Can Red Handle 70mm IMAX Film Out?

[Rob Terry]

I don't know if this is the right area to ask, but the title says it all:
Can Red Handle 70mm IMAX Film Out?

I have seen other posts that said red had a 70mm look to it, but I do not know if that translates to uprezzing to 70mm. 70mm is considerably bigger and holds a ton of data, but once it gets scanned at 4K is there a difference?

My gut says this is a semi-no-brainer and that it would look pretty good, but I would love it if some Red/Film types would chime in.

Thanks,

RedRat Rob

[jbeale]

A 4k scan of good quality and large-enough negative can, and in theory should hold more true picture content than a 4k digital frame from a bayer-pattern sensor with OLPF (anti-alias) filter. But how does it really work in practice? There are various theoretical points you could argue about, but I think the only real answer is to try it and see.

[David Mullen ASC]

I think Redrat is confusing normal 5-perf 65/70mm with IMAX.

Remember that IMAX is the equivalent of three 5-perf 65mm frames together, 15-perf 65mm, so it has much more resolution than "standard" 65mm. The frame itself is three-times wider than a 35mm frame, so if you scan 35mm at 4K, you'd want to scan an IMAX frame at 12K in theory (in practice, all sorts of scanning resolutions are used for IMAX work.)

You can blow-up anything to IMAX -- there is even some windowboxed DV in the "Everest" IMAX movie. Feature films shot in 35mm and even HD have been released in IMAX. So sure, you could release a RED movie in IMAX, why not? 35mm movies are scanned, degrained, and sharpened using the IMAX DMR process, so you could do the same with RED footage and you wouldn't have to degrain it.

If you're asking if it is equivalent to 15-perf 65mm, no. With a negative that big, the MTF of the lens can be pretty poor and you've still got so much more information to work with -- and the degree of image enlargement is not as bad as when working with something captured on a smaller target area.

My guess would be that if you doubled the physical size of the RED sensor so that it was 8000 to 9000 photosites across instead of 4000 to 4500 and was 65 or 70mm wide instead of 35mm wide, then it would work well for IMAX-type photography.

But I'm sure you're going to see the RED used for certain IMAX situations, just as now you see other formats used, like HD (and certainly RED is going to work better than HD for that stuff.)

[Rob Terry]

I think Redrat is confusing normal 5-perf 65/70mm with IMAX.

Remember that IMAX is the equivalent of three 5-perf 65mm frames together, 15-perf 65mm, so it has much more resolution than "standard" 65mm. The frame itself is three-times wider than a 35mm frame, so if you scan 35mm at 4K, you'd want to scan an IMAX frame at 12K in theory (in practice, all sorts of scanning resolutions are used for IMAX work.)

You can blow-up anything to IMAX -- there is even some windowboxed DV in the "Everest" IMAX movie. Feature films shot in 35mm and even HD have been released in IMAX. So sure, you could release a RED movie in IMAX, why not? 35mm movies are scanned, degrained, and sharpened using the IMAX DMR process, so you could do the same with RED footage and you wouldn't have to degrain it.

If you're asking if it is equivalent to 15-perf 65mm, no. With a negative that big, the MTF of the lens can be pretty poor and you've still got so much more information to work with -- and the degree of image enlargement is not as bad as when working with something captured on a smaller target area.

My guess would be that if you doubled the physical size of the RED sensor so that it was 8000 to 9000 photosites across instead of 4000 to 4500 and was 65 or 70mm wide instead of 35mm wide, then it would work well for IMAX-type photography.

But I'm sure you're going to see the RED used for certain IMAX situations, just as now you see other formats used, like HD (and certainly RED is going to work better than HD for that stuff.)

Thanks David, I thought of putting this post in your section too. I did mean the 15 perf IMAX format. I should have been more specific. My plan would be to use the 15 perf IMAX film stock for the the big scenics and use the Red for the interviews that will be part of the story. Either way, we are going to test the Red all the way to 15 perf IMAX output (both interview and scenic). Still 60 to 90 days out.

Just wanted a gut check, and to see if anyone has already done it. Maybe Jim has the urge to do a IMAX dragster film???

Thanks again for your response to this and many other contributions to the Red forum.

RedRat Rob

[David Mullen ASC]

Certainly I think talking heads interviews shot on the RED and intercut with IMAX footage should work fine in an IMAX movie.

[Daan Pol]

I have no idea of the filmtechnics behind it but I do know that 3D rendered for IMAX is rendered at 4k. Sometimes even 2K. How this compares to the red I do not know. :unsure: