This week Neil Calloway looks at how different film formats may rescue the cinema-going experience…
This week brought the news that Avengers: Infinity War will be shot entirely in IMAX, as well as the 70mm release of Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight in the US. These two events seem totally unrelated, but they are both actually part of a wider trend in cinema.
Just as how in music there has been a revival of sales of vinyl in recent years, the emergence of digital as the dominant format for both shooting and projection has led to a small number of directors shooting films on 70mm, and the increased piracy heralded by films no longer only being available in bulky 35mm cans or on VHS tapes has led to an increase in films being shot and released in IMAX or 70mm format.
Directors like Tarantino or Christopher Nolan may talk about how great the format is, film’s superiority to digital, and they may wax lyrical about using the same lenses that were used on Ben Hur or whatever, and they may be sincere, but the studios are indulging them with the extra expense of shooting on film because it’s protection against piracy.
You can still pirate an IMAX or 70mm film, of course; Hateful Eight was quickly available online after a screener leaked, but if you turn going to a film into an event; something you have to see in the cinema, you can guard against that to some extent.
Just as vinyl junkies are correct in stating that you get better sound quality from records than you do mp3s, you get better picture quality from a good 70mm print on a decent seized screen than a bad digital projection. Like vinyl, it also costs more, and gets damaged easily (when Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master was screened in 70mm in one London cinema a few years ago, the print contained a scratch, and viewers were given the option of a refund if they walked out before the twenty minute mark), but that is obviously a price worth paying for directors who have studio backing.
IMAX is a little different; the format pootled along being used for documentaries for years, showcasing Everest or space or some other natural wonder, and then it started being used in feature films more and more, culminating in Avengers: Infinity War being shot entirely in the format. The increase in movies using IMAX cameras and films being shown in the format come from a combination of digital IMAX now being available, and the proliferation of IMAX screens around the world; go to any IMAX screening – especially one in 3D, and you’ll see people taking selfies in the cinema before the film; IMAX has turned film watching – which had become something we did at home – into an event. Expect more “roadshow” presentations of 70mm films, more IMAX, more IMAX 3D; if downloaded or streamed movies are the equivalent of low quality mp3s, then IMAX, or 70mm, or even 3D movies are the film industry version of concerts; events you might not go to very often, but you’ll pay good money to see, and they are where the creators make money.
It’s a win-win situation, or even a win-win-win situation; directors get to appear to be high-minded auteurs carrying on a noble tradition and going the extra mile to bring their unique vision to the screen, the studios get to protect their investment by minimising the pirates, and film-goers get a unique and memorable experience.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=a6omXbnUpMY
Originally published December 27, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
