IMAX Under the Sea 3D

[The Publisher]

Well, I just saw the IMAX Under the Sea 3D.

Shot in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Australia, the movie is about 45 minutes long and required the special 3d glasses handed out.

I personally am not sold on 3d and think it interferes with the sharpness of the IMax format, which is typically 5K, or 5 times the resolution of a typical 1080 HDV videocamera.

I was annoyed by the artificial sound effects added every time some marine animal snapped up another. They also took some artistic license and in referring to dead reefs ostensibly caused by global warming, they turn off the IMax film camera and there was no color correction in post, so it looked blue and gloomy.

As a videographer I did appreciate just how much effort they went to to get certain shots. Like the stonefish snapping up a fish shot took 6 hours of waiting. The frogfish eating a fish must have taken forever too.

The sea dragon animals were stunning, one of these days I need to get some footage of that.

I think the movie will be a great vehicle to raise marine protection awareness to the masses, and I would encourage all to go see it.

They do have a fun marine animal facts game here although I disagreed with some of the answers.

[acelockco]

Imax did the same thing with their other underwater production "Deep Sea" as far as the sound effects that they added. The funny thing is the majority of the sound effects were so unbelievable. The image quality of that film is epic though (and not 3-D). Even on DVD the quality looks amazing. Check it out if you have not seen it yet.

I can't imagine how much time must have been spent trying to get this film done with only 3 minutes of shoot time per dive. And on top of that the size and weight of the equipment. Well, on the up side, they get to do a LOT of dives to get the shots! Great Job Howard and Michele!

[Jon Shaw]

IMAX 3D (underwater) is actually pretty poor for resolution due to both cameras shoot through a flat port and the chromatic aberration is very limiting.
IMAX is a format which is extremely over rated in my opinion... wait till people shoot with EPIC two camera 3D with a high quality (and appropriate size) dome.... then you will have something which is breathtaking!!!

[The Publisher]

Ace, I agree, I would have preferred to see it in non-3d. IMAX has a resolution of about 5k. I think with Red, it will go the way of the dinosaur, as the pending Scarlets lowest resolution will be 3k, and as Jon mentioned, they will go up to 25K, FIVE TIMES the resolution of IMAX.

[acelockco]

Well, what the heck why isn't there anything out there for us to see yet? You guys seem to know what needs to be done, come on someone take charge here.

[Jon Shaw]

I am actually working with a guy on a wildlife feature film as we speak... It is being shot on RED one and Epic when it comes out. It isn't 3D but it will be amazing. We have just finished the first part of the shoot and looking at the dailies I'm very excited.... it's gonna be awesome.
I'll keep you posted...

[acelockco]

GREAT! I am looking forward to seeing the results.