have a new 11 channel sound system (including speakers in the ceiling) and bass shakers in each seat.
It’s like the old Criterion LaserDiscs and eventually DVDs. At one time, they were clearly superior to studio product, and it was worth the extra money to get their release. But the quality of studio releases rose so high that there is no reason to purchase the Criterion release.
Now the Mainstreet 6 is just down the street from AMC’s headquarters and is supposed to be their “flagship” theater. But it indicates the standard they are aiming for in their new theaters.
Now if they can only do something about that 24 fps crap.
So am I to understand that a true IMAX presentation is impossible in a standard theater? In my local cinema in St. Petersburg, FL all the screens are noticeably wider than they are high. In the IMAX auditorium, (from what I remember of it), the screen just had a few feet extended from the top and bottom. It has stadium seating as well so the ceiling in the back of the theater was much higher than the screen.
It’s a single level theater as well so I can’t see them increasing the height without remodeling the entire building.
(And I wasn’t joking when I said I’m a philistine in these matters, so please use small words and short, declarative sentences. )
Pretty much. The IMAX format is the same aspect ratio as old Hollywood movies and non-HD TV - 1:33 to 1. Most modern movies are at least 1:66 to 1 so most movie screens are far wider.
That is definitely not a proper IMAX screen. In the Navy Pier theater, the top of the screen is still far above the seats in the back row.
I’m not surprised that the theater chain is trying to shoehorn IMAX theaters into auditoriums that are far too small, but I am disappointed that IMAX is allowing them to do so.
Well, maybe the ceiling wasn’t “way above” the screen. To be more precise I’d say the back row was still about eye level with the top. Still apparently not a true IMAX screen as you have look down to see the center.
Money makes the world go 'round.
My local theater is a 20 screen Muvico. I don’t know if that’s one of the “biggies” but it’s apparently a fairly successful chain. There’s another one over in Tampa.
The projectors IMAX has designed for converted multiplex auditoriums, including the MPX film projector and the new digital system, have a 1.9 ratio, as do the screens in the converted theaters. Most of those theaters only show wide-screen Hollywood films anyway, but if they showed a classic 1.33 IMAX film, the top and bottom of the frame would be cut off, sort of like reverse letterboxing.
The chains didn’t persuade IMAX to do it, it’s IMAX Corporation’s idea and business plan. IMAX has entered into joint ventures with AMC, Regal, and a few other chains whereby it basically gives the theaters the hardware for nothing, and makes its money back by splitting the box office.
Inexplicably (IMHO), IMAX has been granted a patent on the process of making the screen in an existing theater a little larger, moving it toward the back wall of the theater, and increasing the resolution of the projection system, which pretty much describes the conversion of a 35mm theater to IMAX digital. They’re still not the giant, 60x80-foot screens of classic IMAX theaters.
This articlediscusses some of the issues involved in Imax’s marketing of its new digital system. I have it on good authority that that site will soon have a map showing all the different types of IMAX theaters. Until then, there’s this list of theaters (a “D” in the Format colum means it’s a new digital theater) and this anti-fan site: www.liemax.com.
The Muvico Baywalk 20 is a former 35mm screen that was converted to Imax’s MPX film projector before the digital system was available. So although the screen is smaller, the image is better than digital, because it’s 70mm film.
Oh, and Muvico recently had to sell four of its theaters to pay off overdue debt. It may be doing better now, but it was in serious trouble for a while. They only have ten theaters now. Not a big chain.
Well, as far as I am concerned, increased resolution has little to do with the “IMAX experience”. The point is the larger screen. If the screen isn’t significantly larger, what’s the point?
Of course, I’m also one of those who thinks HD is completely pointless at normal view distances. (though, with LCD, you have to use proper upscaling ala my computer, not most TVs.)
I don’t see how people can claim this. Hell, pick any HD football game and just look at the crowd’s detail when it pans across them and flip it back to a non-HD channel. If you can’t tell a difference, you need an eye exam.
As for the fake IMAX experience, it’s sad really that IMAX is whoring out their name to an obviously inferior product. I suspect this is going to be some very bad PR for them. “IMAX” used to stand for the highest quality motion picture experience available. Now it stands for a $5 lie.
One way they could offer a superior motion picture experience on a less-than-IMAX-sized screen would be to incorporate a higher frame rate, like Douglas Trumbull’s ShowScan system.
Funny you should say that. As a former theatrical makeup geek, I was incomprehensibly excited by the makeup in Star Trek on IMAX (the “real” one, at Navy Pier). 6 stories of screen, and the *prosthetics *had pores! And they had the glow of capillaries just under the “skin” with translucent effects! OMG! Of course, it might have been just as visible on the standard screen, but I was quite impressed with how it looked on IMAX.
What’s the real IMAX screen size? And for reference, what do typical theaters have? A new imax theater opened near me… the screen was bigger than the standard screen but not monstrous, so I’m wondering if I’m getting the half ass version. The place was built new as Imax and not retrofitted.
