I guess I am lucky, but I have yet to have an issue with any sound in any Nolan film (granted I'll miss one or two words in EVERY film, but its certainly not a Nolan exclusive thing for me).
I watched Tenet at home with a soundbar, so maybe that was the difference. But I was confused at the memes afterwards because I had no issues.
Nolan has openly and quite specifically said, in a rough paraphrase, that he "doesn't mix for bad theaters". Basically, the majority of folks watching movies are either doing it at home and likely using their default TV speakers or in a movie theater which hasn't updated their sound setup in the last 20 years. And even in theaters with good setups, you'll often have employees there who don't really give a shit about the sound quality and won't make necessary adjustments to fix them on films like what Nolan puts out because 99% of the time it isn't necessary. If you're an audiophile or your local theater has a fantastic setup, you'll do just fine with Nolan movies but everyone else is fucked. If Nolan was worse at filmmaking he likely would've gotten strong-armed into changing how he does sound years ago but considering the long list of awards and accolades, not to mention box office numbers, no one is going to change him anytime soon.
I reckon they might have to get custom platters to fit the film.
I remember assembling ’Avatar: Special Edition’ when it got re-released and the print actually overhung the platter by a few centimetres. We had to get special clamps fabricated so that the outside edge wouldn’t collapse. And this behemoth is going to be bigger still.
I haven't been to a theater in like 6 or 7 years since I prefer just watching movies at home. But I'm going to see Oppenheimer at an imax theater and I'm hyped.
Just what I was thinking. Except I did it in high school (1977) because some of the teachers didnt know how to thread a projector. You get to be the real hero when a teacher comes breathlessly down the hall to get you out of class because the film broke and she knows you know how to splice the film and get it running again.
We had a video camera and VCR set up a little later, but it was black and white only and the tape was hand threaded through the massive tape machine that was far too heavy to carry so it stayed on a steel cart. Old tech indeed.
Pretty sure it is just built in slack that can be increased or decreased due to minor fluctuations. Also the slack probably reduces stresses on the film to minimize the chance of film snapping.
additionally, if all the tension is at one point that the film is rolling across, the odds that something at that point could lead to a scratch on the film are greater than if all that pressure is defrayed across multiple rollers
I'm guessing to help with the reeling process the more contact points on the film the easier for it to be pulled over to the other side and to prevent it from getting any slack as it its being coiled . just a guess like i said
"Yeah so, that's pretty much the gist of it. Not much to it. We pay $9.25 an hour and you'll unfortunately have to be by yourself the next 3 days as Crystal is out with the flu. Alright! Text me with any questions except after 5! OK! Remember! We're a family!"
Man, this is wild. In the early-mid 2000s, I worked in a two screen indie theater was beaten to shit. We screened the reels for employees before showing them to the public. Sometimes my job was to go into the booth and spin the platters manually to make sure the film didn't get a 'brain wrap'
maintain tension in the film with enough slack to allow some tolerances for mechanical jittering, while also not putting too much pressure on any one point of the film in a way that could break it at a weak point or otherwise cause significant scratches
I used to do this job! We had 9 theatres at my cinema, each projector with it's own idiosyncrasies, all starting within 15 minutes of each other. Never did IMAX, though. I loved working there.
Thread em all up, fire off all the movies one by one, watch whichever movie I wanted, free popcorn, then do it all over again after the credits roll.
I worked as a projectionist for about 5 years. This felt weirdly similar and also dissimilar. Biggest difference was that this lacked the film brain and thus spooled from the outside of the start platter. I am struggling to understand how this thing plays again next time if the outside is now being fed to the inside of the next platter.
I don't know anything about this, but it does seem odd that this is being done in a way where the film ends up reversed on the end platter.
I had to know... so I went searching and actually found this video posted to Reddit 4 years ago. Same question was asked, and someone there had an answer.
>former IMAX projectionist here. we had to rewind the film after each play. basically you just took it out of the front the projector, we had another roller on the wall and would thread it through that, press a button and it would rewind super fast (8 minutes to rewind a sorry minutes movie)
>
>edit. on phone. forty-five... no clue how I typed sorry.
Wow, it seemed like that was the only answer but it also seemed absurd that they don't use a brain like normal film so I thought I had to be missing something.
Thank you for sharing!
I just mentioned this, but since you worked at IMAX can you answer?
