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In a tiny private theater in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, filmmaker Douglas Trumbull is screening one of his latest creations. At first, the movie looks familiar: it's footage of astronaut Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in a clip that went viral on YouTube a couple of years ago. But halfway through the song, the film shifts from Hadfield strumming his guitar in the International Space Station to 3-D shots of planets and stars so detailed that I feel as though I'm on the ISS itself, looking through its cupola windows. A huge image of Earth fills my field of view and begins rotating. I'm wearing 3-D glasses, but the picture is far brighter and sharper than is typical in 3-D movies. Next to me, people mumble things like "Completely unreal" and "Awesome."
This is Magi, a system that captures images in 3-D and "4K" ultrahigh resolution and displays the resulting frames at five times the usual rate. Trumbull developed the technology as a way to create movie experiences more immersive than regular 3-D or giant-screen IMAX—and restore the joy of going out to the movies.
[...] The movie industry could use some magic. North American box office receipts have been relatively flat for years. Many consumers prefer the convenience and affordability of watching movies on their TVs and mobile devices, especially since manufacturers keep developing sharper, brighter, more color-accurate screens.
To develop something far better, Trumbull built a studio on his sprawling Berkshires property; hired a multitasking crew that ranges from four to 50 people, depending on the project; and produced a series of demos that tested new cinematic techniques, such as how to combine different frame rates and resolution levels in one movie. On top of all that, he has created a new type of movie theater optimized for showing Magi films.
Presumably, not showing 45 minutes of TV commercials before the feature is not on the list of things that could bring some magic back to the movie industry...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 07 2016, @04:47PM
Yes it was a demo. To incite professionals to take those technologies and use them.
The current problem with movies is that the "creditable version of, say, Lord of the Rings or Spiderman" runs straight into the 9-figures range.
If you shell out that much cash, you want a return (John Carter, anyone?). So you greenlight the same boring plots seen a million times rather than risk a shiny boot quickly encountering your ass for losing those 9 figures.
And the good guys win at the end. And get the girl. Unless they were doing something really bad at the beginning, redeem themselves just before they get killed, and we get the pretty girl in tears over the orchestral music ... in supermax HDR.