But this goes to eleven!
August 23, 2023 5:12 AM Subscribe
With Oppenheimer quickly becoming one of the biggest [heh] movies of all time, there has been a lot of discussion about film format floating around lately. Here with a complete explainer about film formats is Analogue Resurgence with 70mm: From Oklahoma to Oppenheimer (Or, How Very Big Film Was Used to Make Very Big Movies) [46m]. It's a romp across cinema through the lens of, well, the lenses. And the film stock.
Somewhat related, but not wanting to make it an individual post, Christopher Nolan's World of Practical Effects [32m], a must-watch for any fan of in-camera special effects. The man is insane, but he apparently regularly has the budget to back up his insanity.
Somewhat related, but not wanting to make it an individual post, Christopher Nolan's World of Practical Effects [32m], a must-watch for any fan of in-camera special effects. The man is insane, but he apparently regularly has the budget to back up his insanity.
A somewhat related rabbit hole is how audio was stored on physical film. Using the area between sprocket holes to encode the Dolby Digital soundtrack is kind of incredible.
posted by ensign_ricky at 8:04 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by ensign_ricky at 8:04 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
This is all my jam. Ensign_ricky, had no idea that is how Dolby 5.1 worked. Very surprised by this note:
“5.1 channels of digital audio coded at PCM 16bit 48kHz requires a data rate of 3.8Mbps. Since the physical space on film in between perforations used for Dolby has a maximum capacity of 584kbps and sufficient extra data used for error correction must also be included (as film would inevitably collect dust and dirt causing reading errors) there must be compromise in form of compression down to 320kbps to fit the data on the medium. The compression methods use a psychoacoustic model to calculate the frequencies inaudible to humans, mainly due to frequency or temporal masking effects, and filters these details out to create a smaller file size.”
posted by q*ben at 8:11 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
“5.1 channels of digital audio coded at PCM 16bit 48kHz requires a data rate of 3.8Mbps. Since the physical space on film in between perforations used for Dolby has a maximum capacity of 584kbps and sufficient extra data used for error correction must also be included (as film would inevitably collect dust and dirt causing reading errors) there must be compromise in form of compression down to 320kbps to fit the data on the medium. The compression methods use a psychoacoustic model to calculate the frequencies inaudible to humans, mainly due to frequency or temporal masking effects, and filters these details out to create a smaller file size.”
posted by q*ben at 8:11 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
I am by no means the world's biggest musicals fan but all the same, it's hard to beat Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.
posted by y2karl at 8:42 AM on August 23, 2023
posted by y2karl at 8:42 AM on August 23, 2023
There’s a great Technology Connections video about sound-on-film and audio encoding if you want to go another 40 minutes down the rabbit hole
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:45 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 8:45 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
I saw the Hateful Eight roadshow when it came to London's Leicester Square
Hey, I was there as well!
Watching that projected brought up a visceral sense-memory of seeing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in the cinema for the first time. That 70mm was something else, especially in the hands of someone like Tarantino who, for all his many, many faults and indulgences, very much understands visual composition.
When I hear directors insisting on their films be seen in IMAX I do slightly roll my eyes but at the same time, every time I go (most recently to see the latest Mission Impossible), IMAX is impressive. When a sandworm is practically 1:1 size on screen, it's hard to make the argument that the movie isn't enhanced by the format.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:28 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hey, I was there as well!
Watching that projected brought up a visceral sense-memory of seeing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in the cinema for the first time. That 70mm was something else, especially in the hands of someone like Tarantino who, for all his many, many faults and indulgences, very much understands visual composition.
When I hear directors insisting on their films be seen in IMAX I do slightly roll my eyes but at the same time, every time I go (most recently to see the latest Mission Impossible), IMAX is impressive. When a sandworm is practically 1:1 size on screen, it's hard to make the argument that the movie isn't enhanced by the format.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:28 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
I should be clear, there are no sandworms in Mission Impossible. Yet. That was Dune.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:51 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by slimepuppy at 9:51 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
For even more film tech deep dives, don't miss the three hour, three part series from Destin at Smarter every day where he tours the still operational Kodak factory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQKy1KJpSVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAAJUHwh9F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrJP82ZZiag
I thought I knew some stuff about film technology but I really had no idea it was this bonkers. The series covers everything from making film base to coating to slitting, perforating and packaging.