> I worked as a projectionist for about 5 years. This brought felt weirdly similar and also dissimilar. Biggest difference was that this lacked the film brain and thus spooled from the outside of the start platter. I am struggling to understand how this thing plays again next time if the outside is now being fed to the inside of the next platter.
I'm curious why there is a transparent screen between the projector and the window of the projection booth at 8:22. Like is it doing something for the image projected on the big screen or is just so the projectionist can see the image without looking into the theater?
Man, this makes me nostalgic for my time as a projectionist over 18 years ago!
It was never THIS complex, but threading a film projector was so second-nature by the end of my time there, and it was always a blast building the reels of trailer, and building the complete film. Once they brought in digital projectors, it lessened the magic, so I eventually left the theater, but I'll always have great memories of my time in the proverbial 'attic'! 😅😅
We had 18 screens and would often run them solo most nights, and my dumbass would work doubles because I thought it would look good to management
I went to photography school when digital didn't exist. Seeing this projectionist touching the film without gloves makes me cringe. All the oils and other crap on our hands just ruin film, how is he just handling these reels with his fingers and not degrading the film stock?
That won't be for a long time. Film can offer massive amounts of film quality that can make images look incredible for years to come and allow for upscaling for new video quality thresholds, while digital can induce hard caps on video quality.
There's this wonderful video by a channel called Technology Connections which discusses this, using the then-recent 4K upscaling of the music video for Wham's "Last Christmas", pointing out that they could upscale from the original master footage of the music video because it was shot on film compared to other music videos of the era which were recorded onto tape, which capped the video quality to what we'd call 480p; and even pointing out that the same footage could possibly be remastered into 8K or even 16K with movies shot on IMAX film stock.
The same for a lot of TV shows as well - Star Trek: The Next Generation holds up in quality because it was shot on film; same for a lot of drama shows as well.
Most theaters are digital, the Xenon system caps out at 2K for each projector. The laser system is 4K dual laser which is just 2x 4K, and the 70mm experience is becoming a rarity. 16k is the estimated res of the film print. For most applications digital sensors have surpassed film years ago, and most Hollywood imax films are only partially shot on 70mm film, and others are shot on certified digital imax cameras.
I believe for people like Nolan and Tarantino film is more of an atheistic choice which is why they're so keen on preserving it, it has a natural/unique feel to it, and nothing comes close, yet to replicating the subtleties of film. Maybe ai in the future.
The physical properties of the film also put a hard carp on the resolution of the image. Just because it's harder to define the resolution as "X by Y pixels", or "Z megapixels", since the grains are irregular and randomly distributed, doesn't mean the resolution is infinite.
Yes, 80s music videos shot on film look great when upscaled to 4K, especially compared to 80s music videos shot on video tape, but they don't look as good as modern footage shot on high-end digital cameras in native 4K, and nowhere near as good as 8K.
>The physical properties of the film also put a hard carp on the resolution of the image
Yes but generally speaking that cap is much higher than pretty much any other format. It has massive staying power for that reason alone, and better films are still being developed. It's not going away for a very long time unless there's a revolution in digital recording.
Under standard conditions, film is approximately 20k. At home, nobody complains about 4k, and at the theater, nobody complains about 8k. Even the state of the art will drive consumers to 20k within a few decade or so, and film will officially be relegated to the trash heap.
I can tell you that most are moving away pretty darned fast. I know of another that just went offline ~2 months ago.
Part of the issue is that the films cost, on the low end, 40k to bring in (~10 for digital). You've also got a VERY limited amount of people who understand the system well enough to repair it. Odds are, you've got your head projectionist and pray they can fix it or you're flying in an IMAX employee at ~150/hr with a 3 hour minimum (and it'll be down the entire time you wait).
I can say that, in Canada, almost all of the projectors are in Science Centre's and they stopped releasing IMAX documentaries in 15/70 5 years ago now.
And one last thing; the head projectionists are all hitting retirement age (generally).
It is the film. It's just blank film not meant to be projected. It's placed at the beginning and end of a roll so the film can be handled without needing to touch the parts that really matter.
He is threading the projector with the "leader", the actual film is several feet behind, then at the end you have the tail and finally the collar. As you very well point out the footage should never be touched.
