The release of the new teaser trailer for the new Superman movie duly to be released this summer has set the internet alight, with much of the discussion centered on the look and feel compared to Zack Snyders’s dark and moody take of the man of steel.
My focus though is on the “Filmed For IMAX” tagline at the end, which inevitably has caused some confusion. This means that many people, not unreasonably, will believe that the movie was captured with IMAX film cameras a la, Christopher Nolan and Jordan Peele.
This confusion was also encouraged by the comment on Threads back in March of 224 from the movie’s director that “The whole movie is shot in IMAX.” However, this warrants some explanation. IMAX has three tag lines which I will explain below.
- Shot With IMAX
This means a movie that is shot entirely, or in part, using IMAX 70mm film cameras. Chris Nolan refers to this as the “gold standard” for film, in that due to the large film frame it offers the highest quality image capture of any film format, and has a frame that is 1.43:1 – so almost fully square, which means that when shown uncropped, on a 1.43:1 screen, will have the largest, highest resolution film image possible – aka many sequences in Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, Interstellar, among others.
- Filmed For IMAX
This refers to any movie that is captured on digital cameras that have been “IMAX certified” as capturing with enough quality and resolution image to meet its standards, including the potential for full-frame 1.43:1 sequence. Examples include Eternals, The Lion King, Dune and Dune: Part Two.
- Experience in IMAX
The first refers to films that have been captured on non-IMAX certified digital cameras or regular film stock but have gone through IMAX’s proprietary Digital Media Remastering (DMR) process, that upscales and regrades the movie so it looks as good as possible on the large IMAX screens. This is typically done with the full approval and guidance of the original director. Any movie that hasn’t gone through this process can still be presented on an IMAX projector, but this will have the message, “The following movie has not been enhanced by IMAX and is not The IMAX Experience®.
For Superman (2005), the movie was shot by cinematographer Henry Braham for James Gunn on the IMAX-certified RED V-Raptor, an 8K IMAX-Certified camera. Hence, James Gunn’s comment is somewhat misleading Of course, his job is to direct movies, not to slavishly follow IMAX marketing messages, but it does indicate how IMAX marketing is an issue. If it confuses leading directors, then it will certainly confuse the public.
Whether the movie will be shown with some sequences in 1.90:1 or if any will be in 1.43:1 is unconfirmed at this time, however so we’ll have to wait and see.
Time will tell if “Superdog” in a movie makes sense. At least director James Gunn also worked with … [+]
Either way, while I’ve experienced Superhero fatigue, the new Superman trailer has got me hyped again. While I think we were given some amazing sequences thanks to Henry Cavill’s strong portrayal, his supercool suit and Hans Zimmer’s epic score, ultimately Snyder’s take on the character never quite worked overall.
And while I’m not sure I needed a Superdog in my movie life, it is evidently drawing closely on the character’s comic book origins. I’m also fearful of it being overstuffed with characters –as well as Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor (I knew that kid from About a Boy was a wrong un’! (please note – this is a joke), it also has Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern (what could possibly go wrong, he asked Ryan Reynolds), but also the characters Mr Terrific, Metamorpho and Hawkgirl. Too much?
That said, with Rachel Brosnahan in Lois Lane, who I loved in all five seasons of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel I’m willing to give it a go – even if it’s “only” been filmed with IMAX-certified digital cameras.
This post was originally published on here
