Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This simply sounds too cool for school. I’m glad El Fishbulb Diablo took the time to write this up, even if it’s not the sort of thing we normally run. Right now, there’s a lot of pressure inside the industry to find things that will force people back into the theater, things that they can’t reproduce at home, experiences that demand the biggest possible screen. This sounds like that exact sort of thing. Check this out:
Hola Cool Crew,
The Bulb is back to shine some light on one possible future in the way we will come to experience mind blowing Theatrical presentations.
Keeping with the Knowles-invented style of Geeko Journalism, I'll give you a bit of a rundown of the day that led me toward the world's biggest movie screen and the floor that so comfortably held my jaw.
Driving to the top of a ten thousand foot peak in the Japanese Alps was a new way to spend a Sunday morning for me. The views were bright green, glorious, and ultimately rejuvenating. Away from the unnerving crowds that I would later tower over like a giant white Bishop on a chess board of Asians, I stood in the calming wind and silently breathed the oxygen-thin air.
Unfortunately, due to a tight schedule that I had no control over, my time of peace was brief and I soon found myself in the back seat of my wife's supervisor's car, slamming down a ramen-shaped road of winding nausea toward our eventual destination: The 2005 World Expo in Aichi Japan.
The Expo site is larger than any city I've ever lived in (apart from San Diego...maybe) and the crowds were as thick as an Armenian's pubes. The rain was driving down the small of my back and the Japanese excuse for Bratwurst was a fucking joke. I had grown as irritable as a crack baby in the dead of night.
The aforementioned Supervisor insisted we attend the Most Popular presentation first. Normally, my wife and I would avoid the most popular areas in this type of event like a Republican Convention as the majority of folks tend to be screaming wankers and therefore what is "popular" is rarely cool. However, this man had been kind enough to drive the necessary eight hours to get us to the site as well as plan the entire trip (which is helpful, what with my total illiteracy in Japanese), so we went along with him.
And Goddamn am I glad I did!
Not knowing what this event held in store, imagine the geek heaven that slapped at my brain as I entered a movie theater with the largest screen in the history of the planet! The annoyance melted like ice cream in hell and I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what would appear on that 500 square meters of white perfection.
The presentation itself fit nicely into the environmental theme of the Expo as a series of natural landscapes and images of humanity around the world were displayed. The level of clarity on display was more striking than even the enormity of what I was seeing.
Imagine HDTV as an out of focus camera lens. Think of IMAX as a squat box.
This is the ultimate in ultra-widescreen, laser precision clarity. While I can't imagine any theaters being built for this format in less than five years, the possibilities for a whole new array of cinematic experiences is deafening to my imagination.
Beginning with documentaries on the natural world, not unlike what I witnessed, we would be able to see the distant intricacies of our world like never before.
I can't help but think of something like Lord of the Rings filmed in this format. The depth of picture felt wholly real and the images in the distance were as sharp as what was clearly in the foreground. Digital animation could become something we have never imagined.
I can only hope that Sony continues to develop this technology with the film-loving world in mind. We need people working on new ways to blow our mind like high priced brain whores.
Though minimal, the laser projection system is not without it's flaws. The three cameras projecting onto one screen, while advertised as "seamless," did indeed leave a visible overlap of light. Thankfully, this was only noticeable during shots of black like the outer space sequences and I'm sure it could be perfected in time.
To begin a day in the middle of the natural world only to end it by seeing a flawless presentation of that same world using state of the art technology leaves me breathlessly happy to be both alive and a geek.
Check out this site for more info, but don't let that picture of the screen fool you, it feels much bigger in person.
For those of you about to scream Sony Plant ("always fucking naysaying! Everything I create....you piece of shit!") I will now deny being a plant, mineral, or even entirely animal.
I am El Fishbulb Diablo, a Joint Venture of Matsumura Fishworks, Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern, and Beelzebub.
And it sounds like you were mightily impressed. When I went to Lightstorm to see their demo of Digital 3D projection using a 4K projector, I was fairly blown away, but I know that’s just the tip of the... er... iceberg... when it comes to what sort of exhibition treats lay in store for us in the next ten years. It’s going to have to evolve if theaters hope to compete with increasingly good home presentation, and this sounds like a step in the right direction. Thanks again for the report, man.
"Moriarty" out.
