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| The Dark Knight |
From the moment you walk through IMAX’s glass doors, you will feel that the space age has finally come to Calcutta. The blue-lit interiors of the foyer, which is shared by the two screens of Cinemax, jettisons you into a world well beyond the usual film-viewing experience with its futuristic feel.
Of the three screens in the Mani Square multiplex, only one is an IMAX screen. It is designed to make you feel, if only for a few hours, that you are a part of the cinema you have previously only witnessed from afar.
WHAT YOU SEE
So much for form; what about content? The theatre has started off with two films — the made-for-IMAX International Space Station in Bengali and in English, which requires you to don 3D glasses a la Subhas Chakraborty; and 2D The Dark Knight, the first feature film to ever be partially shot using IMAX cameras. We opted to watch The Dark Knight, to better understand the IMAX advantage over traditional 35mm.
As you sink into your cosy seat (there is one row of even more indulgent — and more expensive — recliners) and stare at the blank behemoth towering before you, you expect to be taken places you have never been before.
WHAT YOU GET
If you buy your Batman tickets expecting a radically different film from the one you caught last year, you will be disappointed. The key difference is the much larger canvas the action sequences get. The outdoor shots are sweeping, Gotham is even more sinister than before and Batman’s task seems even more perilous. The colours burst, the darkness is even more total.
Unless you are an action junkie, however, the excitement of mind-boggling scale wears off fairly soon.
But this in no way detracts from director Christopher Nolan’s genius — not only did he break the mould in terms of story, he pioneered techniques used to merge 70mm IMAX film with 35mm. Most Hollywood films released in IMAX theatres are digitally remastered for the format. Nolan worked the other way around, making the IMAX portions of his product fit traditional screens.
And you have already had a taste of the IMAX experience, even if you didn’t know it. Imax film itself is much larger than normal celluloid, allowing it to capture far more information. Not only does this mean that it can fill the giant IMAX theatre screen, it also means that even when edited for the standard format, the images are far crisper. So some of the awe that you felt when you watched The Dark Knight at the run-of-the-mill multiplex the first time is thanks to the IMAX technology employed in the making of it.
What suffers is the sound. Apparently, the camera is so noisy that dialogue for scenes shot on IMAX had to be dubbed. We don’t know if that was responsible for significant portion of dialogue sounding muffled — including Commissioner Gordon’s stirring closing monologue — which was a problem in multiplex viewing as well.
We would like to wait and see some films premiere on IMAX to get a better feel of what it is really about. If you had seen The Dark Knight on IMAX before seeing it in a multiplex, you may have felt that the canvas had been cramped. But viewed the other way around, you are only left feeling that is impossible to improve upon perfection.
It is many times larger than life.
Cinemax, the latest multiplex in the city, opened its doors to “The IMAX Experience” last week. You walk into the plush 450-seater auditorium, put on your 3D polaroid glasses and get cosy on the red cushioned seats mounted on a steep slope when a wild shark cuts through the screen, comes gnarling towards you and jolts you out of your senses. Relax, sit back and you can almost touch and feel the extraordinary underwater creatures swarming around you as you sink miles and miles into the ocean.
With images 10 times the size of regular 35mm films — how many times larger than life does that make them? — and explosive surround sound, the grand spectacle that IMAX unfolds puts you right inside the movie, allowing you to dive into a world that is astoundingly scary or funny or wonderful or all of these.
Past records
For a long time IMAX Corporation of Canada, which installed its first screen in Toronto back in 1967, was confined to nature documentaries that travelled back in time to the prehistoric age of dinosaurs, underwater adventures and shows on outer space. But a 3D release of a full-length Hollywood feature The Polar Express in 2004 changed movie-viewing with “stunningly crisp images and IMAX theatre geometry to create a unique immersive entertainment experience”.
The technology digitally re-masters Hollywood films, turning a 35mm film into a 10 times larger 15/70 IMAX format, allowing you to sweep through the magical world of Harry Potter or scale Spider-Man’s webs. With nearly 300 screens spread across 42 countries, IMAX started shop in India with the IMAX Dome in Mumbai followed by enormous flat screens in Hyderabad and Gurgaon before Calcutta got its newest entertainment destination and its largest movie screen.
But technology alone is not enough to usher in a steady clientele and Mumbai’s IMAX Dome failed to spark off the kind of excitement that Hyderabad did (leading the footfall count with more than 3,000 viewers last year). “Watching a Hollywood film on a rounded screen is not ideal and that’s turned out to be the challenge in Mumbai. Action on a rounded screen is too quick to grasp unlike a flat screen. IMAX 3D on flat screen has been more successful in India so we’re contemplating on changing the format in Mumbai,” said John Schreiner, IMAX vice president, sales, Russia and India. Aeren R Entertainment is one of IMAX’s Indian partners bringing the experience to our city.
Tech Tools
Apart from plush movie-viewing with push back seats, step lights and ample leg space, the wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling IMAX screen towering like an eight storied building will beam 3D films projected on 600 sq metres of the rectangular screen area. The key to the “largest, clearest and steadiest pictures” invented and developed by IMAX is the Rolling Loop movement that uses two projectors and two cameras to enhance images “that extend beyond your peripheral vision”. Known as IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering), the revolutionary technology enables conversion of any conventional live action motion picture from 2D into IMAX 3D.
“Images are shot at a different angle to suit the IMAX frame, which in turn tricks the brain to follow the illusion brought to life through 3D polarised glass lenses,” added Schreiner. For instance, portions of The Dark Knight were shot with an IMAX camera while the rest of the film was scanned later to develop an algorithm that allows digital re-mastering of the images that can be printed on to the 15/70 IMAX format. The digital images, after colour correction, sharpening and grain removal, are coupled with multi-channel state of the art digital surround sound system for 12,000 watts of uncompressed digital sound.
“Although the centre at times make for better viewing, the seating is rounded and every seat is designed for a true to life experience so that you don’t lose the highs or lows from anywhere,” said Schreiner, speaking on the use of digital technology replacing reel formats in newer theatres around the world.
The steep seating order makes for unobstructed view but the top edge of the seats in front of the last row were a slight obstacle during the screening of International Space Station filmed in outer space. The 45-minute futuristic film narrated by Tom Cruise marks IMAX’s first release in the city and transports viewers to the wide expanse of outer space as you leap off the planet or float around with astronauts on board while heading into other parts of the universe.
Film Roster
Movie buffs can look forward to a slew of Hollywood blockbusters with nearly 12 3D releases lined up this year. To begin with, IMAX has brought back The Dark Knight on January 9 with nearly four screenings a day. The Watchmen and Monsters vs Aliens will hit the giant screen in March followed by Night at the Museum 2 in May and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in June. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is slated for a July release followed by Christmas Carol and Avatar in winter. Those apart, fun and adventurous films — both animated and educational, such as Under the Sea, Hubble, Fly Me to the Moon, Sea Monsters and Wild Ocean will be shown.
Ticket prices range from Rs 180 to Rs 350. Hoping to cash in on the craze, IMAX plans to screen educational films to build up student groups. “They won’t be pure documentaries but fun shows and we’d like to keep ticket prices around Rs 100 for students,” said Jim Patterson, director of Aeren R Entertainment.
Do you want to watch an IMAX movie? Tell us at t2@abpmail.com