Harry Potter and the Magically enhanced film Summary:
A news reporter who saw PoA at IMAX said that all it is, is the film version on a bigger screen
Article:
Thanks to Wizardnews
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One of the biggest kicks of working at a newspaper is reading how much effort is put into press releases. A lot of times, they are strongly reminiscent of a college term paper — littered with unrecognizable terms, quotes too well-crafted to actually be said and filler, lots and lots of filler.
The latest press release to cross my desk was sent from the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg, which announced the arrival of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The IMAX Experience."
Sounds cool, doesn't it? An already entertaining and visually enhanced movie inflated to a six-story screen and doused with 12,000 watts of digital sound.
Convinced it would be "the world's most powerful and involving film experience" — so says the press release — I checked out the movie last weekend. I left the movie fairly certain my $12.50 wasn't wasted. But then I realized all I saw was "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" blown up to a larger screen.
Here's what the press release said: "This isn't just a case of taking a 35-mm feature film and projecting it on a bigger screen. DMR (Digitally re-mastering technology) goes through the film frame-by-frame and, instead of just enlarging the image — a process that would increase the celluloid's grain — actually reconfigures it to achieve maximum clarity."
OK, so basically, you blew the film up to a larger screen?
I'm pretty sure everyone at the IMAX theater this weekend didn't notice or didn't care to notice the reconfigured celluloid's grain. Nor do they really care about the work done to inflate the movie on a larger film platter.
Not to slam the hard-working "Harry Potter" image technicians, but all they did was stretch the film and make every image normal again.
Regular IMAX movies are shot with special cameras that engage audiences and make them feel they are swimming in the screen, watching the movie at 360 degrees. The first time we've seen an IMAX, our eyes were tired because there were so many visuals to see, and that's the essence of IMAX.
And that's what makes those 50-minute movies fly by so fast.
Since "Harry Potter" was shot with 35-mm cameras, bewitching an IMAX audience is a tough spell to learn. And learn is the key word here.
Since IMAX technology is still new and developing, the IMAX industry and the Whitaker Center deserve a break. The Whitaker was one of only a handful of IMAX theaters in the country that screened the latest "Harry Potter" flick. And props for finding a movie everyone in the family can enjoy.
The day when authentic IMAX full-length movies air isn't too far away, and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The IMAX Experience" is definitely a good start.
But next time, perhaps toning down the press release would be a more honest approach.
York Daily Record