70mm has a higher resolution than both 35mm and 4K DCP. It captures a bigger, brighter picture, complete with a broader color range and detailed, vibrant visuals. However, by the mid-'90s, showing films in 70mm began to die down, years before showing films on 35mm began to die down.
Because it's twice as large as 35mm, films in 70mm would often be in very wide formats and because you're shooting on larger negatives you get a bigger, brighter, and more detailed and vivid picture.
70mm film is a higher quality film than digital, providing a richer visual experience and extremely detailed images. However, the equipment to transport, store, and play 70mm film is expensive, bulky, and difficult to manipulate.
IMAX 15/70 frame is, therefore, 8.3x larger than 35mm and 3.4 times larger than 70mm – and the result is unprecedented quality. This large frame allows much more fine detail to be captured, delivering richer colors and greater contrast.
However, unlike Oppenheimer, which was shot on IMAX film cameras, Dune: Part Two was “Filmed for IMAX” – that is, acquired on IMAX-certified digital cameras. Only 12 theaters worldwide are fortunate enough to be getting a 15/70mm film print (compared to 30 for Oppenheimer).
IMAX 70mm explained by Christopher Nolan | Oppenheimer
Is Dune 2 entirely IMAX?
Filmed for IMAX, "Dune: Part Two" was shot entirely with IMAX digital cameras and features IMAX-exclusive 1:90.1 expanded aspect ratio, as well as IMAX-exclusive 1:43.1 expanded aspect ratio in select locations.
Oppenheimer was filmed in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film. For the first time ever, sections were filmed in IMAX black and white analogue photography during backwards time shifting in the story.
Film as film was intended. The ultimate analogue viewing experience is IMAX 70mm – the film format Nolan shot Oppenheimer on. The digital equivalent of this would be no less than 18K. It just doesn't get any more high-res than that.
How would I describe seeing the 70mm IMAX film print of Oppenheimer? Well, if you've ever looked through ground glass on a medium or large format camera when doing photography, imagine viewing that image at the scale of a small building. Scenes shot in the 1.43:1 IMAX film format are astoundingly beautiful.
The IMAX film standard uses 70 mm film run through the projector horizontally. This technique produces an area that is about 8.3 times as large as the 35 mm format, and about 3.4 times as large as 70 mm film run through the projector vertically. The desire to increase the visual impact of film has a long history.
IMAX. A horizontal variant of 70 mm, with an even bigger picture area, is used for the high-performance IMAX format which uses a frame that is 15 perforations wide on 70 mm film.
Select IMAX theatres will be offering the IMAX Experience featuring 15 perf/70mm film projection which combines the brightest, clearest images at 10 times the resolution of standard projection formats, with powerful, laser-aligned digital sound and customized theatre geometry to create the world's most immersive movie ...
The large format 65-70mm film has roughly double the potential resolution of 35mm film, comparable to a 30-40 megapixel digital image. This means an IMAX film image would be comparable to a 90 – 120 megapixel digital image.
Oppenheimer is filmed in a combination of IMAX® 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography including, for the first time ever, sections in IMAX® black and white analog photography.
70mm is a film format with frames that are larger in size and wider in aspect ratio than the standard 35mm film. "From an audience standpoint, it's a much crisper, brighter, and ideally more uniform and stable image," said McLaren.
I like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor re-voice it later, which is an artistic choice that some people disagree with, and that's their right. Nolan's other excuse is that the IMAX cameras he uses for his movies can be noisy, interfering with quieter scenes.
Imax was not only a lot bigger than ordinary movies, it had higher resolution. You could lose yourself in those images, which made the format ideal for immersive documentaries like Ring of Fire, The Living Sea, and, later, Blue Planet.
While the first Dune film's IMAX presentation jumped between standard cinemascope 2.39:1 and the larger 1.43:1 format (or 1.90:1 in IMAX digital theaters), Dune: Part Two was shot entirely in the IMAX format, switching between the very tall 1.43:1 aspect ratio, and the shorter (but still taller than normal) 1.90:1 ...
The whole film is shot using IMAX cameras, so watching it on a screen that supports the expanded aspect ratio and enhanced picture quality makes it a visual treat, and the sound design in the film is begging to be appreciated through a proper cinema sound system.
As a movie shot entirely on 70mm film or 70mm IMAX film, Oppenheimer is available in a much higher resolution than others. A movie like Avengers: Infinity War, shot on IMAX Digital cameras, maxes out at 2K or 4K resolutions. But anything shot on 70mm film has a digital equivalent of 6K.
1570 Film has a native resolution of up to 16K, far higher than any other format. The combination of the superior image quality, the scale of the presentation and the natural warm tones of the film print creates a truly immersive experience. Learn more about IMAX 1570 Film.
The second, and most important reason, is that Dune: Part Two in IMAX 70mm allows viewers to more fully immerse themselves into the world of Arrakis. The images have more weight to them due to the film stock; the textures of Arrakis look grittier, and the emotions conveyed feel more raw.
