h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The authors of this article mentioned the nearly 13kg of garbage picked up after each show. Well...

I just went to the new Famous Players IMAX theatre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and while talking to the staff discovered an interesting fact. Despite sold-out shows all day every day, the staff pick up VERY little garbage - one employee claimed he picked up a grand total of 2 soft drink cups and one popcorn bag all week. Surprisingly, nearly ALL the viewers, when asked to remove their own rubbish, did so.

We really are very polite.
Thank You.

Our local IMAX in Speyer has two houses - a "Classic" and a "Dome". I have only been to the Classic once (the first time back in the days when it was the only one there) At each showing there was a maximum of 20 people in the cinema, so I doubt they could produce that much rubbish.

Are the films the same all over the world? Ours is showing one on Egypt, one on the Titanic, one on Safari in Africa, one in Outer Space etc etc.

In fact the Entry doesn't mention the content of the films at all. Typical! All they can talk about is the technical side of it. Never mind what it's actually FOR.

There should be at least a sentence stating that it is devoted to showing documentary films about such things as Outer Space or under water where you have completely different dimensions to think in as opposed to the normal feature film which tells a story usually within a limited space, such as a room or on a street, in keeping with the centuries old theatrical tradition. Of course there are films made at sea or Westerns which take place with miles of desert stretching in all directions, and this is one of the advantages of cinema (the conventional kind) over the theatre. But the desert/sea/city skyline is still basically only a backdrop to the actors and not the subject of the film itself.

I just saw T-Rex (a sterilized and popularized film which states, in essence, "Look! Dinosaurs are friendly and happy so girls can like them too!"), and a special Cirque du Solier made specifically for IMAX 3D. Very cool.

IMAX is moving towards fiction and regular films and away from the documentary-style films because of the simple fact that documentaries don't draw in the crowds. Its a shame, really. But I have to admit that I would rather see something like "The Mummy Returns" designed for IMAX 3D than yet another canyon, or a forest, or more boring old outer space.

Oh. I didn't dare say that! Well, I had put something to that effect then deleted it before posting!

We've just seen one in France about some Inuit Canadians at one of these cinemas, but it was called Cinema 180. Is this the same thing? It had all the seats tilted backwards. And if it is, is it the same as the cinemas where you stand up at a bar at the front and watch films about rollercoasters? I always had to hold onto the bar or I'd fall over. I was quite upset to have to sit down in this one. And I find sitting right at the front is best, but every one I have ever been to all the other people go straight to the back.

I think cinema 180 is something different. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong...

No, Cinema 180 isn't the same thing. In fact, this sounds like fusion of two other technologies and I'm not sure which is which:

Dimension 150 was a 70mm process created in the late 60s or early 70s and was used to shoot "Patton". Cinema 360 was pioneered at an Expo somewhere, I believe it was used by Disney at one time. This is the idea: a ring of projectors and screens surround the audience in a broken circle (leaving room for the projectors) to create (as nearly as possible) the experience of actually 'being there' - wherever the camera is.

My reference book "Wide Screen Movies" lists a Cinema 160, which was devised by Frank Caldwell and called, in sequence, Super VistaVision, (in 1955) Cyclotrona, and finally Cinema 160 in 1958. There were no features made in this format.

The expense of shooting 70mm film in Vista Vision format (which uses a lot more film as conventional 70mm photography because of the massive frame-area), the bulkiness of the cameras (and therefore the tripods, dollys and everything else used to move the camera), and the need for a subject compelling enough to merit such massive images is why so few Imax/Omnimax films get made....that and the number of available screens - which, in the beginning, were much less than today.

If makers like McGilliveray/Freeman films and others wish to wow us with narrative, why not go back to the grand old formats of 70mm Todd-AO, Camera-65, Single-lens Cinerama or Ultra Panavision 70?...I mean, aside from the fact that these formats are too big for 90% of cinemas?

Fruitbat