TITANIC IN 3D AND IMAX

[g***@hotmail.com]

Last night I saw TITANIC in 3D and on the world's largest Imax screen. The 3D effect was mostly amazing considering that it was originally filmed in super 35. and in 2D. The digital people ,moving around the ship as soon as it set sail looked even worse blown up to the massive Imax screen than when I saw the film in 70mm on its original release. For me that was not the only disappointment in what is still aa amazing ,if mostly fictional,TITANIC story.

Was it just me or do other people feel that seeing TITANIC blown up to fill almost all of the Imax screen looked only so so.The clarity was missing in Imax compared with the 70mm blow up. I have never been a fan of digital cinema and seeing Titanic in digital just confirms my long held views.I realise that digital is now basically the only way to see film in a cinema and that is the reason that I rarely go to the cinema any more.

[Scott Dorsey]

Last night I saw TITANIC in 3D and on the world's largest Imax screen. T=
he 3D effect was mostly amazing considering that it was originally film=
ed in super 35. and in 2D. The digital people ,moving around the ship as s=
oon as it set sail looked even worse blown up to the massive Imax screen t=
han when I saw the film in 70mm on its original release. For me that was =
not the only disappointment in what is still aa amazing ,if mostly fiction=
al,TITANIC story.

Well, the thing is that the film isn't really composed for a huge screen.
It's not even really composed all that much for a multiplex screen.. there
are a lot of sequences that clearly seem more to be composed for television
than for a big screen.

Was it just me or do other people feel that seeing TITANIC blown up to fi=
ll almost all of the Imax screen looked only so so.The clarity was miss=
ing in Imax compared with the 70mm blow up. I have never been a fan of dig=
ital cinema and seeing Titanic in digital just confirms my long held view=
s.I realise that digital is now basically the only way to see film in a=
cinema and that is the reason that I rarely go to the cinema any more.

I have never seen a 70mm blowup of it, but 70mm blowups of 35mm films don't
look any better than the original, just brighter.

If you want a film about the Titanic that looks good on a big screen and has
a lot less whining, watch A Night to Remember.
--scott

[spacecadet]

Post by Scott Dorsey
If you want a film about the Titanic that looks good on a big screen and has
a lot less whining, watch A Night to Remember.
--scott

....currently on re-release in London. In 35mm.

[spacecadet]

Post by spacecadet

Post by Scott Dorsey
If you want a film about the Titanic that looks good on a big screen and has
a lot less whining, watch A Night to Remember.
--scott

....currently on re-release in London. In 35mm.

False alarm. Digital apparfently. Too bad.

[Mutley]

Post by spacecadet

Post by Scott Dorsey
If you want a film about the Titanic that looks good on a big screen and has
a lot less whining, watch A Night to Remember.
--scott

....currently on re-release in London. In 35mm.

And on Blu-ray..

[g***@gmail.com]

Post by Scott Dorsey
Well, the thing is that the film isn't really composed for a huge screen.
It's not even really composed all that much for a multiplex screen.. there
are a lot of sequences that clearly seem more to be composed for television
than for a big screen.

Does anyone remember the contraversial essay Cameron wrote titled "The Letterbox Heresies" around the time Titanic came out on video? He expressed what I can only call a great ambivalence to aspect ratios, and I seem to recall that he, having shot in Super 35, made a point of extracting different shapes for 1.33 TV and Letterboxed video.

So, the not-very-wide Imax adaptation would have had more picture on top and bottom than the widescreen version generally, but I got the feeling that he extracted whatever the hell he wanted from shot to shot. I'm not saying it looked any better, and I'm sure you're right about it not blowing up very well to Imax. I recall Disney going back and spending more money to add background and small character detail that wasn't originally drawn for Beauty and the Beast in Imax, Idunno if Par/Fox spent for any extra detail beyond the 3D conversion Apparently not.

I wonder how Cameron would feel about AR now in the digital age. I would guess he is now shooting in 16x9 or whatever the native AR is for digital, and again extracting whatever he wants from shot to shot. And given how few theatres have screens wider than 1.85 anymore, with top masking making 2.2-2.40 movies look letterboxed, it pretty much feels like a big TV wherever you go.

[r***@nowreviewing.com]

“Titanic in 3D” is an audience participation movie, in the tradition of “Gone with the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “The Ten Commandments,” “The Sound of Music,” “Star Wars,” John Waters’ “Hairspray” and “Mamma Mia.” At first, the audience I saw “T3D” with was polite, but by the time Gloria Stewart utters the line “Wasn’t I a dish?” the restraints were lifted. All the laughs came on cue, but now hipsters were adding some camp flair to the lines, and in no time we’re all openly hissing at Billy Zane and David Warner, and when a voice shouted out “Law suits!” as the victims start slipping and falling into immobile objects that kill them or when one of the female victims is struggling to maintain a grip on the rails and someone hollered out “Hold on, bitch!” the audience erupted. When movies move into the domain of audience ownership, our “love” as well as “contempt” bred by familiarity transport us into a union of festiveness. When “Titanic” was first released, first-timers probably didn’t leave the theatre too lightheaded; after years of TV exposure numbing the tragedy and now enjoying the 3D update on the big screen without interruption, we the repeaters exit the theatre giddy. An unimaginable turn considering that the real story remains the greatest caveat about the ship of mankind trying to fool Mother Nature.

