The Dark Knight: Filmed In IMAX

[Woochifer]

The Dark Knight is the only summer movie that I'm really looking forward to. And the early reviews are already debating whether this is the greatest comic book movie of all time, whether Heath Ledger should get an Oscar nomination, whether it ranks among the great recent crime thrillers like Heat and Goodfellas, and whether it's among the greatest sequels ever made (reviews are already mentioning it alongside Godfather, Part II and Empire Strikes Back). High praise, and quite a bit of hype to live up to.

I've been especially looking forward to the IMAX screenings, as Batman Begins was amazing to see in IMAX. Well, now there's even more incentive to catch The Dark Knight in IMAX. It turns out that the major action sequences (about 20% of the total film length) were filmed using 70mm IMAX cameras.

AND these scenes that were filmed using the large IMAX film format will be shown at full resolution on the entire IMAX screen! :yikes:

Anyone who has seen one of those large format IMAX documentaries knows how spectacular they look, as they were filmed and screened using the 70mm/15 perf format, just like these scenes in The Dark Knight.

The IMAX screenings are already a great experience with Hollywood films because of the DMR mastering, the powerful projector lamps, and the 24-bit uncompressed audio. But, now you got actual scenes that use the full resolution and screen height of the IMAX format. Can't wait!

Those scenes shot in 35mm will be centered on the print, and screened in the same 2.40:1 aspect ratio as the regular theatrical screenings, which is what you want (the IMAX version of Attack of the Clones was almost unwatchable because it was basically a pan & scan print blown up onto a large screen).

American Cinematographer has a great article on why The Dark Knight went with IMAX. The cinematographer says that they simply wanted higher resolution for those action sequences, and did some comparison tests. The bottomline is that even on a 35mm theatrical print, the scenes filmed in IMAX will have less grain and greater resolution. He also points out the irony that they chose to go in the opposite direction from other filmmakers that have chosen to work with digital cameras that have even lower resolution than 35mm film. Anyway, here's the link.

http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynamic/July2008/TheDarkKnight/page1.php

P.S. Make sure that your local IMAX theater is actually showing an IMAX DMR print, rather than just projecting a standard 35mm print onto the IMAX screen! Some people on this board in the past have called IMAX overrated, citing examples like Lord of the Rings or Revenge of the Sith, which were never actually released with IMAX prints. A 35mm print projected onto an IMAX screen will often look grainy and dark, depending on the quality of the print and the projector. So, be aware of that when looking out for those IMAX screenings!

[L.J.]

Wooch thanks for the info! I'll have to read that article later. Last movie I saw at IMAX was Superman Returns. Great experience and was worth every penny. The sound was simply outstanding. I'm really looking forward to seeing this on IMAX.

Do you go to the one in Frisco or Dublin? Those are the only 2 that I know of. I've only been the one in Dublin though. It's maybe a 45 min. drive. Not too bad.

[Woochifer]

Wooch thanks for the info! I'll have to read that article later. Last movie I saw at IMAX was Superman Returns. Great experience and was worth every penny. The sound was simply outstanding. I'm really looking forward to seeing this on IMAX.

Do you go to the one in Frisco or Dublin? Those are the only 2 that I know of. I've only been the one in Dublin though. It's maybe a 45 min. drive. Not too bad.

I live closer to the Dublin Crossing IMAX screen (more importantly, so does our little girl's babysitter/grandpa!), so I'll probably head over there next weekend (many of this weekend's IMAX screenings at Dublin are already sold out). Aside from San Francisco Metreon, there's also the IMAX screen at the San Jose Tech Museum (though I don't think it's showing The Dark Knight). But, that's a dome screen, so I would not recommend that theater, unless you're one of the lucky ones sitting in the middle of the last row!

