70mm films?

[Osi Osgood]

When was the last film actually shot on 70mm? I am not talking about films shot on 35mm and blown up to 70mm, but actually shot,from beginning to end on 70mm? I know that many 35mm films will have special effects elements that will be shot on 70mm, so that, when combined with the 35mm elements, you will have as little extra grain as possible, but actual, from beginning to end 70mm films?

[Ed Gordon]

That would probably be Death on the Nile (2022)

[Phil Moors]

Osi, can’t you just look this up on the internet? Try ‘in 70mm’ a good starting point for large format films.

[Osi Osgood]

They aren't always updated and can be years off at times. I knew that Death on the Nile was being given 70mm presentations, but that didn't necessarily mean it was originally filmed on 70mm.

[Brian Fretwell]

Also I suspect the aspect ratio quoted above is incorrect for 70mm as that us usually 2.2:1 (the 2.39:1 could be for 35mm reduction or digital copies) , unless they have cropped it in prints.

[Phil Moors]

Osi, in 70mm is up to date. Death on the Nile was filmed in 65mm an is presented in 70mm the additional 5mm is for soundtracks on all 70mm prints. It’s bang up to date, have a read through it it’s very informative.

[Lee McCaffrey]

Indeed Phil, in the mag stripe years the extra 5mm on the positive stock was to allow for the soundtracks. Nowadays any film lucky enough to get a 70mm release will utilize a digital soundtrack (originally DTS but now Datasat), with only the SMPTE timecode data being on the print. No back-up!

Christopher Nolan regularly uses large format cameras, either 70mm 5-perf or full 15 perf IMAX, alongside 'regular' 35mm anamorphic.

In the analogue years Boss Films used to shoot their VFX elements in 65mm and composite down to 35mm to maintain a sharp image, in some cases the resulting composite had to be degraded to match the principal photography either side. The ZAP 65mm printer used was an insane piece of optics/engineering, sadly obsolete now

[Larry Arpin]

Baz Luhrman's ELVIS was shot in 65mm:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3704428...ef_=tt_spec_sm

Hopefully, the film will be be as exciting as the trailer.

[Martin Davey]

A few decades ago I remember seeing a lecture at the MOMI cinema, London on film formats. An extract from Oklahoma ( 'Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’') was shown. Although the colour was faded what made it interesting was that that it was in the original Todd-AO 30fps format, the first time I had seen this. The extra 6 fps added a non-offensive smoothness to the action of the actor on horseback in the corn field. The sound too was very lush and full. When other examples of conventional 70mm were shown (west side story) it felt like a step backwards.

[Brian Fretwell]

I remember at a similar lecture on sound by Dolby Labs (who at the time were in Clapham) with the NFT team saying that they hoped the projector would run OK at 30fps as it hadn't been used at that speed for some time. The Dolby people also showed surprise at how good the sound was off an old magnetic print.

I wonder if like at Derann the machines used in the past to stripe 70mm prints are either wearing out or have been scrapped.

[Lee McCaffrey]

There was also the Showscan format devised by Douglas Trumbull which ran at 60fps!
The mag striping process for 70mm prints was extremely costly and added to the already high cost of the prints. The official reason mag striping was stopped was environmental, citing the solvents used, but honestly it was down to the rise of digital audio formats like Dolby SR-D and DTS, as multichannel audio was now possible with a 35mm print, and 70mm prints were much cheaper to produce without the mag stripe. Having been fortunate to have seen (and heard) a couple of 70mm 6-track prints the sound really was something else.

[Osi Osgood]

According to present film authorities, today's 70mm prints are a little lacking, not quite up to the standards of the past. For a good representative of 70mm, the re-issue of Lawrence of Arabia in 1989 was a good example.

[Brian Fretwell]

I remember that another system was first used on 70mm prints CDS (Cinema Digital Sound). I initially on the film Dick Tracy. It seems as there was no analogue back-up (in case the digital track got damaged) as with other systems this format didn't last long.

[Lee McCaffrey]

Yes, CDS was a very ambitious system, essentially 6-track uncompressed PCM squeezed into the area reserved for the analogue tracks on 35mm and 70mm prints. Kodak created new film stocks to allow the data to be accurately recorded/printed (and unwittingly did the heavy groundwork for Dolby and Sony for their digital formats). When the system failed commercially most of the team ended up working on Sony's SDDS format.
At this point in time the vast majority of 70mm prints were blowups, produced solely for the purpose of discrete 6-track presentations. Digital formats on 35mm negated the need for 70mm prints, save for features originated on 65mm negative or IMAX.