What’s Happening With IMAX?

By Ron VanTimmeren
Vice President, Programming

What’s coming to the IMAX theatre at Celebration! Cinema?  That is one the most FAQ’s I get.  Right now I would like to think no further than Inception as it’s a movie made for the giant IMAX screen… mind-blowing story, spectacular visuals and awesome sound.  BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR (so far)!!

Hubble 3D
There is life after Inception.  But is there life on other planets?  Find out when Hubble 3D opens August 20.  Hubble 3D is what we call a “traditional” IMAX movie.  It’s documentary style, about 45 minutes long and produced by the award-winning IMAX Space Team.  Movie-goers will journey through distant galaxies and discover how we fit into the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings.

Sharing a Screen
At first, Hubble 3D will share the show schedule with Inception.  At the Grand Rapids Celebration! Cinema IMAX (which is a 70mm film IMAX theatre), I expect we will add more Hubble 3D shows as Inception needs less and less screen time.  At the Lansing Celebration! Cinema IMAX (remember, now a digital IMAX theatre), I expect we will mix Avatar with Hubble 3D on August 27, as the new scenes in the new release of Avatar are only going to be available in digital IMAX locations.

This will be the same issue with Resident Evil: Afterlife on September 10 and Megamind 3D on November 5: Both will only be available in digital IMAX in Lansing.

IMAX This Fall
Both Grand Rapids North and Lansing will also be opening three other great IMAX releases between now and the end of the year.   September 24, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole opens in 3D. On November 19 it’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I in 3D. And TRON: Legacy opens in 3D on December 17.

The Real IMAX Experience!
All of this info comes with the caveat “subject to change”, but one thing’s for sure… there’s no better movie-going experience than the giant IMAX Theatre.  Celebration! Cinema IMAX Grand Rapids and Lansing were both built before the “retro-fit” IMAX (some call them “fake” IMAX) screens came to market in some areas.  That means Celebration! Cinema spent millions of dollars to build the special IMAX auditorium to exact specifications to give you the ultimate immersive movie-going experience.

Transitioning to Digital IMAX at Celebration! Cinema Lansing

By Bob Brown
Chief Projectionist

In early May, the Celebration! Cinema Lansing IMAX theatre switched from the traditional film-based projection format to the latest IMAX digital format.   The transformation took about two weeks to complete.  All of the old equipment had to be removed; new projection port windows installed and new sub speakers had to be set.

The main reason behind this transition is to better serve our Lansing guest in assuring that Lansing will be showing the latest IMAX releases.  In December, Lansing was not able to receive a film print of AVATAR.  This situation made it clear to J.D. Loeks, President of Loeks Theatres, Inc. that a change needed to be made.

About the New Technology
The Digital IMAX system is based on using two 2k Christie digital projectors.  IMAX has “souped up” these projectors with their proprietary image enhancing real-time monitoring system.  This system relies on a camera that monitors the screen at all times and makes any necessary corrections to the image that you see on the screen, assuring that the show is always the best it can be.

Along with the new projectors, we upgraded the sound system by installing new amps, upgrading the current speakers with new crossovers to better reproduce the sound, and installed 16 new sub speakers.  After the speakers where upgraded, a sound engineer from IMAX “re-tuned” the speakers to the auditorium to ensure the absolute best sound reproduction for our guests.

What about the old projectors?
During the installation, the old projectors were taken out. However, during the install installation in 2003, these projectors were dropped in the booth through the ceiling using a huge crane.  We thought that we could remove these projectors, which weigh 1500 pounds using a furniture mover and lots and lots of manpower.  After some struggles, we managed to get them down from the booth and transported them to Grand Rapids where they will be used for training, a source of parts, and other uses.

See below for a gallery of some of the pictures we took during the upgrade:

Bob Brown is the chief projectionist and a certified IMAX SPP Technician at Celebration! Cinema.