The nice thing about IMAX is that all of the flat-screen theaters are built to comparable specs (some are larger than others, but all of them use the same proportions and speaker alignments, and projection equipment), so you should get a similarly stellar experience no matter which IMAX theater you choose

Looking at the IMAX list, looks like it's also showing at the IMAX screens in Sacramento and Fresno. Got quite a few theaters within an hour's drive!

http://www.imax.com/ImaxWeb/comingSoonMovieTheater.do?movieID=code__.__448&displayComingSoonMovieTheater=true

Oh, and incidentally recall that Superman Returns was filmed using digital cameras, which The Dark Knight cinematographer decries for their lower resolution ... scary to think how much better The Dark Knight can look when you think of how good everything else shot using IMAX 70/15 film looks!

[Groundbeef]

Sounds tempting.

I think I'm just gonna rent it, and watch it on my 13" Black and White CRT. With the single little speaker on the front that sort of warbles when audio passes through.

That ought to do it justice.








(I'm gonna see it in the theater...no IMAX for 180miles though :cryin: )

[Kam]

done and DONE! i am so there! gonna try and go opening night but i think imax tix are already sold out? i gotta check, i may try and make an early morning imax show to avoid to crazy a scramble.

[L.J.]

I live closer to the Dublin Crossing IMAX screen (more importantly, so does our little girl's babysitter/grandpa!), so I'll probably head over there next weekend (many of this weekend's IMAX screenings at Dublin are already sold out). Aside from San Francisco Metreon, there's also the IMAX screen at the San Jose Tech Museum (though I don't think it's showing The Dark Knight). But, that's a dome screen, so I would not recommend that theater, unless you're one of the lucky ones sitting in the middle of the last row!

The nice thing about IMAX is that all of the flat-screen theaters are built to comparable specs (some are larger than others, but all of them use the same proportions and speaker alignments, and projection equipment), so you should get a similarly stellar experience no matter which IMAX theater you choose

Looking at the IMAX list, looks like it's also showing at the IMAX screens in Sacramento and Fresno. Got quite a few theaters within an hour's drive!

http://www.imax.com/ImaxWeb/comingSoonMovieTheater.do?movieID=code__.__448&displayComingSoonMovieTheater=true

Oh, and incidentally recall that Superman Returns was filmed using digital cameras, which The Dark Knight cinematographer decries for their lower resolution ... scary to think how much better The Dark Knight can look when you think of how good everything else shot using IMAX 70/15 film looks!


Yeah, I'll probably wait a week or two. Probably gonna stick with Dublin....That Red Robin across the street has a burger with my name on it :p

Thanks for the info.

[Rich-n-Texas]

The Dark Knight is the only summer movie that I'm really looking forward to. And the early reviews are already debating whether this is the greatest comic book movie of all time, whether Heath Ledger should get an Oscar nomination, whether it ranks among the great recent crime thrillers like Heat and Goodfellas, and whether it's among the greatest sequels ever made (reviews are already mentioning it alongside Godfather, Part II and Empire Strikes Back). High praise, and quite a bit of hype to live up to.
I had Ebert and Roper on the bedroom TV last night and this is almost exactly the same thing the two critics were saying. I don't know where the nearest IMAX theater is but I can't WAIT for this movie to open.

[anamorphic96]

The Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood with it's 80' wide screen and DLP presentation is going to be my theater of choice for this one.

I'm still not all that impressed with IMAX presentations. Even when they strike 70mm prints it's not that impressive to me. Even the sound is not that impressive. It's loud but that's about it.

[Woochifer]

The Arclight Cinerama Dome in Hollywood with it's 80' wide screen and DLP presentation is going to be my theater of choice for this one.

I'm still not all that impressed with IMAX presentations. Even when they strike 70mm prints it's not that impressive to me. Even the sound is not that impressive. It's loud but that's about it.

I'm in the opposite camp from you -- I've not been impressed with DLP theater projection, especially on large screens. It might be free from flecks and look brighter on a smaller screen, but to me it just doesn't look as lifelike as a good 35mm presentation. On the 60' widescreen at the Mann Westwood Village theater, the DLP projector looks noticeably darker than with film projection even though that screen uses a silver emulsion that brightens up the image. I've seen many movies at that theater over the years, and both of the digitally projected movies I saw there were a big step down from the 70mm and 35mm presentations I was used to.