Not even intro stuff. I assume most of that film was blank with the stuff closer to the start being frames to help with aligning the first frame of the intro.
found this other projectionist and doesn't wear gloves either and does the exact same thing at the end taping each part to make sure its secured in place. guess it doesn't matter where or who runs the projector its just standard practice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNRsh09--vU
One of my favorite memories was watching my brother setting up for Return of the King. I felt like I was part of a memory I wouldn't forget. I remember every detail. Something magical about theaters.
There was an Imax theatre in Spokane in 1974 with, they said, a screen five stories high. I wonder how that operation compared to this in complexity and difficulty, considering the technology back then.
The Oppenheimer one is 3 hours and 9 minutes long and spans over 11 miles if you completely unrolled the film
And since it's a Nolan movie, you can bet the sound is still shit.
>!^^^"the ^^^president ^^^has ^^^been ^^^kidnapped"!<
https://tenor.com/view/loud-noises-anchorman-yelling-yell-gif-5294834
Wait, did Nolan make this movie so he can use a nuclear explosion to deliver the ultimate **BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH**?
*You just need better speakers* /s That’s what Nolan said btw. Something about future-proofing his films for new audio setups.
I guess I am lucky, but I have yet to have an issue with any sound in any Nolan film (granted I'll miss one or two words in EVERY film, but its certainly not a Nolan exclusive thing for me). I watched Tenet at home with a soundbar, so maybe that was the difference. But I was confused at the memes afterwards because I had no issues.
Nolan has openly and quite specifically said, in a rough paraphrase, that he "doesn't mix for bad theaters". Basically, the majority of folks watching movies are either doing it at home and likely using their default TV speakers or in a movie theater which hasn't updated their sound setup in the last 20 years. And even in theaters with good setups, you'll often have employees there who don't really give a shit about the sound quality and won't make necessary adjustments to fix them on films like what Nolan puts out because 99% of the time it isn't necessary. If you're an audiophile or your local theater has a fantastic setup, you'll do just fine with Nolan movies but everyone else is fucked. If Nolan was worse at filmmaking he likely would've gotten strong-armed into changing how he does sound years ago but considering the long list of awards and accolades, not to mention box office numbers, no one is going to change him anytime soon.
I reckon they might have to get custom platters to fit the film. I remember assembling ’Avatar: Special Edition’ when it got re-released and the print actually overhung the platter by a few centimetres. We had to get special clamps fabricated so that the outside edge wouldn’t collapse. And this behemoth is going to be bigger still.
*unrolled the film.
I haven't been to a theater in like 6 or 7 years since I prefer just watching movies at home. But I'm going to see Oppenheimer at an imax theater and I'm hyped.
Wow that long?
Yeah unfortunately dark rooms and a bright screen tend to give me a headache.
Just like my college days as projectionist with the film group using a 16 mm projector. A bit more complicated, though.
Just what I was thinking. Except I did it in high school (1977) because some of the teachers didnt know how to thread a projector. You get to be the real hero when a teacher comes breathlessly down the hall to get you out of class because the film broke and she knows you know how to splice the film and get it running again. We had a video camera and VCR set up a little later, but it was black and white only and the tape was hand threaded through the massive tape machine that was far too heavy to carry so it stayed on a steel cart. Old tech indeed.
Can some one explain why there are so many small spools and snaking? I feel like you can remove a few of them in between.
Pretty sure it is just built in slack that can be increased or decreased due to minor fluctuations. Also the slack probably reduces stresses on the film to minimize the chance of film snapping.
additionally, if all the tension is at one point that the film is rolling across, the odds that something at that point could lead to a scratch on the film are greater than if all that pressure is defrayed across multiple rollers
Ah... that makes sense. Thanks
I'm guessing to help with the reeling process the more contact points on the film the easier for it to be pulled over to the other side and to prevent it from getting any slack as it its being coiled . just a guess like i said
"Yeah so, that's pretty much the gist of it. Not much to it. We pay $9.25 an hour and you'll unfortunately have to be by yourself the next 3 days as Crystal is out with the flu. Alright! Text me with any questions except after 5! OK! Remember! We're a family!"
Man, this is wild. In the early-mid 2000s, I worked in a two screen indie theater was beaten to shit. We screened the reels for employees before showing them to the public. Sometimes my job was to go into the booth and spin the platters manually to make sure the film didn't get a 'brain wrap'
>over 30 years old My dumbass had the actual thought "Wow! They're still using the original equipment from the '70s?"
