America Wild Imax

[Lee Kelly]

I had an opportunity to see this film for the opening night here in Sydney.
It was at our huge Imax theatre and 3D. I am not usually a fan of 3D and tend to flip my sunnies up and down to see if its better without them etc but I have recently changed my view, a little.
Anyway, this film was really well shot and considering the gear used, they got some very very impressive images!
As many of you on this forum are American, do yourself a favour and check out how awesome your parks are in this film format as I dont think you will regret it.

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

Lee, Do you know what cameras they used? 3D with Weapon? or perhaps the IMAX Alexa 65 3D rig like the one we have on Transformers 5? Perhaps both?

 

[Corey_O]

15 Perf 65mm

 

[Lee Kelly]

Yep theyre claiming it is all film. Pretty crazy really! The gripping alone is such a mission and some of the shots in this film will leave you asking how??? There really are some wow moments in there and its worth a look, in fact it made me really want to invest my time and money into seeing similar scale projects on the huge screen, considering there is one here in Sydney.

 

[Michael Dalton]

MaGuilvery are one of the few who own their own IMAX camera made by a European company that was bought out by IMAX about 20 years ago. The majority of the film is 15/70 film, but there are a few Red Shots in there. Gophers and some drone shots of the mountain biking. Where possible they shoot stacked cameras and stitch the images together. Although reds and F65 are used in some IMAX productions, there is a lot of work that goes into a shot to make it work in IMAX. Simply put there is just not enough vertical resolution there.

I spoke with the girl climber in the film last year at a pre-screening and she said some of the shots took between 30 minutes to 2hrs to rig. Hard for a climber to stay warm and loose.

 

[Lee Kelly]

Spoiler alert,
That waiting around for rigging may have caused her to fail a particular climb in the film.
I liked her.

 

[Scot Yount]

A little BTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrdC9BsTX4Y&feature=youtu.be

 

[Peter Chang]

Lee, Do you know what cameras they used? 3D with Weapon? or perhaps the IMAX Alexa 65 3D rig like the one we have on Transformers 5? Perhaps both?

Peter, For the time-lapse, we shot in stereo 3D with the Nikon D810. Congrats to the team for nabbing the Best Cinematography and Best Film awards this past week at the GSCA Achievement and IMAX Maximum Image Awards.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I love the idea of actually visiting America's national parks, so this film will no doubt catalyse that desire. ;-)

Now, I'm no DP, and I have not seen an IMAX film for a long time. But from what I can tell, the best IMAX cameras are not film cameras anymore, they are RED 8K cameras, whether Dragon or Helium. The sensor shape is, of course, completely wrong for IMAX, but all you have to do to fix that is to mount an anamorphic lens at 90 degrees. You end up with an almost square image, and you crop a little bit to get the aspect ratio of 15-perf 65mm. The problem of vertical flares can be resolved by using lenses which do not have the blue streak, such as lenses with rear-mounted anamorphic elements.

I also have to ask, now that film stocks are so good, why 9-perf is not preferred over 15-perf?

IMHO Filming stars with digital sensors is not a good idea. I've seen worse, but the night sky shot in the trailer was not as clean as a film shot would have been. Maybe an ideal solution would be a motorized Hasselblad with a 70mm back and intervalometer. But hey, I respect other people's tastes. I'm all for diversity.

--
P.S. I found the song in the trailer to be quite irritating. Was it really necessary?

 

[Chad Lancaster]

digital sensors for shooting the stars and milky way are waaaaay way better than shooting film. Example: Baraka and Samsara which was shot in 65mm had to shoot during a full moon because film stocks are just not sensitive enough. Watch Timescapes, a ton of videos online, or in a couple years my film "The Southwest" and you'll see the difference.

now saying that there are digital sensors being used for star shots that have too much noise and other issues but for the most part the pro's who are doing it are doing it right.

As for the film, Peter had some great shots in it but I thought the film was stale and only focused on the postcard type locations in a few select parks. Does it do its job and expose kids to the wonders of the national parks..yes...but it could've been so much more.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

now saying that there are digital sensors being used for star shots that have too much noise and other issues but for the most part the pro's who are doing it are doing it right.

I think I need to clarify. It's not noise I'm talking about, it's the inability of most sensors to deal with direct light sources. Note the CA around the stars. As I said, I've seen much worse:

http://kenrockwell.com/tech/how-to-photograph-the-milky-way.htm

I can't be totally sure but I think the Fuji sensors handle star shots better than any other. I'd have to double check.

 

[Peter Chang]

IMHO Filming stars with digital sensors is not a good idea. I've seen worse, but the night sky shot in the trailer was not as clean as a film shot would have been.

I didn't handle the post-processing on this film, but the astro shots could have been a bit cleaner.

 

[Lee Kelly]

Every film ever made will have reason to critique and my initial post about this was not to bring forward what could have been done better or worse but to suggest people check it out because I thought it was awesome. It is a small percentage of viewers who will know how to pick apart such a film but sometimes its good fun to sit back and marvel at some amazing places, shot with a limited budget, with a big budget system in some very demanding locations and conditions. Oh and enjoy the beauty of these locations, whether you know of better spots or not, factoring in logistics for such a project, of course they were going to want to show the areas you and I can visit ourselves as the driving force behind the film and the funding is to open our eyes to the wonders on your doorstep, and get people to visit and support the national parks while also inspiring people from other countries like myself to visit too.
Job done.
Also, call me an old romantic but these types of films need that extra cheese and if it didnt, it would feel too serious and aint nobody got time for serious.

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Peter, For the time-lapse, we shot in stereo 3D with the Nikon D810. Congrats to the team for nabbing the Best Cinematography and Best Film awards this past week at the GSCA Achievement and IMAX Maximum Image Awards.

Yeah congrats, some stunning stuff in there... And love those BTS Peter!