IMAX screens are typically about 90' wide, and I've seen both 35mm and IMAX 70mm/15 presentations at IMAX theaters. With IMAX DMR prints, it's no contest as far as the resolution goes. Batman Begins was absolutely stunning in its image clarity in IMAX. And with The Dark Knight we're now talking about 20% of the movie being shot and shown in the full 70mm/15 perf resolution and using the full IMAX screen size. If you've ever marveled at an IMAX documentary film or any movie filmed and projected in 70mm, we're now talking about a studio movie being filmed and projected in that kind of large format -- and no digital format can even come close to that kind of resolution.

As far as the sound goes, I'm surprised that your impression is that an IMAX theater is just loud. In my experience, the imaging and surround effect that you get at an IMAX theater is far more three-dimensional than just about any standard or THX-approved auditorium. This is because the IMAX theaters cluster the surround speakers into the corners, just like you'd find with a home theater 5.1 alignment. They don't use the conventional speaker arrays along the walls because the flat-screen IMAX auditoriums are all built to similar dimensions, and optimized for that kind of clustered speaker alignment.

The IMAX documentary films take this into account with how the sound mixes are done. That's why the DVDs of IMAX films have such a stunning surround effect -- because the mix is already optimized to a 5.1 alignment, rather than a soundstage with multiple rows of surround speakers.

Even after the acoustical renovations, the Cinerama Dome still has issues with the sound, even though I absolutely love the sensation of motion that the curved Cinerama screen (which I actually thought was 70' wide) provides during action scenes. IMO, the other black box auditoriums at the Arclight Cinemas are about as good I've ever heard from a conventional theater sound system. I love how they do the Arclight, but there are no comparable theaters up here, and

[66Lincoln]

I think just the movie in general is going to be amazing. Any screen you end up watching it on just becomes an added perk :). Can't wait for it on Blu-Ray already!

[anamorphic96]

I'm in the opposite camp from you -- I've not been impressed with DLP theater projection, especially on large screens. It might be free from flecks and look brighter on a smaller screen, but to me it just doesn't look as lifelike as a good 35mm presentation. On the 60' widescreen at the Mann Westwood Village theater, the DLP projector looks noticeably darker than with film projection even though that screen uses a silver emulsion that brightens up the image. I've seen many movies at that theater over the years, and both of the digitally projected movies I saw there were a big step down from the 70mm and 35mm presentations I was used to.

IMAX screens are typically about 90' wide, and I've seen both 35mm and IMAX 70mm/15 presentations at IMAX theaters. With IMAX DMR prints, it's no contest as far as the resolution goes. Batman Begins was absolutely stunning in its image clarity in IMAX. And with The Dark Knight we're now talking about 20% of the movie being shot and shown in the full 70mm/15 perf resolution and using the full IMAX screen size. If you've ever marveled at an IMAX documentary film or any movie filmed and projected in 70mm, we're now talking about a studio movie being filmed and projected in that kind of large format -- and no digital format can even come close to that kind of resolution.

As far as the sound goes, I'm surprised that your impression is that an IMAX theater is just loud. In my experience, the imaging and surround effect that you get at an IMAX theater is far more three-dimensional than just about any standard or THX-approved auditorium. This is because the IMAX theaters cluster the surround speakers into the corners, just like you'd find with a home theater 5.1 alignment. They don't use the conventional speaker arrays along the walls because the flat-screen IMAX auditoriums are all built to similar dimensions, and optimized for that kind of clustered speaker alignment.

The IMAX documentary films take this into account with how the sound mixes are done. That's why the DVDs of IMAX films have such a stunning surround effect -- because the mix is already optimized to a 5.1 alignment, rather than a soundstage with multiple rows of surround speakers.