The part about where they're doing this with a miles-long continuous web of film base that's like a yard or two wide in a pitch black factory at high web speeds *and* aiming for zero defects or scratches in the base or emulsion coatings is absolutely bonkers.
And, yeah, full sized 70mm IMAX films in true full sized IMAX theaters are totally awesome, even compared to IMAX digital. The size and level of detail is just stupendous.
posted by loquacious at 10:41 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQKy1KJpSVc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAAJUHwh9F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrJP82ZZiag
I thought I knew some stuff about film technology but I really had no idea it was this bonkers. The series covers everything from making film base to coating to slitting, perforating and packaging.
The part about where they're doing this with a miles-long continuous web of film base that's like a yard or two wide in a pitch black factory at high web speeds *and* aiming for zero defects or scratches in the base or emulsion coatings is absolutely bonkers.
And, yeah, full sized 70mm IMAX films in true full sized IMAX theaters are totally awesome, even compared to IMAX digital. The size and level of detail is just stupendous.
posted by loquacious at 10:41 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
Here's an interesting article and discussion of film audio formats from hacker news. The article does a nice job of discussing formats, and the discussion gets into some interesting tweaky techy details.
The more I learn about projectionists of yore, the more amazed I am with how technical that job actually was. I think the problem is that GenX and older got shown films in school with a really simple projector. I always thought that projectionists were just up in a booth clicking a switch like the teacher did. Little did I know that projectionists were dealing with 600lb reels of 70mm IMAX film, upgrading the firmware in various decoders, having to physically repair film and projectors, and maintaining mechanisms to move the same film at the same time to multiple projectors for multi theater movie releases. I kind of wish that job were still around as it sounds like it would have been fun and full of challenges and rabbit holes. That probably partially explains the trope of the geeky kids running the AV club and the projectors.
Rabbit hole: Speaking of firmware upgrades, apparently Dolby decoders could receive updates from Dolby Digital data on film. Amazing. Then again, back in the early 90s, your options would have been using a super slow serial port on a luggable computer or do something elegant like use the same media (film / embedded audio) to do the upgrade.
posted by ensign_ricky at 10:43 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
The more I learn about projectionists of yore, the more amazed I am with how technical that job actually was. I think the problem is that GenX and older got shown films in school with a really simple projector. I always thought that projectionists were just up in a booth clicking a switch like the teacher did. Little did I know that projectionists were dealing with 600lb reels of 70mm IMAX film, upgrading the firmware in various decoders, having to physically repair film and projectors, and maintaining mechanisms to move the same film at the same time to multiple projectors for multi theater movie releases. I kind of wish that job were still around as it sounds like it would have been fun and full of challenges and rabbit holes. That probably partially explains the trope of the geeky kids running the AV club and the projectors.
Rabbit hole: Speaking of firmware upgrades, apparently Dolby decoders could receive updates from Dolby Digital data on film. Amazing. Then again, back in the early 90s, your options would have been using a super slow serial port on a luggable computer or do something elegant like use the same media (film / embedded audio) to do the upgrade.
posted by ensign_ricky at 10:43 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
During one of the delivery jobs I've had in my life, I had a regular shift for a while that involved going to the airport and picking up film prints of new movies to deliver to one of the movie theaters in town. This was normal film so it was 35mm, and each film was I think 4 or 5 reels, obviously depending on the length. Might have been more reels, I'm not sure. They would be bundled together in a stack.
The fun part of this is that these films were always shipped with fake names. I have no idea what movies I was actually delivering to the movie theater, because you don't put a Brand New Hollywood Potential Blockbuster on an airplane with its actual name on it.
This little bit of subterfuge, plus usually the movie arriving on a Wednesday and delivering it in the early-to-middle part of the day mid-week always made it feel a tiny bit like I was in a spy movie. "Here's the secret thing you wanted, nobody saw me on the way in."
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
The fun part of this is that these films were always shipped with fake names. I have no idea what movies I was actually delivering to the movie theater, because you don't put a Brand New Hollywood Potential Blockbuster on an airplane with its actual name on it.
