Cinemas supersize movie magic
Giant screens one way operators are enticing film fans
Movies are meant to be seen in cinemas, with darkness on all sides and a bright screen in front, with speakers creating a cocoon of sound, with fellow audience members heightening tension and amplifying laughs.
Christopher Nolan’s was a movie made to be seen in cinemas, its crystal clear images blown up to the biggest size possible, its bone-rattling bombing runs inspiring involuntary flinches of terror. be seen on the biggest screen possible, where its stunning vistas and complicated sound design can be seen and heard most effectively. But making sure that experience is good for everyone can be tricky. Cinema operators, perhaps recognising the opportunity presented to draw casual filmgoers back, met the challenge.
Warner Bros domestic distribution president Jeff Goldstein repeatedly highlighted the importance to Warner Bros of showing in the way that best shows off Nolan’s vision as a filmmaker — a key concern for studios who remain committed to theatrical distribution even as streaming increases in prominence.
Consider the case of Amazon, a studio that, in theory, has the infrastructure and customer base to skip cinemas entirely and stream straight to homes. Unlike Netflix — whose executives openly sneer at theatrical exhibition — Amazon has stepped up its distribution efforts. This has a great deal of appeal to the people behind the cameras.
“Filmmakers want to go where they feel their work is respected and where a company has the resources to deliver on their vision,” Christine Vachon, the founder of Killer Films, told
industry mag covered Amazon’s increased efforts at distribution. “Amazon is delivering on all counts.”
But getting films into cinemas is only half the battle: You have to make the experience worthwhile for audiences.
“It’s one thing to advertise a show time and have a patron go to a theatre — you want to make sure that they’re seeing the perfect version every single time that movie’s shown,” Goldstein said.
Enter the team at Imax, which
Filmmakers want to go where they feel their work is respected and where a company has the resources to deliver on their vision. Christine Vachon, founder Killer Films
has emerged as the gold standard in exhibition over the past decade or two. In addition to properly training cinema workers and ensuring air quality in a screening room does not degrade the equipment, Imax focuses on oftignored technical matters.
If something goes wrong at a cinema, Imax employees can fix it almost immediately because the company has a command centre that monitors the quality of projection in real time.
“All of our systems are connected to our INOC — our Imax Network Operations Centre — and they’re wired to that centre through the internet,” said Colin Smyth, Imax’s senior vicepresident of global theatre services. “So for example, if a system calibration failed in a theatre in China . . . we would take action on that.”
An Imax spokesperson added: “When you look at a filmmaker like Christopher Nolan — I think I can, I don’t want to put words in his mouth — but you know we can guarantee filmmakers of that calibre, like J.J. Abrams, your Zack Snyders, they’re not creating movies for you to watch them on a mobile phone or even a laptop. They are, we like to say, they dream in Imax.”
But if you want audiences to share the dream in a cinema, then ensuring the highest-quality experience needs to be a bigger priority.