Even after the acoustical renovations, the Cinerama Dome still has issues with the sound, even though I absolutely love the sensation of motion that the curved Cinerama screen (which I actually thought was 70' wide) provides during action scenes. IMO, the other black box auditoriums at the Arclight Cinemas are about as good I've ever heard from a conventional theater sound system. I love how they do the Arclight, but there are no comparable theaters up here, and

To each his own I guess. Yes the IMAX theatres have better resolution. But DLP is not bad at all. Even on the larger screens. The newer DLP projectors have made huge improvements in light output. But as far as light output, and how uniform that light is on screen, DLP smokes IMAX. Every inch of the screen in the Dome is achieving a measured 16 foot lamberts on screen. Every single IMAX house I have been in including Dublin has poor light output especially around the sides. I have been at Dublin when they have put new lamps in the IMAX projectors and the light output is still rather mediocre and uneven. The IMAX experience is not bad it's just doesn't do much for me.

I have probably watched over 75 movies at the Dome and the black box auditoriums and consider those auditoriums to have some of the finest sound in the country. The actual sub bass system in the Dome has a flat response below 20hz and was custom designed by JBL. It actually exceeds the Dolby specifications for sub bass output of 113 db when playing digital soundtracks. No other public cinema in Hollywood is capable of this. Including the Westwood single screens and Chinese.

I have actually been lucky enough to spend some time with engineers at Dolby and everyone agrees the Dome is superior in projection and sound to everything in Hollywood. The only thing that comes close in picture and sound is the Chinese. They like the Westwood theaters but they don't come close to Arclight's presentations. In fact they consider the Village and Chinese the two hardest theaters to EQ due to the poor acoustics. However Mann has spent more on the Chinese's acoustics than the Village due to the studios helping finance these upgrades. Mann theaters is notoriously cheap except when it comes to the Chinese. Probably due to the number of premiers held there compared to the Village.

[Auricauricle]

Am looking forward to it...Will wait for the DVD and Netflix...

We're tired of the ever increasing cost and kiddie-rama of moviegoing, these days. At home, we can enjoy the shows....Okay, okay!! A great movie is hard to beat, you win! Happy?

In their infinite wisdom, the city fathers or some misbegotten bunch of cretins closed the IMAX in our fair city. Had to watch "March of the Penguins" on the couch....

[Woochifer]

To each his own I guess. Yes the IMAX theatres have better resolution. But DLP is not bad at all. Even on the larger screens. The newer DLP projectors have made huge improvements in light output. But as far as light output, and how uniform that light is on screen, DLP smokes IMAX. Every inch of the screen in the Dome is achieving a measured 16 foot lamberts on screen. Every single IMAX house I have been in including Dublin has poor light output especially around the sides. I have been at Dublin when they have put new lamps in the IMAX projectors and the light output is still rather mediocre and uneven. The IMAX experience is not bad it's just doesn't do much for me.

Indeed, it's preferences and priorities, I definitely scrutinize the resolution more than the evenness of the light output. The only time that I thought that DLP projection looked decent was on a smaller screen. Every other time, it's been disappointing. Aside from the insufficient light output, on the bigger screens the image just looked fake and lacked depth. Of course, the real culprit might actually be the digital cameras used to film Superman Returns and Revenge of the Sith.

For The Dark Knight however, the IMAX screening will reveal more of the image area that the IMAX cameras captured, and at a much higher resolution (if this is anything like what I've seen from movies made in 70mm or IMAX 70/15 documentaries, it will be jaw droppingly vivid -- I can't imagine DLP even coming close). The standard 2.40:1 screenings are getting panned/scanned versions of those action scenes. To me, that's reason enough to opt for the IMAX screening.


I have probably watched over 75 movies at the Dome and the black box auditoriums and consider those auditoriums to have some of the finest sound in the country. The actual sub bass system in the Dome has a flat response below 20hz and was custom designed by JBL. It actually exceeds the Dolby specifications for sub bass output of 113 db when playing digital soundtracks. No other public cinema in Hollywood is capable of this. Including the Westwood single screens and Chinese.