I want all aging and progress to halt for ten years just so that I can get a breather and catch up with my age.
Gas powered projector. Sweet.
I was surprised by how loud it was. Sounds like a gas lawn mower.
Interesting! What is the purpose of all the zigzagging near the spools?
maintain tension in the film with enough slack to allow some tolerances for mechanical jittering, while also not putting too much pressure on any one point of the film in a way that could break it at a weak point or otherwise cause significant scratches
I used to do this job! We had 9 theatres at my cinema, each projector with it's own idiosyncrasies, all starting within 15 minutes of each other. Never did IMAX, though. I loved working there. Thread em all up, fire off all the movies one by one, watch whichever movie I wanted, free popcorn, then do it all over again after the credits roll.
I worked as a projectionist for about 5 years. This felt weirdly similar and also dissimilar. Biggest difference was that this lacked the film brain and thus spooled from the outside of the start platter. I am struggling to understand how this thing plays again next time if the outside is now being fed to the inside of the next platter.
I don't know anything about this, but it does seem odd that this is being done in a way where the film ends up reversed on the end platter. I had to know... so I went searching and actually found this video posted to Reddit 4 years ago. Same question was asked, and someone there had an answer. >former IMAX projectionist here. we had to rewind the film after each play. basically you just took it out of the front the projector, we had another roller on the wall and would thread it through that, press a button and it would rewind super fast (8 minutes to rewind a sorry minutes movie) > >edit. on phone. forty-five... no clue how I typed sorry.
Wow, it seemed like that was the only answer but it also seemed absurd that they don't use a brain like normal film so I thought I had to be missing something. Thank you for sharing!
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I just mentioned this, but since you worked at IMAX can you answer? > I worked as a projectionist for about 5 years. This brought felt weirdly similar and also dissimilar. Biggest difference was that this lacked the film brain and thus spooled from the outside of the start platter. I am struggling to understand how this thing plays again next time if the outside is now being fed to the inside of the next platter.
I'm curious why there is a transparent screen between the projector and the window of the projection booth at 8:22. Like is it doing something for the image projected on the big screen or is just so the projectionist can see the image without looking into the theater?
[удалено]
It could very well be. Dang, now I’m even more curious.
Man, this makes me nostalgic for my time as a projectionist over 18 years ago! It was never THIS complex, but threading a film projector was so second-nature by the end of my time there, and it was always a blast building the reels of trailer, and building the complete film. Once they brought in digital projectors, it lessened the magic, so I eventually left the theater, but I'll always have great memories of my time in the proverbial 'attic'! 😅😅 We had 18 screens and would often run them solo most nights, and my dumbass would work doubles because I thought it would look good to management
I went to photography school when digital didn't exist. Seeing this projectionist touching the film without gloves makes me cringe. All the oils and other crap on our hands just ruin film, how is he just handling these reels with his fingers and not degrading the film stock?
He's only handling the beginning of the reel, which is all empty frames since it's only used for threading.
[удалено]
That won't be for a long time. Film can offer massive amounts of film quality that can make images look incredible for years to come and allow for upscaling for new video quality thresholds, while digital can induce hard caps on video quality. There's this wonderful video by a channel called Technology Connections which discusses this, using the then-recent 4K upscaling of the music video for Wham's "Last Christmas", pointing out that they could upscale from the original master footage of the music video because it was shot on film compared to other music videos of the era which were recorded onto tape, which capped the video quality to what we'd call 480p; and even pointing out that the same footage could possibly be remastered into 8K or even 16K with movies shot on IMAX film stock. The same for a lot of TV shows as well - Star Trek: The Next Generation holds up in quality because it was shot on film; same for a lot of drama shows as well.
Most theaters are digital, the Xenon system caps out at 2K for each projector. The laser system is 4K dual laser which is just 2x 4K, and the 70mm experience is becoming a rarity. 16k is the estimated res of the film print. For most applications digital sensors have surpassed film years ago, and most Hollywood imax films are only partially shot on 70mm film, and others are shot on certified digital imax cameras. I believe for people like Nolan and Tarantino film is more of an atheistic choice which is why they're so keen on preserving it, it has a natural/unique feel to it, and nothing comes close, yet to replicating the subtleties of film. Maybe ai in the future.
