Do we have to see it in IMAX?

Hey everyone! This is my weekly newsletter dedicated to film. I will look to provide updates on upcoming releases and trailers, with a short article on a piece of film history and a highlighted movie.

This Weekend’s Releases

Anticipated films that are releasing this weekend. Click the poster to view the trailer.

May December (Limited)

Padme Amidala plays a movie star who studies a family that made headlines 20 years earlier when they were married despite a 23 year age gap. The film has been hailed by critics and described as uncomfortable and thought provoking. Go see it in select theatres this weekend or on Netflix on Dec 1st if that’s what you’re into (or if you are into Julianne Moore).

Thanksgiving

In 2007 director Eli Roth created a fake trailer for a Thanksgiving themed killer movie to be sandwiched between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse double feature. Horror fans refused to let go of the concept and 16 years later the full slasher film has arrived.

Trailer Watch

Rebel Moon

Zack Snyder is back with a Netflix movie that appears to be a combination of every possible fantasy and sci fi movie ever made. I can guess that some will love it and some will hate it as seems to be the case with Zack’s movies (“Martha!!” still haunts me)

The Zone of Interest

This was released weeks ago but I wanted to save you all from watching the Madame Web trailer and highlight Jonathan Glazer’s (director of Under the Skin) newest film releasing on December 15th. A24 needs to give whoever makes their trailers a raise.

Do we have to see it in IMAX?

Does the Pope shit in the woods? Of course we have to see it in IMAX. But what exactly are we making our friends and family pay extra money for?

The IMAX cinema process provides a significantly enhanced picture quality compared to conventional cameras. It achieves this by using a larger frame of film that runs through the camera horizontally at a speed of 24 frames per second. For reference, the IMAX film is about 8.3x larger than 35mm and this filming process uses 337 feet of film per minute while a standard camera would only use around 90 feet.

Achieving this level of clarity comes at a cost as the cameras are extremely noisy and can only shoot between 30 seconds to two minutes of 12k footage at a time. Because the 70mm film is shot horizontally and is so large, displaying the film requires special projectors and a massive screen that fit the unique aspect ratio of the film. Even now, there were only 30 theatres in the world where audiences could see Oppenheimer the way it was intended.

IMAX was started in 1967 by four Canadians who created a system for projecting movies onto a giant curved screen that immersed viewers. For the first 25 years, the company had very little money and focused on museums where they could get public funding to build theatres. They could not convince movie studios to shoot with a 75 pound camera when only a handful of theatres in the world were equipped to display the results. While at the same time, theatres could not justify investing in IMAX projection if no IMAX films were being made. So for decades the cameras majorly filmed lower cost documentaries because as the IMAX CEO said, “If you film whales, bears or seals, you don’t have to pay them”.

The company finally began to gain traction in 2008 by introducing Digital IMAX, a lower cost system that allowed theatres to use their digital projectors instead of film. While this allowed the IMAX brand to break into local theatres, it came at the steep cost of image resolution. To account for the loss in clarity the screens also needed to be smaller, prompting many people refer to these theatres as “LieMax” as they are marketed as real IMAX theatres.

Additionally, to meet the huge demand for IMAX movies, in 2020 the company began certifying high resolution digital cameras as “IMAX certified”. This means that while many movies claim to be “shot fully in IMAX”, they are using high end digital cameras that do not the same resolution as IMAX 70mm film cameras. None of Avatar, Dune, Avengers Endgame were shot with IMAX film despite having the larger aspect ratio in the theatres. There have only been 12 feature films partially shot with IMAX film cameras in the past 10 years, which includes Damien Chazelle’s First Man, Jordan Peele’s Nope and of course, all of Christopher Nolan’s movies. Note that none of this is to say that IMAX is not still the best option for viewing a movie at your local theatre, just that the full IMAX experience may still be out there waiting for you.

You can’t talk about IMAX without discussing the technology’s biggest promoter, Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight marked the first time ever that a major feature film was even partially shot using these cameras, shooting a total of 28 minutes of IMAX footage. In Dunkirk he was able to shoot a remarkable 75% of the film on these noisy cameras since there are so few scenes with dialogue. “Nolan has a special place in IMAX’s heart because he uses our cameras and promotes us”, IMAX CEO told Variety. For Nolan’s most recent film Oppenheimer, IMAX promised to play it exclusively in IMAX theatres for three weeks straight over other huge blockbusters like Mission Impossible and Barbie. Les Grossman was not happy.

Looking to the future, the company has plans to create new 70mm IMAX cameras that are quieter and lighter making them more accessible to filmmakers. The company is consulting with Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele and many other acclaimed cinematographers so that more audiences can experience the maximum capabilities of IMAX.

Spotlight Film: Raising Arizona (1987)

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