RUMOR I LIKE… THE DARK KNIGHT RISES SHOT IN 100% IMAX

Oh, please please please. The Dark Knight was so fucking amazing on a real IMAX screen, I'd seriously wet myself to see an entire film shot that way.

Although... it's really going to make the Blu Ray disappointing. But, that's the price you pay, and I'm willing to pay it.

Pray to God this works out. A Nolan film shot entirely in this format would be absolutely sick.

One of the best fiction short films I've seen shot in 70mm is MORE by Mark Osborne. Even claymation looks amazing in IMAX.

On the other forum I had guessed this a while back. It's going to be amazing. The bits of TDK in imax were incredible, more impressive than 3d. A full of movie in this format is super exciting.

Dammit. There isn't a single IMAX screen in the entire country. I'd happily make a weekend long trip in order to watch Nolan and Pfister go nuts in a huge ass screen for a couple of hours.

I know it's a rumor but I bet I can will it to become reality, if I try hard enough.

MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR REAL! I will buy a HUGE-ASS 4x3 HDTV for the special IMAX blu-ray version too!!!!

When's the last time you visited wherever the closest real IMAX is? Because I can assure you it would totally be worth it.

I was lucky enough to catch The Dark Knight while I was at Lollapalooza in Chicago. Which, you know... means I saw it in Gotham City itself. Same with Batman Begins. So I'll have to twist my own arm and go back to Chi-town for this.

I'd have to travel to a different county to find an IMAX theater.

Would a smaller, more portable IMAX camera be more revolutionary than RED?

That's our discussion in our production office and the answer for us is yes.

Especially since RED has broken their fucking camera's firmware so bad that they can't even figure out how they're ever going to fix it to release a new one.

How did that happen?

Reminds me of the first demo I saw of RED at an expo in Houston about four years ago--where the tech running the demo couldn't get the video out to talk to the screen to show the crowd for a live video demonstration. I mean, yeah, glitches happen, but the RED has been so encrusted in glitches that that moment has been kind of representative.

Nolan shooting in 100% IMAX is going to be a real goddamn treat if it turns out to be true.

None of this is secret really but the way I heard was through a DP I spoke to who mostly works large-scale commercials and has done a number of indie films. He was pulling duty on a DTV sequel that shall remain nameless, as a favor to that DP, a buddy of his. All this to say he's legit.

Anyway, he's one of the first 100 RED owners, and the company tends to keep a more direct line of communication with those users. He's had his deposit down for a new model for as long as they've accepted them. According to him, RED had sent out a message that essentially said they'd broken the firmware so bad for the next model that they were completely unable to back up and fix it. They were calling in new software engineers but had no idea how or when something would change. The newest RED system was supposed to be even more customizable and modular than before, with something like 27 different configurations (or maybe that was the number of customizable parts). The problem with the firmware was apparently getting the modules to communicate with each other, and only a few (very useless configs) were working at all.

That said, complete hearsay and second hand info that I'm recalling from quite a while ago. Someone who keeps up more closely with RED could probably dispel or rewrite much of that.

The IMAX scenes in TDK where like a revelation for me, there was nothing quite like seeing that film in IMAX for the 1st time. I really hoped more movies would jump on the IMAX bandwagon, but instead they opted for 3d and for me not a single film in 3d (not even Avatar) matched that TDK experience.

The RED One is a great system by the way, a real powerhouse. Small, easy to use and has a great set of tools. The only real downside is a natural one and that is the 4k image which requires insane processing and rendering power.

I worked with quite a few high end digital camera systems and in all honesty Red One left the best impression on me.

Also, I don't see how one can compare Red with an IMAX camera. Apart from the obvious format differences, the costs, reliability and upkeep are drastically different. Even if they manage to make an Imax camera the size of the RED (which is nigh impossible because of the 70mm format) there is no way in hell it will match the cost and efficiency of the Red.

They're two completely different systems, and despite IMAX's superiority of image quality I can't see an Imax camera that's a viable option for anything but an IMAX documentary or a big budget studio production.

I don't really know enough about this issue to have a firm opinion on it (I didn't see TKD in IMAGE MAXIMIZED). If it creates an aspect ratio that would look weird or square like on home video though, I'd be against shooting in IMAX. If the attraction is the image fidelity of a 70mm print.. why not just shoot in non IMAX 70 MM? I don't get it

The IMAX format is taking 70mm film that has more perforations and running it sideways resulting in this amount of difference:

That is great information to have, McNooj! I appreciate your help in educating me about film!

I'd have to say that I prefer the normal 16:9 aspect ratio. From the guide you posted, an IMAX image does look square like IMHO, which is what I was worrying it would happen in my previous post

If you shoot the whole movie in IMAX, you'd frame your shots according to the IMAX ratio. When you release the DVD though, what do you do? Release a boxy movie for people to look at on their normal sized TVs? Or crop it to 16:9? If it's the later and not the former, then you worry that shots that were designed and composed for the square format will be ruined when adjusted

That's my concern at least

The Dark Knight's IMAX sequences (as well as the ones in Transformers 2) were put on blu-ray at the full 16:9 ratio. So the film would switch between 4x3 and 2.35:1 while it was going in theaters. On home video, it was switching between 16x9 and 2:35:1 the way Scott Pilgrim did as a stylistic choice. So as gorgeous as it was, we were still missing some picture from the full image at times. That was the basis of my earlier comment in the thread:

There's no need to worry.

Most film formats are 4x3 (35mm is 4x3, as you can see on that picture), but thanks to the use of anamorphic lenses the image is squeezed when shot, and projected wider when, well, projected on a screen giving you the widescreen image.

There's no reason why they couldn't develop an anamorphic lens for IMAX cameras apart from the fact that they wouldn't be using the full IMAX screen, which might negate the effect a bit because the image would be smaller. The solution? Make IMAX theaters with 16x9 or wider gigantic screens!

There are other techniques to get widescreen out of a 4x3 film frame, but usually they involve wasting of film surface.

Edit: also when films are shot they often have multiple frame guides in camera. Usually they did this for theaters and tv, before TV's went widescreen, framing the image for both widescreen and 4x3. Actually in the IMAX scenes in TDK on bluray you will see too much headroom and other little things which are usually avoided when shooting specifically for a single aspect ratio.

In TDK they had to do this because most people would see the film in regular theaters with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, if they didn't batman would walk around with only his chin showing in those shots, or they'd have to butcher the frame in post with pan and scan.

Actually, I found there was far more footage that kind of suffers in the regular 2:35 presentation.

The big truck chase scene is notable when the Batmobile crashes into the ceiling. You can see so much more of that shot in the IMAX format. Same with Batman stringing up the SWAT team towards the end.

I saw it "normally" first and then in IMAX, and so much was a revelation in IMAX where before I was a little confused as to what was taking place.

Hmm, then why not just release the film in 1.85:1 for the normal folks?

I'm torn though, the switching of the aspect ratio worked in TDK to alert me something was about to happen. It's also oddly soothing, but made me jump. Like during the opening credits, going from 2.35:1 to the IMAX was amazing and suddenly gripping. It felt like playing with the aspect ratio's was almost a character on itself. The smaller the frame, the more intimate the scene.

I mean lets take an example of a sad moment. If a character is alone, a bigger IMAX scene will convey the isolation all the better.

Still, I trust Nolan more than my barber, and I trust my barber quite a bit.