This little bit of subterfuge, plus usually the movie arriving on a Wednesday and delivering it in the early-to-middle part of the day mid-week always made it feel a tiny bit like I was in a spy movie. "Here's the secret thing you wanted, nobody saw me on the way in."
posted by hippybear at 10:48 AM on August 23, 2023 [4 favorites]
hippybear, remember any examples of the fake names?
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:12 AM on August 23, 2023
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:12 AM on August 23, 2023
Honestly, I wish I could. I've been sitting here trying to remember them since I started typing that comment, but this was maybe 15 years ago and it wasn't information my brain seems to have regarded as important enough to retain.
posted by hippybear at 11:13 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 11:13 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Video 1 and video 2 from RadioActive Drew. He's a projectionist who showed the film. The second video talks about how the sound works.
posted by kathrynm at 4:06 PM on August 23, 2023
posted by kathrynm at 4:06 PM on August 23, 2023
The more I learn about projectionists of yore, the more amazed I am with how technical that job actually was.
The flip side of that is that if you go to a 70mm screening today, you are rolling the dice every 20 minutes. We saw Oppenheimer in 70mm at our local independent theater, and they upcharged the tickets by $10 each for that privilege. I was OK with that extra cost, until the projectionist completely blew one of the reel transitions. The frame alignment was waaaay off for a whole minute (so, split in half vertically) and the picture was out of focus for five minutes until multiple people got up to go get staff attention. Five minutes! Are you not looking at the screen?! Oh, wait, you're looking at a screen, but it's your phone ....
If they're going to charge extra for it, then staff it competently. I'll give it another shot but then I'm just sticking to digital.
q*ben, an enormous amount of technical work goes into all of the audio and video that you consume. Audio in the film perfs is just one of the earliest examples. Some of the craziest stuff involves cue triggering for commercials, signals that are embedded in the video that tell the machines when they can cut to commercial. Ditto for closed captioning, V-chip data, and on and on. A dozen bitrates for every media essence (video, audio left, audio right ... OK mostly just for video) so that you can keep watching when your internet signal suddenly gets crappy. Billions and billions of dollars. Kilowatts of power in those video encoders. Reams of paper for standards documents. I thought everybody knew this! (j/k)
posted by intermod at 9:14 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
The flip side of that is that if you go to a 70mm screening today, you are rolling the dice every 20 minutes. We saw Oppenheimer in 70mm at our local independent theater, and they upcharged the tickets by $10 each for that privilege. I was OK with that extra cost, until the projectionist completely blew one of the reel transitions. The frame alignment was waaaay off for a whole minute (so, split in half vertically) and the picture was out of focus for five minutes until multiple people got up to go get staff attention. Five minutes! Are you not looking at the screen?! Oh, wait, you're looking at a screen, but it's your phone ....
If they're going to charge extra for it, then staff it competently. I'll give it another shot but then I'm just sticking to digital.
q*ben, an enormous amount of technical work goes into all of the audio and video that you consume. Audio in the film perfs is just one of the earliest examples. Some of the craziest stuff involves cue triggering for commercials, signals that are embedded in the video that tell the machines when they can cut to commercial. Ditto for closed captioning, V-chip data, and on and on. A dozen bitrates for every media essence (video, audio left, audio right ... OK mostly just for video) so that you can keep watching when your internet signal suddenly gets crappy. Billions and billions of dollars. Kilowatts of power in those video encoders. Reams of paper for standards documents. I thought everybody knew this! (j/k)
posted by intermod at 9:14 PM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]
Holy crap. loquacious! Those three videos on how Kodak makes film are AMAZING! Maybe worthy of an FPP on their own.
posted by hippybear at 4:05 PM on August 28, 2023
posted by hippybear at 4:05 PM on August 28, 2023
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I saw the Hateful Eight roadshow when it came to London's Leicester Square and yeah, we got dressed up, coveted the programmes and I remember it fondly as a true experience. People chatted during the intermission about what might happen next. You wouldn't get that in any other presentation.
posted by Molesome at 7:27 AM on August 23, 2023 [2 favorites]