Their sound system was obnoxiously loud though - I felt like I should’ve brought earplugs with me to avoid risking damage to my hearing.
Las Vegas no longer has a real giant-screen IMAX. The three new theaters that have opened in the last few months at Station Aliante, Red Rock, and Henderson are all digital. The older one at the Palms is an SR (film) projector with a screen about the same size as the other three, but the seats are closer to the screen and the projector is film. So, IMHO, it’s a little better.
Unfortunately, Luxor, which had the biggest IMAX screen in town, 70x78 feet, closed it last year.
See the map herefor full details on all IMAX theaters in US and Canada. With a few exceptions, the blue and green buttons are giant screens, and yellow and red are not.
I agree completely. Digital projectors are capable of higher frame rates, and even of changing frame rates within a film. Of course, this requires that the material be captured at the higher frame rate to begin with. Unfortunately, that’s not happening now, but it might at sometime in the future, when more origination is digital. It would be a major improvement in motion picture image quality.
Whatever the technical definitions used by IMAX, the bottom line is that the public perception is that an IMAX theater is one of those five-stories-i’m-going-to-fall-into-it thingies, and it would be an unwise business strategy to try to sell smaller screens as IMAX as people are going to feel ripped off. I think it is great that they are getting into the slightly bigger with better quality theater business, but I think they are strongly devaluing their brand by confusing this with the traditional IMAX that the public knows. If I was looking for the true IMAX theater I now feel the need to do further research to see if I would be getting what I really wanted, and that is one step closer to not bothering to go at all.
Ebert was pushing some high frame-rate film system as an alternative to digital, but it seemed that he was really unclear on the concept. 72 fps will look great, but it’s 3 times as many heavy cans of film to transport, 3 times as many reels to assemble, etc. But digitally, 3 times as much data to move is an “eh, whatever” problem.
I have no idea why so many cinematographers are married to the idea of 24 fps being the “film look”. ShowScan looks like film - it just looks like really great film.
I have seen 60fps Showscan. It’s 3d without glasses. Counting sand grains on the beach is no problem.
But the projector went thru a metric buttload of film in just 30 minutes. Print coasts would have been very prohibitive.
Now if they can do that with digital…
He was an advocate of MaxiVision48 and he completely understood that higher frame rate meant more film, but not nearly as much as you assert:
This is from Wiki; unfortunately, MaxiVision went bust so all the technical specs that used to be on their site are now gone, but I remember this from when he first wrote up on the system in the late 90s.
My mistake. I thought it was 72. It was probably because I had 72 stuck in my head from reading this article about ShowScan. Trumbull tested various frame rates and found that the effect maxed out at 72, but went with 60 for compatibility with 60 Hz electricity and 60 fields per second TV.
I’ll jump in on this one since I know a thing or two about IMAX; but please do me a favor and don’t challenge my credentials on that.
The real issue here is not whether or not IMAX should have created a digital system, or the preceding MPX system which was specifically designed to go into retrofitted 35mm theaters (and therefore is not on a standard 60’x80’ screen or in the IMAX aspect ratio). The real issue is whether or not IMAX should have put a new name on these systems so that the public could be properly informed of exactly what they were getting. By all accounts, Regal and AMC were themselves pushing the idea of simply calling it IMAX Digital; and had IMAX agreed to that, I doubt that this entire controversy would ever have happened. But, for reasons I will not speculate on, IMAX decided not to explain to their audience that some IMAX theaters would now be providing a different experience than others. IMAX’s position, in fact, is that these theaters are not providing a different experience, precisely because “The IMAX Experience” is about much more than simple screen size. But if this blog war has accomplished anything, it seems to have proven that (for the large majority of cinema audiences anyway) IMAX means big.
Why would they think that? Because that’s exactly what IMAX has spent the last 40 years asking them to believe. As anyone who saw Star Trek in IMAX can plainly see for themselves, the IMAX Branding Trailer still ends with the tag-line, “IMAX - Think Big.” For that matter, the international convention for IMAX movies (which is associated with, but definitely not owned or operated by IMAX) is called the Giant Screen Cinema Association. Visit the website of the Large Format Examier at LFExaminer.com and you can still find an article detailing how the GSCA reacted to IMAX’s CEO’s announcement last year that IMAX didn’t mean “Giant Screen.”
So the real question is simple - why didn’t IMAX simply brand these new systems with another name? After all, they don’t call dome screen theaters IMAX, they call them “Omnimax” (old name) or “IMAX Dome” (new name), so the precedent has long since been set. Lots of people in the industry have a very definite opinion on the answer to that question.
I also have some credentials on IMAX and regular theatre presentation.
I agree that they should brand it differently. Charging me a premium price on a NON-IMAX screen is a rip off. I saw Trek at the AMC Empire 25 in NYC. They now call their number 1 house an IMAX theatre. If it’s just a new digital projector and a loud sound system, it’s not IMAX.
Of course to me if it isn’t filmed in IMAX, it’s not IMAX.
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