August 24th, 2008 by Simon
Eeks, it’s been a while. We’ve been traveling, you see, and my brother’s got married and my mum’s computer is so damned slow I can’t cope with it. Anyway, here are some pics of our flight to Paris. We were upgraded.
August 8th, 2008 by Simon
If we take a 2 or a 3 to an S to the C to an A to another S we can go to Rockaway Park Beach. If you are Billy, taking 10 trains so you can play in some sand is well worth it.
For me, the Diner out there almost made it worth it.
August 6th, 2008 by Simon
August 3rd, 2008 by Simon
July 28th, 2008 by Simon
I haven’t been to an IMAX cinema since I was teenager and I’ve hardly been to any kind of cinema at all this last year, so I was very excited when I sat down to The Dark Knight.
It was immense, frightening, thrilling, moving and ultimately a bit puzzling, but what interested me almost as much as the film, was seeing it at the IMAX screen. I read that it was the first feature length movie to use IMAX cameras and that they were only used for about 20 minutes of the film.
This raised a number of questions. Like how did they mix 35mm and 70mm film? (IMAX film is like 70mm film, only upended and it runs 3 times as fast). Did they shoot the IMAX sequences with an IMAX camera and a 35mm camera simultaneously, or did they crop the standard frames from the IMAX film? If so how did they compose the shots knowing they would lose chunks off the top and bottom? Would they crop the sides off the 35mm film to fill the screen and sacrifice massive amounts of resolution? And with that in mind, would the sequences shot with the IMAX cameras look significantly better? I’ve been lying awake at night pondering these questions.
When the movie began, there was no mistake the opening scene was shot with an IMAX camera. There was no visible grain whatsoever and the image stretched from the floor to the ceiling. There were aerial views of Gotham (Chicago) that were breathtaking. They were so real, in fact, I felt nauseous for the first 10 minutes of the film. I even thought I’d have to leave the cinema for a moment. Once I was over that, it was just awesome.
Apparently IMAX film has an image resolution equivalent to about 70 megapixels. Standard 35mm film weighs in at about 10-15 megapixels. When the first scene shot in 35mm began, the difference was stark. Film grain suddenly became visible and the clarity dropped significantly. All my questions about how they mixed the 2 formats were immediately answered. When the film switches to 35mm the top and bottom of the screen simply goes dark and you see the standard cinema aspect ratio. The effect is not as jarring as it might sound, though when the film transitioned from an interior shot on 35mm to an aerial shot on the IMAX camera, the sudden visibility of the bottom of the frame heightened the feeling of falling into the screen.
That snatch of Wall-E I saw a couple of weeks ago was projected using a Digital Light Projector, and whilst the image was very bright and vibrant, it was a bit too much like a big plasma screen TV for my liking. Not so much in the movie itself, but in the trailers and some of the text I saw preceding it. I am not usually a traditionalist about digital technologies, but I did much prefer the image quality at the IMAX. Projected as it is, using real film. Massive, 70mm film. So impressed was I, I am resolved to seeing everything that is released in this format at the IMAX. Take note studios - I will pay the extra $7, so please make more films like this.
In case you want to know what I thought of the film, I liked it a lot. I liked the first third, I loved the second third, and I wasn’t entirely convinced by the third third. If I were IMDB I’d have it at 8.9. I hope that isn’t too vague a review, I wouldn’t want to spoil anything for anyone.
Here’s a size comparison of IMAX film and 35mm film from slashfilm.com
Quite a difference huh?
July 26th, 2008 by Simon
Billy loves to watch YouTube clips of subway trains. He is able to navigate the videos himself, so I’ll find him one to get him going then leave him to it. Recently though, he has been wandering to places he shouldn’t. Places that seem to scare the pants off him. When he made this expression he was following the adventures of potholers down an eerie crevice. He didn’t like that one bit.
Another time, I was putting dishes in the dishwasher and he shouted with a note of quizzical concern in his voice “What am I looking at Daddy?”
When I went over, he was watching a bunch of semi-clad ladies jangling there enormous orbs in time to some very rubbish music. It seems he is more capable than some at finding exactly what he needs to see online.
July 18th, 2008 by Simon
July 13th, 2008 by Simon
Oh, how I’ve been looking forward to this movie. I showed Billy the trailer 6 months ago and he loved the look of it. It was to be our first cinema trip together.
Billy was quietly excited and nervous as we sat down. Waiting for the trailers, he started to whine that he wanted to go home, he wanted it to start, he didn’t want it to start. I politely told him to shut up.
When the trailers finally came on he clamped his hands onto his ears, shocked by the volume. He looked like someone expecting an imminent meteor strike. The only thing capable of loosening his tight grasp was a trailer for a Thomas the Tank Engine Movie. Otherwise he shrank further and further into my chest, squeezing his head with all his might.
By some miracle he lasted through all the trailers and through an animated short about a magician and his bunny. Then WALL-E began. There were sweeping panoramas of a future earth’s ravaged surface, deep golden light shining on silent brown vistas. Freed from the struggle of drawing humans or animals the animators have created an opening that looks entirely convincing and utterly breathtaking.
“Wanna go home.” Billy said.
“It’s just beginning Billy, don’t worry, you’ll like it later, trust me.”
“Don’t like it. Wanna go home.”
“But Billy, it’s the movie from the trailer we watched at home. You said you wanted to see it.”
“Want watch it at home.”
“I don’t have it at home, it is only on here.”
He was quiet again for a while. I guess he was puzzling out what I had said. How could we not have it home when he had clearly seen it at home. The tension eased somewhat as WALL-E pottered about in his house watching a bit of telly and tidying up his collection of trinkets. Every frame of the film is just gorgeous, I can’t begin to imagine the effort that goes into something like this.
Then morning came and WALL-E went outside again. Billy tensed up. Then a colossal spaceship roared into the atmosphere, so loud the whole cinema started to shake. Billy was paralyzed with terror.
“No like it Daddy, go home daddy, want go home daddy….”
“Really? We have to go home right now? Please! Really?”
“No like it. NO LIKE IT.”
“But, but, cover your ears, don’t look, it’s fine, it’ll be over in a second.”
“GO HOME! GO HOME! GO HOME!”
So we went home.
I guess I’ll wait till the DVD to find out if the rest of the film is as good as the opening. Billy has said he is willing to return to the cinema for the Thomas movie. Nothing else.
July 5th, 2008 by Simon
A Lancs lad raises his boy in Brooklyn abrooklynlad@gmail.com