I agree with you on the black box auditoriums -- right up there with the best I've experienced first hand. But, the dome itself still has issues with the sound dispersion and the surround effect. Much improved from before, but still problematic.

As far as bass goes, the Village Theater actually used to have a custom built subwoofer array up front near the screen. This was deep loud bass that never seemed excessive. That sub inexplicably got removed a few years ago, and it's not been the same since! :sad:

When they first installed it during their THX upgrade, they removed the first three rows of seats. I believe it used the same model Cerwin Vega subwoofers that were originally moved into the Village and Chinese for Sensurround features (I believe we're talking about 130 db @ <15 Hz). These subs were capable of creating structural damage (and the Sensurround screenings of Earthquake at the Chinese actually caused portions of the ceiling to fall onto the seats below -- they had to install a safety net to keep people from getting hurt by falling debris during the movie!). I liked the guttural punch that those subs packed, and I never got the sense that they were pushed anywhere close to their limits during even the loudest action scenes.

The Village Theater has really gone downhill (the Bruin Theater across the street has slid even worse). Seems that every renovation that Mann has done over the past 10+ years has further eroded the presentation quality. At one point, the Village Theater was THX's showcase/lab theater (even if the auditorium supposedly doesn't even meet THX's acoustical standards). All of the new digital audio formats debuted at the Village before they went elsewhere, and any movie available in 70mm would get screened there in 70mm. You even had a lighted sign in the lobby that listed every component used in the sound system!

I read that the Village only has three years left on its lease, so who knows what will happen at that point. It's obvious that Mann's no longer committed to keeping that theater's presentation quality state-of-the-art.


I have actually been lucky enough to spend some time with engineers at Dolby and everyone agrees the Dome is superior in projection and sound to everything in Hollywood. The only thing that comes close in picture and sound is the Chinese. They like the Westwood theaters but they don't come close to Arclight's presentations. In fact they consider the Village and Chinese the two hardest theaters to EQ due to the poor acoustics. However Mann has spent more on the Chinese's acoustics than the Village due to the studios helping finance these upgrades. Mann theaters is notoriously cheap except when it comes to the Chinese. Probably due to the number of premiers held there compared to the Village.

It's interesting, because I'm not much of a fan of the Chinese either, though it seems that the projection is better than when the booth was downstairs right up on the back row of seats. When I was living in L.A., I always thought that the sound systems at the Westwood theaters surpassed what the Chinese was using. I believe that their equipment was comparable to what the National Theater installed, but the acoustics at the (now shuttered) National were much better. Obviously, that's no longer the case.

Last movie I saw at the Chinese was The Matrix Revolutions. This was right after it reopened, and I thought that the sound was really brittle and harsh, which is the opposite of the blander sound it had pre-renovation. That was the same first impression I had at the Dome when I saw Minority Report, though subsequent movies I've seen at the Dome have been better. But, at the Arclight, I do prefer the black box auditoriums' sound, though I will often choose the Dome simply because of that Cinerama screen.

It's unfortunate that those great theaters in Westwood have been left to go into a long-term decline, but the audiences have been shrinking for years. The first sign was when the AVCO Center in the mid-90s chopped the main auditorium in half. That large auditorium was where THX made its debut, and it had great sightlines, impeccable acoustics, razor sharp projection, and about as well balanced a sound system as I'd ever heard. The two halved auditoriums still meet THX standards, but they flat out suck (overly narrow, asymmetrical seating arrangements, plus the last time I was there, they were using Bose acoustic wave cannons as subwoofers ... ick!).

Before the dawn of the megaplexes, Westwood Village had the densest concentration of movie theaters in the country. But, just in this decade, you've had 9 screens in Westwood Village go dark, and there might be more to come. Unfortunately, with the economics of movie theaters, the only way to keep a grand movie palace like the Village viable might be to build a 20-screen megaplex around it, and wipe out all the other single-screen theaters in the area.