As for the newly added effects in “T3D,” all of us know that a movie not originally designed for 3D isn’t going to be 3D, and despite fourteen months of intense labor to try to bring an updated technology to a 15 year old movie, the “resurrection” is neither a full success nor a failure. Though the biggest disappointment comes in the inability to enhance the splitting of the ship — the only reason I really wanted to sit through the movie again — I’ll say that what is a very pleasant surprise is Cameron’s dimensional concentration of the principals; there’s something very satisfying in seeing Leo and Kate and Bates up front and filled out, and the sets — among them the first class cabin (and that mirror) for Kate, and the sprawling public deck — have decent, almost impressive depth. What you get for your money is 2½D.

[g***@hotmail.com]

What do you mean when you state that GONE WITRH THE WIND ; THE TEN COMMANDMENTS etc were audience participation movies? I am dumbfounded as to why you consider them to be such a thing. I never felt that I was involved as an audience member when I saw 10 COMMANDMENTS on the large 70mm screen.Even when I saw GWTW on a giant curved cinerama screen,I did not feel "involved". You don't need a large screen in order to become involved in a movie. If the movie is great even a TV size screen will involve me.A few days ago I saw The King of Devil's Island on my tv.and was more involved in this masterpiece than Titanic in Imax and 3D ever was for me.The Devil's Island story was more real than Cameron's ficticious TITANIC saga.The losss of life on the Titanic was small compaired with the two other liners that were sunk during the second world war with a loss of many thousands more lives than were ever lost on the Titanic. The only thing that Cameron's Titanic and De Mille's 10 Commandments had in common was that they were both spectacular but corny works of fiction.

[ralph]

Can’t speak to your own audience experiences, but when I viewed the above listed movies at revivals or special showings, viewers responded to them openly, reciting the famous lines, singing the songs, and with “Hairspray,” not only did we sing along, some danced in the aisles to “The Madison,” “Let’s Twist Again” and “Pony Time.” A few couples even tried to slow dance to Pitney’s “Town Without Pity” until the audience’s mock of the lyrics got too convulsive. That was the best time I ever had with an audience participation movie. And with foofs at home watching the Blu-ray “Ten Commandments,” the whole thing becomes (though it always was) colossal high camp. Adorned in blindingly shiny bling, Brynner, Baxter, Hardwicke, Price and Robinson mouth progressively more ludicrous dialogue while strutting through the gaudy children’s Bible-study sets in equally ludicrous Fredericks on the Nile costumes. The only way to respond is to give them all the razzing they so richly, even lovingly deserve.

[g***@hotmail.com]

I agree -A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is a masterpiece and looks as great on bluray as when I saw it back in 1958.

[g***@hotmail.com]

I have just been informed that TITANIC was not digital at Sydney's IMAX but on actual 70mm Imax film. It still looked dismal. It was in digital at Sydney's other mini (fake) Imax cinema on their small screen.

[Martin 'Martinland' Schemitsch]

And a good day to you, Sir!

Post by g***@hotmail.com
I realise that digital is now basically the only way to see film in
a cinema and that is the reason that I rarely go to the cinema any
more.

I have to admit I only long for any upcoming screenings at the film museum
in Vienna (I drive all the way up from lower Austria), since there are
classic films being shown on film. I only make it there twice a year on
average though.

Sometimes we pay a visit to a real 70mm Imax theater (the last one in all
of Austria), that's fun too.

The first digital projection I was satisfied with (Tron Legacy and
Prometheus, the only modern-day digital 3-D variants I have seen, just
weren't my cup of tea as is this whole regurgitated 3-D hype - no I am not
that old) came as a surprise when I saw Allen's To Romy With Love:

It was being projected brightly (!) on a nice, slightly curved, large
screen (of course they had to do away with the nice curtain they had there
to accomodate the silver screen for 3-D - the last curtain I will ever
have seen in a movie theater, because the aforementioned film museum
features the "invisible" cinema, a philosopy which means it's totally
covered in black velvet, no lights or mobile devices allowed, just the
audience and the screen but, alas, no curtain) and I couldn't see any
pixels and, most importantly and luckily, the movie still had been
originated on film and it showed.

Nonetheless: For the most part I project at home (which is equivalent to
what I would get at any other HDTV-, er, I mean D-Cinema) and that's it. I
suspect that I won't be going much to the movies any more. ;-/

Let's watch Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and get sentimental... :)

ML