Digital IMAX Projection at Celebration! Cinema Lansing

By Steve Van Wagoner
Vice President of Marketing

More than a billion people around the world have been spellbound by the force and beauty of The IMAX Experience. At Celebration! Cinema in Lansing, Michigan, movie goers have loved seeing classic IMAX movies as well as blockbuster movies on one of the biggest screens in the world. Now, Lansing’s famous IMAX theatre will be even better – beginning Friday, May 7th the Lansing IMAX theatre will be digital!

What does a digital IMAX theatre mean for Lansing’s movie goers at Celebration! Cinema? “The IMAX movie experience is unparalleled in our industry,” said J.D. Loeks, president and chief operating office for Celebration! Cinema. “The new digital projection system will allow us to make certain that the top IMAX movies are available to our guests so they can have that experience. And when they watch those movies, they will be getting the very best image and sound quality available.

Photo from IMAX.com

When ‘Avatar’ opened last December and we could not get a print for the IMAX theatre, we knew something had to change. The new digital projection system means movie distributors can provide us with a digital hard drive at a tiny fraction of the cost of film print. That means we will be able to get the hottest IMAX titles available.

The IMAX Theatre DLP® digital projection system will join the rest of the Celebration! Cinema theatres in the complex that moved to DLP® digital cinema projection in 2007. The IMAX Theatre digital projection installation project will begin Monday, April 26th and be finished by May 7th.

A recent article in Film Journal International explains some of the technical specifications of this projection system:

IMAX Digital is built on all the previously developed IMAX technologies—3D, large-format feature-length content, and lower-cost theatre designs—with the intention of bringing the same immersive IMAX experience within the reach of mainstream exhibitors. By replacing the previous 15/70 film format with an all-new digital path including a custom-designed digital projection system based on the latest generation of Texas Instruments’ DLP Cinema technology, IMAX Digital provides the most cost-effective implementation yet.

IMAX Digital currently uses two Christie-manufactured DLP Cinema projectors, although the company plans to remain technology- and vendor-agnostic to allow progressive improvements as new technologies and products become available. The two projectors are used in a unique configuration: The two images are pre-processed and projected superimposed on each other in a way that increases the image’s fidelity and quality. The light levels are set to 22FL, considerably brighter than the 14FL used in conventional auditoriums.

The projectors are fitted with special IMAX-developed lenses. IMAX has developed a proprietary closed-loop alignment system using a camera that will automatically keep the projectors precisely aligned and balanced. IMAX Digital in 3D uses both projectors to continuously overlay the left and right eye images without the time-sequential triple-flashing required in single-projector solutions. IMAX digital 3D uses circular polarized passive glasses with a proprietary silver screen.

IMAX Digital, much like the 15/70 film version, is a complete end-to-end system, where each element, process and piece of equipment has been designed and optimized to deliver the large-screen IMAX experience.

The IMAX digital projection installation project will begin Monday, April 26th and be finished by May 7th, in time for first summer blockbuster “Iron Man 2” to fill the giant screen.  All theatres equipped with IMAX digital projection systems are capable of both IMAX and IMAX 3D presentations. Technically advanced and visually stunning, the IMAX Digital Experience is the world’s most powerful and immersive movie experience!

Welcome to the Celebration! Cinema Big Screen Blog

Flick the Movie Kid

Welcome to the Big Screen Blog, the official blog for Celebration! Cinema. This will serve as one of our newer efforts to use social media tools to interact with members of our community.

What will we write about?

We have several ideas for posts that we’ll create in the upcoming weeks:

• How the IMAX and IMAX 3D technology works
• Why we show what movies we show (“Why isn’t movie X playing in city Y?”)
• The evolution of projection technology
• Our educational partnerships
• Behind-the-scenes happenings at our theatres
• Social media marketing and our Facebook promotions
• Films made in Michigan

Missing anything important? Leave a comment or send us an email to let us know.

Who will write it?

I’m Jeremy Bronson, the E-Marketing Coordinator at Celebration! Cinema. I manage our social media presences (you should also be our fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter) and work with the marketing department to make sure our guests have all the information they need and the best experience possible when they go to see movies at our theatres. But I won’t be writing everything. We plan to have several authors, from projectionists to management.

Enough meta-commentary. Thanks for checking us out.