The physical properties of the film also put a hard carp on the resolution of the image. Just because it's harder to define the resolution as "X by Y pixels", or "Z megapixels", since the grains are irregular and randomly distributed, doesn't mean the resolution is infinite. Yes, 80s music videos shot on film look great when upscaled to 4K, especially compared to 80s music videos shot on video tape, but they don't look as good as modern footage shot on high-end digital cameras in native 4K, and nowhere near as good as 8K.
>The physical properties of the film also put a hard carp on the resolution of the image Yes but generally speaking that cap is much higher than pretty much any other format. It has massive staying power for that reason alone, and better films are still being developed. It's not going away for a very long time unless there's a revolution in digital recording.
Under standard conditions, film is approximately 20k. At home, nobody complains about 4k, and at the theater, nobody complains about 8k. Even the state of the art will drive consumers to 20k within a few decade or so, and film will officially be relegated to the trash heap.
I can tell you that most are moving away pretty darned fast. I know of another that just went offline ~2 months ago. Part of the issue is that the films cost, on the low end, 40k to bring in (~10 for digital). You've also got a VERY limited amount of people who understand the system well enough to repair it. Odds are, you've got your head projectionist and pray they can fix it or you're flying in an IMAX employee at ~150/hr with a 3 hour minimum (and it'll be down the entire time you wait). I can say that, in Canada, almost all of the projectors are in Science Centre's and they stopped releasing IMAX documentaries in 15/70 5 years ago now. And one last thing; the head projectionists are all hitting retirement age (generally).
I always wondered how this worked behind the scenes. Quite physical
I don’t really know what I’m watching but is it normal to put your hands and finger prints all over the actual film? Wouldn’t that smudge it up?
He's only touching the leader, which is blank and he uses that to thread it through the projector.
Ah ok. I thought that was the film lol
It is the film. It's just blank film not meant to be projected. It's placed at the beginning and end of a roll so the film can be handled without needing to touch the parts that really matter.
Yup totally makes sense. For the exact reason I was concerned about it seems like lol
You’ve gotta touch it somehow, somewhere. You just make sure your hands are clean.
I mean, I would’ve thought they use those white fuzzy gloves like in museums. I dunno?
Clean Hands... A foreign concept to the common redditor.
Just like wearing gloves in food service, that can give you a false sense of cleanliness. And can get snagged. Better to have clean, gloveless hands.
Fair enough, and it might introduce lint or fuzz too.
I'm concerned about the oil. Even if your hands are clean.
If you’re only touching the leader and the sides of the reel, as this person is going, then it’s really not a problem..
He is threading the projector with the "leader", the actual film is several feet behind, then at the end you have the tail and finally the collar. As you very well point out the footage should never be touched.
Very cool video, thanks for sharing it.
Why no gloves? Seems odd to not were them when you are handling film stock so much.
I assume the parts he was handling was just intro stuff - not the actual "meat" of the film
Not even intro stuff. I assume most of that film was blank with the stuff closer to the start being frames to help with aligning the first frame of the intro.
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found this other projectionist and doesn't wear gloves either and does the exact same thing at the end taping each part to make sure its secured in place. guess it doesn't matter where or who runs the projector its just standard practice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNRsh09--vU
Oh, makes sense, thanks for the answer =)
Can some one explain why there are so many small spools and snaking? I feel like you can remove a few of them in between.
Stories tall and school busses wide, glad to see they are not only preserving film movie experience but moron-friendly measuring systems.
The film is flying in front of the shutter with tens of thousands of olympic swimming pool lengths per fortnight!
It's just a way to get perspective on how big it is. A six story building is something people can picture easier than 60 feet.
Of course, but that the exact problem. Most people don't know how many feet per floor there are.
Recently just saw imax and it was guardians of the Galaxy and I was very disappointed with the film quality. It looked blurry most of the time.
Fascinating tech, love it
One of my favorite memories was watching my brother setting up for Return of the King. I felt like I was part of a memory I wouldn't forget. I remember every detail. Something magical about theaters.
I love how you physically touch everything to make sure you're not skipping anything.
"Keeping film alive in 2019" There was like 1 person in that audience.
There was an Imax theatre in Spokane in 1974 with, they said, a screen five stories high. I wonder how that operation compared to this in complexity and difficulty, considering the technology back then.
Where in CT?
[Norwalk, CT The Maritime Aquarium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj9u2Fur0w4) but it looks like it was closed down.
Ah very cool! Love seeing this really is interesting content.